Some fascinating things on old tombstones! Harry Edsel Smith of Albany, New York: Born 1903--Died 1942. Looked up the elevator shaft to see if the car was on the way down. It was. =================== In a Thurmont, Maryland, cemetery: Here lies an Atheist, all dressed up and no place to go. =================== On the grave of Ezekial Aikle in East Dalhousie Cemetery, Nova Scotia: Here lies Ezekial Aikle, Age 102..Only The Good Die Young.. =================== In a London, England cemetery: Here lies Ann Mann, Who lived an old maid but died an old Mann. Dec. 8, 1767 =================== In a Ribbesford, England, cemetery: Anna Wallace The children of Israel wanted bread, And the Lord sent them manna.. Clark Wallace wanted a wife, And the Devil sent him Anna. =================== In a Ruidoso, New Mexico, cemetery: Here lies Johnny Yeast...Pardon him for not rising.. =================== In a Uniontown, Pennsylvania, cemetery: Here lies the body of Jonathan Blake. Stepped on the gas instead of the brake. =================== In a Silver City, Nevada, cemetery: Here lays The Kid. We planted him raw. He was quick on the trigger But slow on the draw. =================== A lawyer's epitaph in England: Sir John Strange. Here lies an honest lawyer, and that is Strange. =================== John Penny's epitaph in the Wimborne, England, cemetery: Reader, if cash thou art in want of any, Dig 6 feet deep and thou wilt find a Penny. =================== In a cemetery in Hartscombe, England: On the 22nd of June, Jonathan Fiddle went out of tune. =================== Anna Hopewell's grave in Enosburg Falls, Vermont: Here lies the body of our Anna, Done to death by a banana. It wasn't the fruit that laid her low, But the skin of the thing that made her go. =================== On a grave from the 1880s in Nantucket, Massachusetts : Under the sod and under the trees, Lies the body of Jonathan Pease.. He is not here, there's only the pod. Pease shelled out and went to God. =================== In a cemetery in England: Remember man, as you walk by, As you are now, so once was I As I am now, so shall you be.. Remember this and follow me. To which someone replied by writing on the tombstone: To follow you I'll not consent. Until I know which way you went."WOODMAN HACK THAT TREE" Those who desire to pay their subscription in Wood will please bring the article along, at their earliest convenience. We cannot spend the time to pick up chips. Manitowoc Tribune, Manitowoc, Wis. Saturday, November 18, 1854 P. 5
CHECK THIS PLANT (Methinks they exaggerated a bit) LARGER LEAF!-We printed an item yesterday from the Waupun Times, stating that a pie-plant leaf had been left in its office that measured eleven feet in circumference. The item happened to come under the notice of Mr. M. Fellows, of this village, and he has brought us a pie-plant leaf which places the "Large Leaf" entirely in the the shade. By a fair measurement the circumference of the leaf is eighteen feet while the stalk measures three inches in diameter! The supporters of the leaf are as large as pie plant stalks generally are. If any of our contemporaries can beat this, let us have the figures. Mr. Fellows will accept our thanks for pie-plant enough to last a month! The Daily Tribune, Manitowoc, Wis. Friday, July 2, 1858 P. 3 (Note: Pie plant is rhubarb)
The Milwaukee Sentinel, April 24, 1892, pg. 11, Issue 28, col B Death of Manitowoc Editor John Nagle's Obituary Notice Inspired by a City's Lack of Enterprise Manitowoc, April 22.- The "obituary" of this city, published by John Nagle, in his Manitowoc Pilot,attracts universal attention here, and is commented upon favorably and other-wise. Its publication is a result of lack of enterprise manifested on thepart of capitalists to aid in rebuilding the burned furniture factory, the destruction of which precipitated the failure of the Shove Banking company, with all of the probably dire consequences likely to follow. Several meetings have been held with a view to securing the rebuilding of the furniture factory. In some of them there have been stormy scenes, blows and subsequent prosecution for language used having been narrowly averted. Mr. Nagle has been present at all of these meetings and it is doubtless the spirit manifested in them which has led him to publish the obituary of the city, which is headed with a death notice in regulation form as follows: Died - On Friday evening April 15, 1892, of inanity and lack of enterprise, the city of Manitowoc. After a few introductory lines, he says: "The crucifixion was on that fatal Friday when the savior of mankind gave up his life. But in the case of Manitowoc there was no resurrection. It is death without a glimmer of hope. Death with tombstones and buried hopes and shattered idols. Death until the angel Gabriel sounds his trumpet and thins inanimate put on life. Manitowoc is a cemetery and can beat any city of its size in the world in the number of its hearses. It has hearses for young and old, feeble minded and feeble spirited; there is not a person in the city no matter what age, condition or sex who cannot find a hearse beautifully appropriate to his circumstantes(sic) in life. The hearses are fully in keeping with their environments, just as if nature had planned the arrangement so as to exhibit the highest conception of the laws of harmony. It is not so much the loss of the factory as the indisposition to retrieve the loss that gives us a grave yard aspect." Speaking of the Advancement association and lack of support given it in building up the city Mr. Nagle says: "The Advancement association has been in existence now for two years. With the very best intentions all that it has been able to do in that time was to hire hacks for seven German editors, and get a cattle fair on the grounds of the Agricultural association. We have entered into competition with two saloons at French Creek and Fred Zeddies of Cooperstown, and Fred Zeddies can get up the better fair of the two. We started out to get factories and we got a horse show! Great Heavens, how much thunder in the index for so little meat in the text! It was General Sherman who said if 'he owned Hell and Texas he'd sell Texas and live in the other place.' Old Tecumseh was never in Manitowoc or he'd think more kindly of Texas." Continuing Mr. Nagle says that by the end of next week fully 100 families will have left that city and many business men will soon follow. In other parts of his paper are mentions of several business firms which have arranged to move to other points. "The refusal," he says, "to do anything toward restoring the industry which was destroyed last week, makes necessary a re-adjustment of conditions to suit a country village. That is about the only thing that can be sustained by the public spirit manifested here."
A good reason that typos are missed when proofreading: Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can. i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae.. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!
YOU KNOW YOU'RE AN ADDICTED GENEALOGIST When you brake for libraries. If you get locked in a library overnight and you never even notice. When you hyperventilate at the sight of an old cemetery. If you'd rather browse in a cemetery than a shopping mall. When you think every home should have a microfilm reader. If you'd rather read census schedules than a good book. When you know every town clerk in your state by name. If town clerks lock the doors when they see you coming. When you're more interested in what happened in 1697 than 1997. If you store your clothes under the bed and your closet is carefully stacked with notebooks and journals. If you can pinpoint Harrietsham, Hawkhurst, and Kent on a map of England, but can't locate Topeka, Kansas. When all your correspondence begins, "Dear Cousin." If you've traced every one of your ancestral lines back to Adam and Eve, have it all fully documented, and still don't want to give up!
Next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500s: Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married. Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, Don't throw the baby out with the Bath water.. Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying. It's raining cats and dogs. There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence. The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, Dirt poor. The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway. Hence the saying a thresh hold. In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme, Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old. Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, bring home the bacon. They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat. Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous. Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust. Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake. England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, saved by the bell or was considered a ..dead ringer.. Now, whoever said History was boring ! ! !