Wednesday, 24 August 2011

Helen White's gravestone



This gravestone must have fallen over many years ago as vegetation has begun to cover it and the words are already difficult to read. They also present a bit of a riddle. Here is the text:


Here lyes the

body of Helen White

spouse to Andrew Law in

Whitefield who died June

2nd 1794 aged 51 (?) years Also

his daughter who died

June 6th 1796, aged 7 weeks

This can only mean that Andrew Law married again shortly after his first wife, Helen White, died and the infant that died at 7 weeks was the child of his second marriage. And it's mother must have been a lot younger than her new husband as his previous wife was 51 at the time of her death. It seems a bit insensitive to me to bury that child in the same grave as his first wife although neither of them would know anything about it. But what about the feelings of his second wife on the subject. Even I, all that time later, found it more than a little bit surprising!

There might be more text on the other side of this stone, but I draw the line at trying to discover it by lifting it in any way. I leave the graveyard undisturbed at all times and record only what I can see.

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