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Grave Messages

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By PHILIP MORGAN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 28, 2007

TAMPA - Once upon a midnight dreary, cemeteries scared the devil out of people — on purpose. Tombstones bore images of skeletons, skulls with wings, death angels, the dead in their coffins and other horrors befitting Halloween.

They were meant to spook people into living lives free of sin, according to tombstone historians. (Tombstones themselves originated, some say, to block the dead from rising out of the grave.)

Things changed in the late 1800s. Tombstone art assumed a new tone — of mourning, hope and heaven. An open rose meant love; also, the brevity of life. A lamb signified innocence, the grave of a child. A gap in a ring showed the broken family circle. An orb stood for eternal life.

One of the best places to find tomb art in Tampa is Oaklawn Cemetery, at Morgan and Harrison streets downtown. It's where many of the city's notables are buried, among them Ybor City founder Vicente Martinez Ybor; notorious gangster Charlie Wall; and William Ashley, Tampa's first city clerk and namesake of Ashley Boulevard. He is buried with his slave and lover, Nancy.

Ybor's tomb bears a white cross, the classic Christian symbol, inscribed R.I.P. (rest in peace); the Ashley stone has a weeping willow, signifying mourning; Wall's is unadorned.

Everywhere in Oaklawn, symbols speak for the silent and the loved ones they left behind. Here lie some examples:

The lone female figure atop the 19th century Ghira family plot symbolizes sorrow and mourning. Her eyes are cast down and she rests against the cross and carries a wreath, which means victory in death and honor. In the wreath are an open rose and a morning glory, which means new life. Ivy growing up the base symbolizes immortality.

A rosebud on a cut stem tells of a life ended in childhood. It's on the marker of a boy who died in 1912 at 15 months old.

Clasped hands, here on the tomb of a man who died in 1837, convey married love if one sleeve is female and the other male. If the sleeves are the same, the symbol is earthly farewell and welcome to heaven.

This closed volume means the book of life has ended. If it's the open Bible, it signifies Christian faith.

A tipped basket, a symbol for life ending too soon, tops the tomb of this 9-year-old, who died in 1883. The drapery stands for mourning. The cherub — innocence — wings its way to heaven.

The draped urn, representing a mourned death, adorns many tombs of the era. This tomb for the Walls — not the same family plot containing Charlie — also depicts a closed book, a rose and a lily, for purity.

This 39-year-old man, who died in 1887, was bound for heaven. The arch represents the gateway, or victory in death.

Sources include "Beyond the Grave" (2000), by Troy Taylor; Everlife Memorials at www.everlifememorials.com ; "Rochester's History: An Illustrated Timeline" at www.vintageviews.org/vv-tl (click on "Mt. Hope Cemetery").

Reporter Philip Morgan can be reached at (813) 259-7609 or pmorgan@tampatrib.com.

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