All pictures from Mission South
were taken by B. Blayney

"FINAL WORDS"

A Cemetery Is
Lives are commemorated, deaths are recorded, families are reunited,
memories are made tangible, and love is undisguised; This is a cemetery.
Communities accord respect, families bestow reverence,
historians seek information and our heritage is thereby enriched.
Testimonies of devotion, pride and remembrance are cast in bronze
to pay warm tribute to accomplishments and life, not the death of a loved one,
The cemetery is homeland for memorials
that are a sustaining source of comfort to the living.
A cemetery is a history of people
a perpetual record of yesterday and a sanctuary of peace and quiet today.
A cemetery exists because every life is worth loving and remembering -always.
On a bronze plaque outside Mission South Funeral Home-San Antonio, TX

 
Deccades ago it was fashionable for people to prepare their own tombstone inscriptions or epitaphs. For those who weren't clever at writing a professional "monument poet" could be hired. if you have a contribution to add send it to MizBee
 

'How Bright must Heaven now be,
Since her birth into it'
Lockehill Cemetery-San Antonio Tx.

§

Sleeps but rests not
Loved but was loved not
Tried to please, but pleased not
Died as she lived, alone

This was on a marker in Lockehill Cemetery in San Antonio Tx. No date of her death, just her marriages. She chose this herself.

When you are told that I am dead, do not believe it.
Walk among the trees and I will speak to you.
In the soft, mystery song of the wind;
Touch a leaf sprinkled with sunshine and you will be touching me.
Pick up a smooth, worn stone and throw it into the sea,
That will help you to understand that I am not dead;
Whether I am in your hand or in the sea,
I am a child of the changing earth, changed and free.

This large headstone quoted above appears to cover 3 plots, Wade was 17 yrs. old when he died and Catherine (beloved of Wade) died 1 yr. later at 19 years old.

Mission South

To he who passes by, as you are, so once was I;
As I am, thou shalt be,
So prepare thyself to follow me.

We have all heard of the note some one scribbled on a piece of paper that said:

Guitar and rose on her marker with her photo May 16, 1982 Camp buses were washed away in floodwaters in Texas and the Nation watched in horror as a young girl slipped away from the helicopter rescue and drowned. Her name was Dawn Hamilton and the granite bench that graces her plot has the following poem, duplicated in her handwriting, that she wrote in 1979.

Death
When someone dies
then your depressed
For they were alive

Now they're at rest
But when one dies
you shouldn't mourn
for when God takes
another is born.
When the loved one
dies
you feel all pain
the last time is vivid
  those times will
  never be again.

The following all came from San Antonio's Mission Park South.
The year the headstone apparently went in will be noted in ( ).

(1939) What we keep in memory is ours unchanged forever

(1943) She forgot herself for those she loved, but God remembers

(1944) God gave, He took, He will restore. He doeth all things well.

(1933) He has left us a most noble pattern.

(1955) Rest is thine and sweet rememberance ours.
(1919) Those who knew him most, loved him best.
Geroge apparently liked to fish
 
From graves at The Old Rock Baptist Church outside Somerset Tx.

Father (1915) Mother (1933) They steered their course to the same quiet shore.
Not parted long- and now to part no more. Ernest & Ernestine Tutschke

He left his home in perfect health
He looked so young and brave
We little thought how soon he'd be
Laid in a soliders grave.
from the grave of: Verdo W. Caruthers, July 21, 1893~July 30, 1915

John D. Sweeten, born in Denton, Co. Nov. 14,1862. Was Bitten by a Snake July 16 in Atascosa Co. Died in Sanantonio July 24, 1880.
that is how San Antonio is written on the headstone.


At Mission Park South




Bill King  No Star is ever lost  that falls (1971)

J. Wylie King  Until the day break and the shadows flee away (1947)

Edie King  To live in hearts of others  is not to die (1967)

A very large headstone with the middle in the shape of a shamrock included this text in it.
Life is but a brief candle by therefore soon to make the best out of it ~~The Candle Ended~~ For we know tht life is a journey on which we all find joy Heaven is our Heritage, Earth but a player's stage.
 

Dr. Gibson 1813-1887 Masoleum in Park Lawn Cemetery- Jamestown PA. Cost $75,000 to construct.

Dominique sent this epitpah written my Mark Twain for his daughter, Olivia Susan Clemens, who died August August 18, 1896, age 24.
 

Warm summer sun, shine kindly here;
Warm southern wind, blow softly here;
Green sod above, lie light, lie light.-
Good-night, dear heart, good-night.


The photogaph below is Tomb of the Eagles in Scotland. An absolutely interesting site for cemetary history buffs.


Photo copyright byDiego Meozzi--dmeozzi@micronet.it
 

Want to visit the grave of Buford Pusser (Walking Tall) just click the link.
See the marker for Jack Daniel (whiskey magnate)

I don't know where I got this

 
  The Pres. L.B.Johnson Family Cemetery
The tree is an oak



This story was emailed to me after someone visited this page.~ A doctor who had devoted his life to helping the underprivileged lived over a liquor store in the poor section of a large city. In front of the liqour store was a sign reading: "Dr. Williams is upstairs".

When he died, he had no relatives and he left no money for his burial. He had never asked for payment from anyone he had ever treated. Friends and patients scraped enough money together to bury the good doctor, but they had no money for a tombstone. It appeared his grave was going to be unmarked until someone came up with a wonderful suggestion.

They took the sign from in front of the liquor store and nailed it to a post over his grave. It made a lovely epitaph--"Dr. Williams is upstairs"



These were found in 'The Almanac for Farmers and City Folk'
Beneath this stone and not above it,
Lie the remains of Anna Lovett
Be pleased good reader not to shove it
Lest she come again above it.
For twixt you and I no one does covet
To see again this Anna Lovett

"Here I lie snug
As a bug - in- a rug"
and in the adjoing plot--
"Here I lie snugger
Than that other bugger"

Ellen Shannon aged 26, Girard, Penna:
Who was fatally burned
March 21, 1870
By the explosion of a lamp
Filled with R. E. Danforth's
Non-Explosive Burning Fluid




Here lies Jane Smith wife of Thomas Smith                      Marble Cutter This monument was erected by her husband as a tribute to her memory and a specimen of his work. Monuments of this same style are two hundred and fifty dollars.

A widow wrote this eptiaph found in a Vermont cemetery-
Sacred to the memory of
my husband John Barnes
who died January 3, 1803
His comely young widow, aged 23, has
many qualifications of a good wife, and

yearns to be comforted.


 
 

On an East TX. grave:         Doctor N. Brookin     Born in Eastern New York          January 24, 1819  Died in Texas by Mexican Violence  Slain Oct. 1854  He suffered much through life  and murmured not.  Tossed no more on life's billion  All the scenes of life had fled  Found at least a quiet pillow  for the weary pilgrim's head  seraph angel guard thy bed.

 from Stowe, Vermont
"I was somebody"
 

Harry Edsel Smith of Albany, New York
Born in 1903--Died 1942
Looked up the elevator shaft to see if
the car was on the way down. It was.




Here lies an Atheist All dressed up And no place to go Thurmond, Md.

More Cemetery photos(4 pgs)

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