Tombstones

          Sometimes it can be interesting to walk through a cemetery and read the tombstones.  Growing up I lived a block away from the Moravian Cemetery in Lititz.  There I used to enjoy reading the tombstones which date back to before the Revolutionary War.  The cemetery also contains the tombstones of many of the former citizens and families that I knew growing up in Lititz. And my parents are now buried there.  
          One summer while I was in college I worked digging graves in a cemetery in Sunbury where my in-laws are now buried. There I recognized the graves of many of the former members of the church that I attended and often had heard many of the "old-timers" talk about. 
          But, I must admit that I never have come upon tombstones as crazy as these.

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.

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. 

Old clerk Wallace wanted a wife, 

And the Devil sent him Anna.

In a Ruidoso, New Mexico, cemetery: 

Here lies Johnny Yeast. 

Pardon me 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, you soon will be. 

Prepare yourself 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

From Boot Hill, in Tombstone, Arizona: 

Here lies Lester Moore 

One slug from a 44 

No Les 

No More