I spent some time at Chester Cemetery on Wednesday afternoon. The angle of the sun was perfect for pictures.
The first gravestone belongs to my wife’s grandparents George and Clara Mae Pyles. They were longtime residents of Chester.
Clara Mae’s maiden name was Ohlinger. She was raised by her grandparents in Pomeroy after the death of her mother when Clara was 4.
Clara Mae operated the Chester telephone switchboard for many years. The switchboard was in her home. You can see one just like it at the Meigs County Historical Society museum.
The second stone is very old but well preserved. It belongs to Melinda Ann Plummer Bestow, a young woman who died in 1840 at age 34 (the same age as Clara Mae Ohlinger’s mother 75 years later.)
It’s very common for historical gravestones of women to list only their first name and identify them as “Wife of…” or “Daughter of…” their husband or parents. It’s demonstration of the fact that they had little status of their own.
Melinda’s stone is unusual in that it lists both her parents and her husband.
I was also struck by the epitaph. It reads:
Hark! Breathes there not a spirit near
who sweetly bids us dry the tear?
For ruthless death grasped only clay.
The soul shall live in endless day-
Life’s turmoil mild she says, is o’er-
I dwell now on the eternal shore!
No more – no more the stormy march
Of mortal care, my bosom broach:
Then quit my grief: O! still my sigh!
And know twas bliss for me to die.