From the WNIN Tri-State Public Media Center in downtown Evansville.

I'm David James and this is Two Main Street "Only Sleeping".

We're taking a walk through cemeteries and graveyards to find out what tombstones and grave symbols tell us about life, death and faith.

Sounds morbid, but stay with me.

This will be a spiritual and secular adventure.

"Only Sleeping" is a wake up call to the living.

More on that in a moment.

But first, some background.

There's a growing fascination with this underground topic.

Called Necro-tourism.

You may be a natural tourist if you enjoy the history, genealogy, statuary, famous graves, grand landscaping, or just a calm, peaceful setting.

Those supporting this tourism remind us that many cemeteries were often the first city parks, and if deceased, didn't want you to see or visit their graves.

These graves wouldn't be so different.

Are so elaborate.

Now, here's a good question to start off the show.

Is a graveyard different from a cemetery?

Now we tend to use the same words to define a burial ground.

But graveyards are often right next to a church in the churchyard.

In the 19th century, these church graveyards started filling up.

New burial sites were needed.

Larger plots of land, usually a way from the city center were created.

Cemeteries from the Greek word meeting dormitory are resting place.

Now, here to share his research and journeys to graveyards in cemeteries is Reverend Allen Rutherford, pastor of Saint John's Episcopal Church in Mount Vernon, Indiana.

So welcome, Allen.

Thank you.

Now, you told me your fascination with tombstones and grave symbols began when you were growing up in a small town in central Indiana, where in central.

Saint Paul, Indiana.

It's it's on the split between the county line and Decatur County and Shelby County, exit 123 Interstate 74.

So plug to my hometown.

How far from Indianapolis?

It's about a about an hour drive, maybe not quite.

No.

White Rock Park.

Is that a famous, famous site there in Decatur?

Have you been there now?

No.

Now, where did you you hang out in Saint in Saint Paul.

Everywhere.

Rivers, you know, any place, you know, you could fish and hunt.

And cemeteries were on that list, you know.

My first memories of being at cemeteries was, you know, it used to be tradition that I can remember as a little child.

My mother and my grandmother's on Memorial Weekend.

You know, they would save their juice cans and they'd wrap them in colored foil or whatever.

And then they would clip irises and peonies, pine these peonies, however you want to pronounce it, and other spring flowers and put those in there.

And then they would go around visiting different cemeteries or grave sites at churches, graveyards, and and just put flowers on relatives graves.

I remember that too, as a youngster with my grandparents.

And that was a big deal.

You had to gather all the all the cans together and you went to like two or three different cemeteries because your great, great aunt's over there and somebody else was on this cemetery, so.

Right.

When you grow up with a Baptist family, and a Roman Catholic family, you got a visit, you know.

That's right.

Now, in the Episcopal dioceses, you're given time off.

Time off from your pastoral duties to go on sabbaticals.

Have you told me you've made some trips to England and Scotland and that's when you started noticing these unusual symbols?

Well, my first experience of that was my daughter graduated from Butler University in 2009, and she got an opportunity to get a job and move to Boston.

And we went out there to visit her one summer.

And of course, she showed us around, you know, went downtown and different tourist sites.

And there was a very old church, and we went in and toured the church.

But then I was interested in the graveyard because I thought, OK, this is really old, so there's got to be some really cool looking gravestones in here.

And that's where I first encountered like skull and crossbones and and funky looking heads and those kinds of things.

And those some of those dated back to, you know, 1700s and even, you know, late, you know, 1600s and yet and then.

Of course, that tradition probably came over from the old country.

Yeah.

Did Kent come over from from England?

You know, this is very puritan local Congregationalist area and in Boston.

And so but in 20, 15 I had an opportunity I had gotten a grant to take a sabbatical and was gone for months.

And it was the theme of it was kind of tracing my family roots Scottish but also but I wanted to while I was over in Great Britain, I wanted to see Canterbury Cathedral and can't southeast England and but also I kind of wanted to do this little thing where I compared I'm passionate about little church, little parish churches.

But so to me the difference between like a cathedral is the imminence of God.

And whereas, you know, the sorry, the big cathedrals is the transcendence of God because, you know, you get that, you know, that you the upward feel of, you know, to heaven.

Is gothic, right?

But structures but all these little intimate parishes, you know, they're kind of the eminence, the, you know, God is intimately present, you know, with the people in this in these places.

So I wanted to do this little compare scene of contrast between, you know, big cathedral and what it has and, and the little parish, local churches and all of that.

And and it was interesting over there that all these little stone churches there are all stone churches.

And I'd asked somebody, I said, Do you have any wooden churches?

And I said, oh, they burnt down, you know, centuries ago.

They burned down.

And so then they just built these stone and they're almost like cookie cutter, you know, from the outside.

But hardly any of them are unlocked.

And so you go inside and inside they're just jewels on the inside.

Now, you say small.

How many people would be, you know, animals, churches?

Well, you know, with Christianity being on the decline, Probably the seating capacities anywhere from 50 to 100, depending on the size, you know, because a lot of these are real rural and out in the middle of nowhere.

And and over there they have what they call the parish system, meaning that every little community is is considered.

Over here we call like the Catholic Church and the Episcopal Church and so on.

We call the church the parish.

But if you think about New Orleans, they talk about parish down there, you know, this parish, that parish.

But it's really the parish is the community.

And then it's the church that serves that community is also, you know, so you have the parish, the community and parish, the the the church itself.

But then and they all have these graveyards that go with them, you know, very old graveyards.

And then also in the inside of these churches, you have people that are maybe the wealthier that are buried in the floor or they have memorials, you know, actually in the floor or on the walls of the church or churches.

And so now there's one unique church that you mentioned in your presentation, Saint Leonard's Church.

And you have some photos from Saint Leonard's church.

And what part of England is that located or is that in England or.

No, that's down in Can't.

It's not far from the coast.

Dungeness Bay.

It's near Dungeness Bay.

Mm hmm.

And what makes this church so interesting?

Well, I guess the probably the graveyard.

The churchyard.

Well, yeah, the graveyard.

At some point, they had wanted to expand their church building, and but they were surrounded by their graveyard.

So what they did was in the space where they wanted to build their new addition, they dug up the graves and they saved the bones.

But then they have this catacomb in the back of it in a basement.

And so they have these, you know, skeletons on the walls and stacks of, like, leg bones and and arm bones that are as tall you know, six foot tall and in a room long, you know, in very deep.

So these aren't identified.

They're just.

No, they they are all pretty much all identified.

How do they.

Do.

That?

Well, they just meticulously when they, you know, dug them up, they cataloged them and it's fascinating to that.

They've had medical teams come in, you know, and archeologists come in and you know, do research on them to kind of see they can tell what the diets of the people were, you know, back in those days.

They can tell from the bones if people had particular diseases, you know, some with, you know, spinal bifida or, you know, curvature of spine those kinds of things.

And, you know, they can tell if somebody, you know, died of kind of natural causes or, you know, if they have a big hole in their head, maybe they were murdered or killed or, you know, there's a.

Wall of skulls.

Too.

Right.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So that had to be interesting that for the first time was.

Creepy and interesting.

You know, I wasn't scared or anything, but it was it was just fascinating.

Mm hmm.

Did you see that by yourself?

Yeah, I saw it by myself.

Yeah.

And I would have missed it.

But everybody over there in England was so friendly, and and they the they don't go on vacation.

They go on holiday.

And so everybody's saying, you know, they could, you know, I was pegged as an American.

Oh, what are you doing over on holiday?

You know, I'm a priest on sabbatical, and and I'm going around to these different churches, and one day this guy says, oh, you need to go to St Leonards and and Hythe.

I can't.

And so if you're anybody if you're ever over there, go to High Earth and St Leonards.

It's, it's worth the trip.

Now, you have Scottish ancestry, is that correct?

Right.

So then the second part of it.

My wife and I were well, I was in Kent for two weeks and then we were in London for a week and then we took a train up and spent a month in a cottage in southern Scotland where my, that's kind of where my family roots were specifically around Jedburgh, Scotland.

So rather when you think of Scotland, people think of the Highlands and, and all of that.

But we were border Scots and I mean, there's a whole that's a whole nother show.

But it was very cool, though, to, to go into all these cemeteries in that area and every other tombstone.

Have my family name on it.

Rutherford.

Yeah, in fact, Jed, a lot of old abbeys in that, in that area that were built kind of as a protection for Southern Scotland from their English and of course, King Henry the eighth went in and destroyed a lot of them.

But there's the ruins themselves are beautiful.

But my family supported Jedburgh Abbey, and it's it's even in its ruins.

It's beautiful and just go around the different graves and, and graveyards and.

Does your what's your wife's name?

Lydia.

Does Lydia support this, this fascination?

Oh, sure.

She's she she's maybe not as enthusiastic as I am, but, you know, she finds it interesting.

So she tags along sometimes.

Sometimes, sometimes.

You know, I just any time that I'm around it you know, visiting a church and and there's a graveyard, I, I go in and kind of poke around, see what's, you know, I would say to that the title of my presentation is "Only Sleeping" in what what was where it kind of started was in my little town of Saint Paul, Indiana.

Two blocks behind my house was a cemetery and when I was a little kid, the the back part of it was kind of hilly and had a road around it.

But then there was this flat part near the front, near the entrance, and there wasn't very many.

It were just starting to bury people in that flat part.

And but some being two blocks away, it was it was like a playground for me.

And so I'd go there and we bunch of kids and we play Wiffle ball and fly kites.

And with the having a hill, we would snow sled in the wintertime.

And and I even built a go kart and went down.

You know, the hill there, the road that leads there.

And and I've got a lot of family buried in there.

But one of the things that fascinated me was there's one particular tombstone in that graveyard that just got the name and the dates, but then it says "only sleeping".

And as a young child, I that I thought, no, they're dead.

Why why would it have "only sleeping"?

But then, you know, as an adult and studying the Bible I've learned that that's that's kind of a biblical passage, something that Jesus had said.

And so, you know, it kind of makes sense now, you know, that we're you know, in that we Christians believe that, you know, yes, we die.

But if we die in faith that, you know, we're going to go to heaven and we're waiting a promised resurrection.

And so in a sense, you know, we're kind of only sleeping.

We're going to talk about some of these symbols, what they mean, including broken tree trunks, torches, torches upward and downward and serpents on a stick.

Sounds like something from the fall festival and serpents on a stick.

But first, let's talk about the skull and crossbones, the Latin term memento mori.

Is that correct?

Yeah, that kind of I don't.

Remember that death.

Yeah.

Or kind of reflecting on your own mortality.

Right, right, right.

And in usually it's related to skull and crossbones and, you know, it just it is what it is.

Or I remember my dad.

And I, I think Socrates said the proper practice of philosophy is about nothing else but dying and being dead.

Memento mori.

Remember that you will die.

It's a morbid thought, but there's a message there to live your best life well.

And if you think before any the thought of resurrection of the dead, there was immortality.

Everybody wanted to be immortal, not just, you know, well, there was, OK, how can I live forever?

But how can I be remembered forever?

And so you live the good life and you give to society.

And then you you're remembered and you got to remember that ancient peoples, that they could recite their genealogy, you know, back generations and generations and you know, hundreds and years.

And that was even before anything was written down, a fame, you know, the genealogies in the Bible that was all oral before it was actually written down.

And so now the skull and crossbones symbol, did you see that in the cemeteries in Boston as.

Well as that was the first place that I saw it was I didn't see the memento mori, but I saw the the skull and crossbones and I thought that was it was cool and creepy.

But then I saw it.

Then I saw a lot in England and Scotland and very old.

Those go back to almost pure puritan, you know, 1600s and 1700s.

Well, you can see that on the pirate flag of Scotland.

Crying, right?

You would expect it on a pirate flag, right?

You wouldn't expect that on somebody's gravestone.

That's right.

That's that's OK.

Through me to now before we go into some of these more unusual symbols you've seen, let's learn more about Alan Rutherford, your journey to the ministry.

And you I guess were trained as a graphic artist.

Is that.

Correct?

Right.

Yeah, I always wanted to growing up, I either wanted to be a Roman Catholic priest or or an artist and it's funny, my grandmother, she would saw me drawing pictures and she would say, you stop drawing those pictures and work on your math because you'll never make a living drawing pictures.

And but I had a 17 year career as a graphic designer and art director in Indianapolis.

And then I just felt that a tug and call to ministry and when, you know, I didn't I wanted to be a family man growing up, but so I knew that I wasn't going to be a Roman Catholic priest.

But but then when I changed to the Episcopal Church, it was like, oh, I can, I can do that.

And God was kind of calling me again.

And when I started out as a graphic designer back in the eighties, it was all on the drawing board and markers and, you know, t squares and all that kind of stuff.

And I was a specialist in airbrush photo retouching, but then the computers came along and kind of took all that over.

And while I could do you know, some awesome and cool stuff that on the computer, I just, you know, it was just something about getting my hands dirty and, and, you know, doing it by hand that just I don't know, it kind of, you know, as God closes one door and window opens.

And so I felt the call back to ministry.

And so my wife allowed me to, you know, take classes and go to seminary.

And I was ordained to the priesthood in 2005 and was called to Mount Vernon and Saint John's.

And then when they called me and they said, Would you like to come and be our next priest?

I said, Absolutely.

I said, You need to think about it.

I said, Nope.

Well, no.

Lidia, your wife, how did you two meet?

We worked in a little mom and pop grocery store in Shelbyville, Indiana.

Called it back then.

It was a supermarket.

And I just she was cute.

But there was this I was a stock boy and a carry out.

It was kind of a full service, little mom and pop.

And and so we stocked boys, didn't we didn't like the cashiers very much.

And because they, you know, took us away from our duties and and things and pestered us and but Lidia was just too cute, too.

And then so after working together for about a year or so, I finally got up the nerve to ask her out.

And we went out on a first date and which was kind of horrendous because I had a broken fan belt on the way out on a date.

And, and so I, I kind of said, OK, God, if she sticks around for this car repair, you know, I'm going to marry her.

And so that was so we were married in 1983 and, and so we're 38 years into this arrangement, this marriage.

Well tell me about the rest of your family.

I have two children Amanda lives in Indianapolis, she's 35 now and my son Dylan, he works over, lives over in Clarksville, Indiana.

He started out as a graphic designer, went to art school and but then all of a sudden he found out about management and Waffle House and now he's a manager of a Waffle House in Saylorsburg, Indiana.

So near the convenience store.

Were you or what was a convenience store you worked at?

Shelby.

Shelby.

OK, Shelby.

Yeah, I thought I may be in the same town.

No, no.

OK. Any other people in your family, in the clergy?

No, not really.

No.

Was that shocking to me?

Well, you know, I grew up in a traditional Roman Catholic family where my grandmother, you know, she prayed every day that one of her grandsons would go into the priesthood.

And so little, little, little late.

But, yeah, Grandma and I'm not a Catholic priest.

Sorry, Grandma, but.

Does she have pictures of Jackie Onassis in her house and John Kennedy?

And we.

Have we.

Yeah, not Jackie, but I remember there being a picture of John F K. You know, I noticed that in most Catholic households, you'll find that older Catholic households.

Yeah.

You know, my my grandmother, she had all those pictures in her room.

Yeah.

And the other joke about I have being Roman Catholic, you know, worshiping all the saints, you know, worshiping to the Saints, you know, or, you know, asking them to pray for you and so on.

That now that I'm in a Protestant faith, that I think back to my childhood and my parents and grandparents were at the backdoor letting all the saints in while Jesus was at the front door knocking.

OK, OK, let's talk about the history of Saint John's Episcopal Church.

I've been there.

It's a beautiful church and in a really nice kind of quiet neighborhood, there off the main drag there in Mount Vernon, a very peaceful setting.

And it's a lovely church.

You know, we're we're known in the community as the little white church with the red door on the corner of Sixth and Mulberry Street.

That's pretty good.

And most Episcopal Church is if you go into a town, you see a sign that says, welcome to the Episcopal Church, but then if you see a church that has red doors, the chances are great.

That's an Episcopal church.

And when was this church founded?

The congregation was founded on June.

A group of gentlemen came together and formed a charter to on June 4th.

1855.

And then they they worshiped in homes and other churches that would, you know, accommodate them.

And then they finally built the current church, started the foundation in 1892 and completed it in 1893.

And it's, you know, kind of a long, rough history of the church in the twenties when there was kind of a downcline and Christianity, they were kind of struggling to get priests in and so they had their doors closed for a couple of years, but then they, and there was a kind of return to the faith and then the church opened back up again and and so it's, it's just been plugging along ever since.

And you say.

It's like it's a carpenter style.

It's a carpenter, gothic.

Carpenter, gothic plain that.

Well, there's back about that time there was a lot of like neo-Gothic or Gothic churches, but those are mostly stone churches.

But Carpenter Gothic is a wooden church that has that style.

And Saint John John, the namesake of the church, and his symbol is an eagle, I understand.

Right.

Exactly.

If you all of the different Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, they all have a symbol that goes with them.

And John happens to be the eagle.

And you have an eagle in one of the stained glasses.

Yeah.

When I came in 2005, they were celebrating their 150 year anniversary and the church on the inside had amber stained amber glass windows and on the back behind the altar table up on the wall there was a three paneled window that had the amber glass in it and they raised money to get a stained glass window in there.

And a lot of people, when they look at it, they think that it's, that it's Jesus but it's actually it's Saint John's from the Book of Revelation on the Exiled on the Island of Patmos writing the Book of Revelation and off in the distance you see this little bird that's an actual eagle.

And then after they completed that, then they said, Well, can we put stained glass windows in the other windows in the church?

And so we did a little research, and it was about going to cost about 3000 to $4,000 a piece.

And so, you know, various families, you know, started paying for the windows.

And we worked with Sunburst.

I don't know if they're in business anymore.

In Newburgh, and I've been using my graphic design skills.

I worked with them to design, you know, what the windows would look like and so the north side of the church is all Old Testament, and it has like a scroll, you know, for the Old Testament.

And then all of the ones on the south side of the church are are stories of Jesus from the Gospel of John.

And so there's a little medallion up there and that has the little eagle on those.

So let's go back to the graveyards and the cemeteries.

And if you wander through a burial ground, you may find out maybe a star of David, a Latin cross, a Celtic cross, a Trinitarian cross, or an Irish symbol.

What's a Trinitarian cross?

I'm not sure.

Well, anything that is like either like Cloverleaf or now or three pointed, you know, it's the father, son, Holy Spirit.

So that's that's what that Trinitarian.

OK.

So and, and another one that you'll see a lot of this Trinitarian is Ivie because it's 3.8.

And that's kind of that's a symbol, OK?

And of course tombstones do tell a story.

I know in your presentation you show children's graves.

They're kind of unique sometimes.

Right?

There's some that have like a child.

You know, it's almost like a little, you know, tomb above the ground, but it's got like a child sleeping on the top of it or there's ones that they'll have like little lamb, OK?

And then also, like they'll be a little like a little tree stump with a name on it.

And the little tree stump is kind of life cut short.

And you also see those with like young adults or you know, people that they feel that their life has been cut short.

Or over in England, you can just tell that it's it's a very small grave and a cross and and a lot of those have flowers planted in and around them that they care for, you know, all year long.

And another they'll have like a little like cherub angel, you know, watching over the child.

And so there are garden cemeteries, aren't there?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you go into a cemetery and they they tend it with gardens.

You they'll have to move them, I guess.

That's right.

That's one way to do it.

Now, we've talked about Necro tourism that's visiting cemeteries and graveyards to explore the statuary, history, genealogy, famous gravesites.

So what are some memorable cemeteries or graveyards you visited I mean.

Not any one in particular other than, like I said, Boston.

And I've just been in too many.

Too many to have a favorite huh?

Right.

Right.

Now, I know Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis that.

I have poked around in there.

Yeah.

That is a massive place it covers a lot of land.

And there's a lot of famous people.

John Dillinger.

Yeah, well, infamous maybe.

And that's kind of been called into question lately.

And I think that the last I heard, maybe even the family was questioning that.

And as to whether he was actually buried there, I don't.

Know.

But I guess here is a cemetery.

I'd like to have that story, you know, corroborated that they like the tourists.

Oh, yes.

Coming in there.

OK, you know.

The other thing that, you know, you can always kind of tell I always gravitate to towards some of the bigger ones.

You know, that, of course, most of those are well-to-do people, but they're really elaborate and have a lot of different symbols on them.

And cemeteries in Mount Vernon tell me about those.

Well, actually, there's one that the Historical Society has been has worked on over there, like the last ten years or whatever.

There was an old grave yard upon a hill behind what's now hedges well, Hedges community center.

It used to be Hedges Elementary School, but they found that there was a graveyard or cemetery there and they did some research and kind of figured out who some of the people were buried there and and some of the tombstones had been knocked over and so on.

So they had put those back up and they've got a fence around it now.

And so they've taken care of that.

Of course, Bill Fountain, the cemetery, that's where most of the people that I've buried in my 16 years of ministry there.

And then there's just some other ones that are but also too, as I've been just driving around the county, I've found places just kind of off the road where there's tombstones.

And so yeah, we think about cemeteries and we think about, you know, graveyards connected to churches.

But you know, we have to think too, that people would often have little cemeteries or.

Family.

Plots, family plots on their homestead and so one of them that I am an avid hiker and outdoorsman and I remember being hiking through Morgan Monroe State Forest near Martinsville.

And right out in the middle of the forest was this was this group of gravestones.

And it just I'm sure that one time there was a homestead there.

And just, you know, over the century or centuries that Mother Nature is kind of reclaimed.

But it looked like, though, that, you know, somebody's graveyard societies, you know, that know where they're all at in a particular county have gone in and and while they have not remove the trees, they've at least made sure that the graves, the tombstones were well taken care of.

A strange to us now but I guess meaningful and powerful when they were carved out of stone centuries ago, people knew what they meant then.

Right.

Some of the more interesting ones that I have run across, you know, are angel heads.

The different you know, some look childlike.

And some of them that I saw all over in England were almost adult and macabre looking.

But, you know, they but they got the angel wings there and.

Well, there were definitely craftsmen involved in putting together these the markers.

Right.

Yeah.

And I mean, it was all hand you think today, you know, you could just about do anything with a, you know, laser etcher and and but back then, it was all handcrafted.

Well, that must have been how these had these were artisans and they had apprentices yes.

And probably in the family there probably generations of these stone carvers.

Oh, I bet.

So let's go down run down some of these symbols.

Now, many archaic, not commonly known soul killers.

If you see a serpent on a stick on a tombstone, what does that mean?

Rutherford Well, that goes back to a biblical story.

When Moses was leading the Israelites in the wilderness that, you know, of course, they were grumbling against God and and God would, you know, get angry at them and and send some kind of plague or punishment upon him.

And so one time when they were God was getting a little tired of them, and they're grumbling he sent these poisonous snakes among them.

And, of course, then they, you know, as Moses to pray to God, you know, to take away the snakes.

And so God directed Moses to to craft this bronze serpent wrapped around this stick or like a cross kind of thing.

And God said anybody that, you know, looks upon that if they've been bitten, they'll get cured.

And so that kind of became eventually an idol.

And Jesus even mentioned that in his gospel that, you know, where and where Moses had you look up at the stick with the bronze serpent, you know, now, you know, the of man is going to be lifted high.

And so that serpent on a stick shows up on gravestones.

As you know, if you look up, you know, if somebody's visiting their grave, you know, looks upon them, you know, maybe they'll be cured of their diseases or, you know, and it's just it's a sign of faith.

OK, OK, what is a broken tree trunk mean?

Well, that kind of goes back to that, you know, the child grapes of the stumps that it's a life short that somebody who may be in their prime of life got ill and died or died of an accident.

And so and then, of course, the the kind of tree that it is makes a difference to if it's if it's you can see that it's clearly an oak tree than than it's mean it's a person that was of strength, OK, is strength.

And if it looks like that, it's like pine or cedar, that's like an evergreen.

So it's everlasting life.

Wow.

Now, palm fronds.

That kind of goes back to that Jesus entry into Jerusalem where it says they took their cloaks and spread them on the ground and put palm fronds.

And so it just has to do with life and immortality.

And I guess showing their faith.

And showing their faith.

Yes.

What about roosters?

That's how unusual.

Roosters is, is life is reality, vitality vision.

And a rooster is vigilant.

It's a guard animal.

Well, that's.

True.

It's you know, if you've got a you know, rooster is, you know, kind of vigilant guarding the grave.

Same with, you know, one picture that I have is of a lion, that it's a tomb that has a lion.

Sleeping lion on top of it.

And that's courage and vigilance.

And so the lion is protecting definitely.

OK. Hourglass you can see hourglasses.

They're either most of them are on their side.

But then there are some that are, you know, standing up.

But we think of the the the sand and an hourglass, you know, that.

And so it's just a symbol that, you know, there your time is up.

On.

This earth.

And you have empty chairs.

That.

Yeah, it just has to do with the you know.

Versus the older there.

Person is no longer there.

And then but then there's also seats and thrones and and sometimes there's angels sitting on them grapes.

Grapes have to do with, you know, Jesus Last Supper.

And this is somebody that's a believer and so it's the that they've been washed in the blood that they're in.

This kind of the same with wheat sharks.

Or of wheat in a in a circle that is the heart of the harvest is has come and somebody's death is they've been I won't say harvest that's kind of weird but you know they've been taken up to having.

Seashells.

Seashells are very from the beginning of Christianity have been connected with baptism.

Even today when I baptize somebody we we do we don't like go to the river and you know we we father son, holy Spirit, in sprinkling and but we use a seashell and bless the water and then use that seashell to put the water on the person, you know, to baptize them in the name of the father, son and the Holy Spirit.

And but yeah, that's a that's been a very and that.

Goes back to antiquity.

It goes back to early Christianity, the, the seashell and, and baptism.

And so this was a that's usually a person that's been baptized and even on children's graves, you'll see one in particular I have a photo of is a seashell with a small child kind of sleeping in the middle of the shell.

OK, acorns.

Acorns are kind of go with that oak tree that, that that's kind of the circle of life.

OK you know from the mighty acorn can or from that little acorn comes that mighty oak.

Now you have also different types of tombs that you've took pictures of the coffin tomb.

That kind of when you think of well mummies and so on.

Well, I think what I'm thinking of is the body tomb and that that it looks like there's almost like a body there and.

Is on time.

And cylindrical looking.

And so there's a there's a coffin beneath that one to have right.

Yeah.

That's put on top of it.

But then the actually, you know, whereas we think of the vault that goes, you know, you put the vault down and then you put the casket in it and then you seal it up.

But some of those are there like marble and or some of them or even lime you know, some of the older ones, limestone.

And they're above ground and they're usually people of some prominence, you know, that can afford that.

And they've got gates around them.

Well, I know a lot of the pictures of these grave sites have fences around little small fences.

Right, right.

And those are just and, you know, just.

Decorative.

Or.

No, I think it's just to kind of protect it from.

Oh, OK. Vandalism and and it kind of set it apart.

OK. And I know some of them have little gardens in those in the fences, too.

Right.

Or they'll have like little stone barriers around them and in across on one side and inside of that little stone barrier like wall or whatever.

I mean, it's not very that plant flowers.

And I mentioned that with children, but adults.

And I was there in May and southern England, so they were still having spring flowers.

So some of the early flowers that indicate like Lily of the Valley and crocuses and things that, you know, that when we think of springtime in new life, we think of Easter and resurrection.

And so.

Now any symbols that stumped you.

Know, I've been able.

To research.

Them and define just about everything.

Well, how do you go about that research?

There are all kinds of websites and books you can get that have the different meanings of symbols.

And and my list is was really just based on the photos that I took to kind of match up.

But there is a whole lot more than what I have in my presentation now.

Tell us about your presentation.

Who do you present to?

Well, I mean, it was I have done in the past pre-COVID.

I would do a monthly presentation for my congregation and and that has something to do with faith.

And so that was the first time that I gave it.

And then I was asked, I'm a member of the Kiwanis Club in Mount Vernon.

So I gave it to them.

Then the Historical Society asked me to give the presentation to them.

And another organization.

So again, the circuit.

There, I'm kind of hitting the circuit with it, but I, you know, it's I enjoy, you know, giving it.

So if anybody out there wants to have me come I'm more than willing to to do it.

Now at these presentations, what are some of the questions that you get from the people who are watching.

Well, kind of, you know, have you have been to any other places and is there any places that are kind of on my bucket list?

Yeah.

What what's on your bucket list?

I think I would really like to.

I've never been to New Orleans, and I've seen shows, you know, based out of New Orleans, you know, of the the mausoleums and and and all the ritual that goes in.

And there's so low there, too.

So the markers are above ground.

Yeah.

So I'd like to see some of those.

And maybe I've not been to Arlington Cemetery.

Have you been to Savannah?

The the the Saint Bonaventure, I think a Bonaventure Cemetery there.

I think that's a classic one there, too.

I was there, and it's like it's supposed to be the one of the haunted, most haunted cemeteries in the country.

So I went to and check out.

After seeing all the macabre things on symbols that I saw, I'm going to be in Scotland there.

There's not much that would shock me.

So what have you learned about life, death and faith by researching these symbols?

That, you know, we all have are what we what we believe about life and immortality and and mortality and afterlife and it's you know, a lot of these aren't just faith.

Some people of the graveside I even saw over in England and Scotland they were pictures of people's occupations.

One of them that I have in my presentation was clearly a person that was a blacksmith and had horseshoes and and an anvil and and, you know, the implements, the tools.

And that's also the same for seafaring people.

You see boats and anchors and and things of that nature.

And people that were equestrian, you see horse kind of stuff.

And so so I'll talk about some of my cemetery adventures.

I mean, I guess I'm a natural tourist.

I, you know, I'll raise my hand.

I admit that the Punchbowl Cemetery in Honolulu is whether it's a classic one to Ernie is buried there.

And it is it's like a punch bowl it's it's it's like a dip in in the ground there.

And it's, it's, it's really, really unique.

And I've seen some cemeteries in in Italy for the American war dead outside, outside Florence.

And they're just some beautifully manicured cemeteries.

Right.

And they I mean, they're really take good care of them.

And I told you earlier that I went to a cemetery in Ukraine, and I have the Jewish cemetery there was very unique because it was overgrown and most of the Jewish population was wiped out by the Soviets.

And the Germans.

And but there are a few people that go to these, the Jewish cemetery, and they put stones on on the the on the grave sites that's a symbol of respect.

So I thought that was interesting, too.

So there's a lot we can learn by going to cemeteries.

Sure.

There is another one that kind of stuck out to me that I didn't have a picture of it in my presentation, but I think it was in Pantheon in Kent, England, that on it, it said that this gentleman had served he was in the British military and he had been wounded at the battle of Bunker Hill in the American Revolution.

But he had survived and went back and lived his life.

But I thought it was curious to see that notation of recognition of somebody that had fought in America and had lived to tell about it.

And so like you said, you have a bucket list of cemeteries you'd like to see.

Is this kind of like on your when you planned your vacation, do you try to plan it around a cemetery?

Well, if I can squeeze them in, yes.

You know, OK, because, you know, I like churches and churches have cemeteries and and and in my occupation, you know, obviously I'm asked to.

And so, I mean, I've not just buried in Mount Vernon, but I have here in Evansville and and out at sunset.

And so, you know, I always take time to kind of walk around and see what.

The local cemetery is as is a classic cemetery right here in Evansville to some incredible mausoleums there and statuary.

It's amazing.

And you can tell the wealth of the family, definitely by the size of the of the monuments there.

There was one church in that.

It's in my presentation it's it's a marker in the floor of a church of a small parish.

And clearly, somebody's great wealth had, you know, had this done.

And down at the bottom of it, it says something to the effect of, you know, wealth doesn't make any difference.

You know, we all you know, we can't take us, take it with us.

And we all we all die poor.

And but I thought how ironic it was that they would talk about, you can't take it with you.

We all die poor.

But yet this was a person of great means who had the wealth and the family had the wealth and the ability to have this marker put in the floor of the church.

Whereas I was another thing that really fascinated me was talking about immortality and being remembered.

All of the tombstones over there, some of the very oldest ones were done in like sandstone or limestone and and which is, you know, doesn't hold up together very well.

And so I can't tell you how many hundreds of tombstones that that I saw just leaning up against churches that you just couldn't make out.

They were so washed away you couldn't tell you know, who they were.

And then there was another church that I was I'd been in the church, and then I was walking back to my car and something seemed odd about the sidewalk that the stones had interesting shapes.

And then it dawned on me that they had taken those old tombstones and had used those to make the sidewalk.

Because they had no more markings on them.

Right.

Right.

Well, I felt I think I found that verse.

You were talking about dating back to 1662 who has his birthday?

Has his burial, too.

As we enter this world come out, we go, why boast of our wealth, what land we have.

We all at length land in the grave.

Right?

And you know, you read those things as you go by and they hit home, don't they?

Right.

And that's another thing that, that, that caught me was even in more modern tombstones, even if they don't have symbols, a lot of them will have poems or sayings about the person's life or their, their faith and their belief in life.

And so are very interesting.

Well, a lot of the modern ones are very secular, too.

They'll just have they'll have maybe the sports team that this person liked or favored their favorite car.

Or around here you see tractors.

You know.

Or I've seen people that are motorcycle enthusiasts that their whole tombstone is like a stone motorcycle.

But with modern, you know, etching technology and the tools that we have, you can do just about anything with, you know, to make a gravestone.

We're talking about memento mori and that Moriah.

Yeah, OK, more on that.

Hey, we're all going to die.

So any symbols you want on your tombstone?

Well, actually, my wife and I have already taken care of that that but that was funny that we kind of had this argument for quite some time that she wanted to be cremated, but I wanted to be buried and I wanted to be buried in my family's cemetery.

You know, behind our old house and so on.

And so I got invited to do a funeral service here in Evansville.

And I think it was out at sunset.

And they had been told ahead of time that it was they'd been cremated.

And so when I went to the cemetery, I went out to where there there columbarium are, and there was nobody there.

And I couldn't figure it out.

So as I was driving back to the main office, I saw this group of people all gathered around, you know, this gravesite.

And I went up to the office and I said, so where are they being buried?

And they said, oh, well, it's a group of people down there.

Yeah.

So I go down there and they've already got the tombstone and they've got this little square hole in the ground in this box.

It's got the cremations.

And so you know, they were being buried in the ground with a tombstone marker.

So I went home and I said, All right, lady, I've got it all figured out.

I said, We're going to be cremated, both of us.

We're going to buy one plot, one headstone, and then, you know, we'll just be buried in the ground.

And so we'll both get our wish and so but so then we go through all of this and she says, But what if I want to be buried with some of my family in Shelbyville?

And I said, Well, we could do that.

We could just have the ashes split.

We could buy another plot and and another headstone and a big twice a cost.

And she said, No, we don't we don't do that.

Because we're both kind of frugal.

But we had on ours in the middle, we have a heart.

And then it's got interlocked wedding rings and our wedding date on there, so.

Well, you got it all planned out.

So we got it.

We can't get divorced.

That's we've got to stick together.

It's set in stone.

Set in stone.

You go.

The other funny story about that was we had we had went and made all these arrangements in July of 2014 and we and but the, the I got a photograph from the tombstone.

Ah the company, the stone company on Valentine's Day that's showing me that Yes it had been put in place and so I went around telling everybody that I had gotten Lydia this big rock for Valentine's Day and of course their mind went to thinking I'd gotten her this diamond.

I said I got a picture of it on my phone so I'm and they're like, well what's that?

I said, Yeah, that's our tombstone.

That's the rock.

I got her for Valentine's Day.

Boy, we'll survive that yeah, I guess you did.

OK. My guest has been Reverend Allen Rutherford, rector of Saint John's Episcopal Church in Mount Vernon, Indiana.

And a reminder, memento mori live your best life now before it's too late, right?

Good advice.

All right.

I'm David James, and this is Two Main Street presented by Jeffrey Berger of Berger Will Services at Bayard Private Wealth Management.