A heartbreaking story I'm sure
Day 32
The tale of two Carolines
April 27th, 2010
I'm walking across America.
That's the idea, at least. I'm walking westward from New York City for nine months or so. If everything goes according to plan, I'll be in Oregon when the clock runs out. If nothing goes according to plan, maybe I'll end up in Peru or Mongolia or Pennsylvania. You can read all about the details of my trip if you're so inclined.
Email me at matt@imjustwalkin.com
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Here's my progress so far:
unique headstones…were they all like these or did these markers replace older, illegible ones?
A good chunk of them were like this, but not all. They’re definitely new, because they’re made of plastic, or at least coated in plastic.
What are these made of?
Plastic!
must be distant family
Clearly, the Howard family has excellent taste in names.
I didn’t realize there was that large of a plastic gravestone industry in the mid-19th century.
So, they named the second girl Caroline too and she also passed away? Wow. What a jinx.
Common practice in those times. Without birth control big families were normal, and to name a child after a deceased child acceptable.
It was also common practice for the mother/wife to die well before 40, usually in childbirth. The father would typically remarry, sometimes from the same family as his deceased wife, and then have even more children.
Very sad……
Oh I see now – actual headstones – Never seen any like these before.
Now I feel bad about my comment on the previous picture. Where’s that delete button?
I felt compelled to find a little more information on these two girls, and I was successful: The “two Carolines” are 2 of 10 children of Stillman Howard (April 5, 1804 [Massachusetts] – Feb. 16, 1866 [Grafton, OH]) and Charlotte Sally Smith (July 31, 1808 [Canada] – Feb. 11, 1866 [Grafton, OH]) — yes, her parents died within 5 days of each other. Stillman was a farmer.
The Caroline on the right was born in March 1845, and after being sick for 2 days, she died from ‘congestion’ in July 1850.
I have a book of the letters of a Civil War Soldier, and he ended up dying with Diarrhea, so I’m guessing that sanitation and basic drinking water wasn’t quite among the biggest commodities in those times.