Thomas C. Mann (1) (1890–)

Americans from colonial times to the present have generally waited until the inhumation or interment of their bodies before their legacy is worded in stone. The authors have collected this trove of crackling last words from a variety of cemeteries and published collections.

Thomas Mann is a writer and freelance speaker on local history. Janet Greene is a journalist. The two authors gathered materials from serious research, including the scholarly and wide-ranging "Stories on Stone, a book of American Epitaphs" by Rev. Charles W. Wallis (NY 1954).

Two hundred and fifteen tombstone texts are presented through four major historical eras: I - Through 1775 Pioneer and Colonial LIfe, II - 1776-1815 War, Reason and Revivalism, III - 1816- 1870 Age of Ferment, IV - 1871 to Present, Big New World. In addition, the authors' Introductions note the changing "fashion" in the inscriptions over the ages, from hell-fire ("lived in fear of the Lord") to reserve and the quality of "nice-mindedness". Each inscription is provided with a very brief introduction of the decedent.

Cemeteries should be studied, for the life hallowed by all. This book reveals attitudes toward death, social niceties, and religious piety, on grave epitaphs, somewhat preserved, across the entropic traverse of decades, in stone. There is folklore, genealogy, shattering grief, history, humor, and the heritage we receive from the hopes of the fallen in the hallowed grounds of New England.

My final word is that this book is "evidence". While every quotation is hearsay, a kind of credibility wafts out of its pages that echo the stones. And in spite of the centuries of faith and prayers, there is scant indication, almost none, of any afterlife, any "real" belief in an afterlife, or any diety worthy of worship.

Includes witches burned at Salem, and slaves, Indians, penitents and sinners, soldiers and infants. The invocations -- "he slept in Jesus", "walked with God...left us weeping" -- clearly contradict any confidence in the joys of any heaven. We all face death, and the treasured but too-many Partings.… (mehr)