A Child's Grave in an English Churchyard

Facebook reminded me that I posted this exactly five years ago.  I'm re-posting it now and am happy to say that my dear English friend and her 95-year-old husband are still thriving in Gloucestershire.

We’re back in Northern Greece after a four-day weekend spent in the English countryside—specifically in Gloucestershire where a dear friend was celebrating her husband’s 90th birthday with a lavish outdoor party at Chastleton House which included tours of the stately home, waiters who were professional opera singers and a picnic lunch which included champagne and smoked salmon and cucumber sandwiches in the famous topiary gardens.

The day before—Saturday—an erudite gentleman named Sebastian Halliday gave us a tour of the bucolic villages of the area including Bibury, Swinbrook, Minster Lovell and Burford.

We explored the thatch-roofed cottages and ancient churches covered with climbing roses and honeysuckle vines and ate in a pub overlooking the wide, shallow river that wound through each village.

Along with Japanese tourists we photographed swans, ducks and horses with new foals, sheep and gardens at their peak of glory. We saw graves of knights and soldiers, church dignitaries and ordinary people who died of the black plague in 1349.

I love exploring cemeteries in every place I visit. (Favorites are in Edinburgh, New Orleans, Pere Lachaise in Paris and the Poor Cemetery in Martinique.) The green, mossy ancient stones leaning every which way in a rural Cotswold churchyard always remind me of Sir Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” which mourns the many simple peasants and villages who have lived and died without leaving any record of their lives or their talents and abilities.

I photographed the tombs of the Fettiplace knights, all resting on their elbows in the church of St. Mary’s in Swinbrook, and was fascinated by the tombs of several of the Mitford sisters—perhaps the most controversial, scandalous and talented sisters ever produced by England. (The engraving at the top of Nancy Mitford's gravestone is a mole, which is the animal of the coat of arms of the Mitfords because she hated crosses.)

But the only gravestone that moved me to tears was one near the ruins of the Lovell stately home at Minster Lovell, near the wide shallow river, filled with water lilies, where children and dogs were wading. I was drawn to the grave because it featured a statue of a sleeping cat. The stone read “Noah Wright/ 14-11-05/ 16-1-05/ May your light shine through.”

This grave was in memory of a little boy, born in November of 2005 who lived only two days—not even surviving to his first Christmas. His parents and mourners had visited his grave repeatedly, leaving flowers (fresh and artificial), a stone, and, on top of the sleeping cat statue, a yellow ceramic star. I picked it up and turned it over, thinking it looked like a Christmas ornament. On the other side someone had lettered in a child-like hand “Noah.”

I put the star back where it was and went into the church to photograph the tomb of a sleeping knight with his hands folded in prayer but I couldn’t get the thought of Noah and his parents out of my mind.

And I remembered the most famous lines from Thomas Gray’s elegy:

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desert air 
 

A Grave in an English Churchyard

We’re back in Northern Greece after a four-day weekend spent in the English countryside—specifically in Gloucestershire where a dear friend was celebrating her husband’s 90th birthday with a lavish outdoor party at Chastleton House which included tours of the stately home, waiters who were professional opera singers and a picnic lunch which included champagne and smoked salmon and cucumber sandwiches in the famous topiary gardens.

The day before—Saturday—an erudite gentleman named Sebastian Halliday gave us a tour of the bucolic villages of the area including Bibury, Swinbrook, Minster Lovell and Burford.

We explored the thatch-roofed cottages and ancient churches covered with climbing roses and honeysuckle vines and ate in a pub overlooking the wide, shallow river that wound through each village.



Along with Japanese tourists we photographed swans, ducks and horses with new foals, sheep and gardens at their peak of glory.
We saw graves of knights and soldiers, church dignitaries and ordinary people who died of the black plague in 1349.

I love exploring cemeteries in every place I visit. (Favorites are in Edinburgh, New Orleans, Pere Lachaise in Paris and the poor cemetery in Martinique.) The green, mossy ancient stones leaning every which way in a rural Cotswold churchyard always remind me of Sir Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” which mourns the many simple peasants and villages who have lived and died without leaving any record of their lives or their talents and abilities.

I photographed the tombs of the Fettiplace knights, all resting on their elbows in the church of St. Mary’s in Swinbrook, and was fascinated by the tombs of several of the Mitford sisters—perhaps the most controversial, scandalous and talented sisters ever produced by England (more about them another time). But the only gravestone that moved me to tears was one near the ruins of the Lovell stately home at Minster Lovell, near the wide shallow river, filled with water lilies, where children and dogs were wading.



I was drawn to the grave because it featured a statue of a sleeping cat. The stone read “Noah Wright/ 14-11-05/ 16-1-05/ May your light shine through.”



This grave was in memory of a little boy, born in November of 2005 who lived only two days—not even surviving to his first Christmas. His parents and mourners had visited his grave repeatedly, leaving flowers (fresh and artificial), a stone, and, on top of the sleeping cat statue, a yellow ceramic star. I picked it up and turned it over, thinking it looked like a Christmas ornament. On the other side someone had lettered in a child-like hand “Noah.”

I put the star back where it was and went into the church to photograph the tomb of a sleeping knight with his hands folded in prayer but I couldn’t get the thought of Noah and his parents out of my mind.

And I remembered the most famous lines from Thomas Gray’s elegy:

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desert air

Historic Photo of My New England Village

New England is dotted with picturesque villages, each with its own Common or Village Green surrounded by white church spires, an ornate town hall and imposing Colonial and Victorian mansions. Every Yankee will argue that his own village is the prettiest and most historic.

I want to nominate MY village of Grafton MA , which is celebrating its 275th anniversary in 2010, and to share with you what may be one of the earliest photographs taken of the Grafton Common.

But first some of Grafton’s history:

*Grafton, incorporated in 1735, was originally called “Hassanamesit”, a Native American word meaning “place of small stones.”

*Four acres were set aside as common land in 1728. The present town Common is so typical of New England that MGM filmed parts of Eugene O’Neill’s Ah Wilderness there in 1935. MGM built the bandstand on the spot where Grafton’s first meeting house stood. It has become the town’s trademark. The Common holds a big Independence Day concert annually and the Bandstand is the site for prom and wedding photos and festivals year ‘round.

*In the 1800’s Grafton became a national leader in leather tanning and currying and in boot and shoe production, specializing in work boots for slave use in the South. By 1866 there were 10 boot-making shops, two tanneries and several other leather goods establishments around the Common.

*In 1806 Jonathan Wheeler built the Wheeler block, which still houses the Grafton Country Store and other businesses.

*The Congregational Church at the west side of the common has steeple and gallery clocks made by the Willard family, the famed Grafton clock makers. Their original house and clock factory is now a museum, a few miles north of the Common.

*Shoe manufacturer Samuel Wood built the Grafton Inn, the oldest structure on the Common, in 1805 at the intersection of key stagecoach routes from Boston to Hartford and from Providence to Worcester.

Last week the Grafton News, our small weekly newspaper, stated: “As part of this yearlong celebration, the Grafton News is compiling a virtual scrapbook of the town’s history at www.grafton275.org….If you have a historic tidbits or photos that you would like to share, please email them to us.”

Just last year I acquired a wonderful cased image-- an ambrotype of the Grafton Inn, which has functioned as an inn on the Common for its entire 205 years. It’s one of the favorite images in my collection of antique photos. So I scanned it (above) and e-mailed it to the editor with the following letter.

Dear Grafton News,

I am attaching two views of what probably may be the earliest photograph of Grafton you receive.

It’s an ambrotype of the Grafton Inn. Ambrotypes were introduced in 1854 and were popular until 1861. An ambrotype is a negative image produced on a glass plate which becomes positive with the addition of black backing.

(The first kind of photograph, introduced in 1839, is a daguerreotype –an image produced on a silver-coated copper plate. Both daguerreotypes and ambrotypes must be protected by a piece of glass and then a brass mat and then they are kept in a case which opens like a book.)

This is a 1/6 plate ambrotype, which means it is about 2.5 by 3 inches in size. It has black paint behind the image and the paint is damaged. I am attaching one view of the image with the protective mat and one in which I took away the mat so you can see more of the scene. Clearly the image needs cleaning and restoration but I am not expert enough to do this.

This image of the Inn could date from anytime between 1854 and 1861. If you look carefully you can see the figure of a little boy holding the horse and carriage (while the owner of the carriage, inside, is probably taking some refreshment.) There is also a figure in white clothing in the side door, watching the boy. I think it may be a woman with a white apron.

The editor of the Grafton News, Don Clark, wrote back the same day that he intends to publish it both in the newspaper and on the website. So I thought I’d give a sneak preview to the readers of ”ARollingCrone”.

The color photo above is one I took a few years ago, showing the Inn and the Bandstand as they look today.