Actual Epitaphs

On the grave of Ezekial Aikle in East Dalhousie Cemetery, Nova Scotia

Here lies

Ezekial Aikle

Age 102

The Good

Die Young.

In a London cemetery

Here lies Ann Mann,

Who lived an old maid

But died an old Mann.

Dec. 8, 1767

In a Ribbesford, England, cemetery

The children of Israel wanted bread

And the Lord sent them manna,

Old clerk Wallace wanted a wife,

And the Devil sent him Anna.

In a Ruidoso, New Mexico, cemetery

Here lies

Johnny Yeast

Pardon me

For not rising.

Memory of an accident in a Uniontown, Pennsylvania cemetery

Here lies the body

of Jonathan Blake

Stepped on the gas

Instead of the brake.

In a Silver City, Nevada, cemetery

Here lays Butch,

We planted him raw.

He was quick on the trigger,

But slow on the draw.

A widow wrote this epitaph in a Vermont cemetery

Sacred to the memory of

my husband John Barnes

who died January 3, 1803

His comely young widow, aged 23, has

many qualifications of a good wife, and

yearns to be comforted.

A lawyer's epitaph in England

Sir John Strange

Here lies an honest lawyer,

And that is Strange.

Someone determined to be anonymous in Stowe, Vermont

I was somebody.

Who, is no business

Of yours.

Lester Moore was a Wells, Fargo Co. station agent for Naco, Arizona in the cowboy days of the 1880's. He's buried in the Boot Hill Cemetery in Tombstone, Arizona

Here lies Lester Moore

Four slugs from a .44

No Les No More.

In a Georgia cemetery

"I told you I was sick!"

John Penny's epitaph in the Wimborne, England, cemetery

Reader if cash thou art

In want of any

Dig 4 feet deep

And thou wilt find a Penny.

On Margaret Daniels grave at Hollywood Cemetery Richmond, Virginia

She always said her feet were killing her

but nobody believed her.

In a cemetery in Hartscombe, England

On the 22nd of June

Jonathan Fiddle -

Went out of tune.

Anna Hopewell's grave in Enosburg Falls, Vermont

Here lies the body of our Anna

Done to death by a banana

It wasn't the fruit that laid her low

But the skin of the thing that made her go.

Owen Moore in Battersea, London, England

Gone away

Owin' more

Than he could pay.

Someone in Winslow, Maine didn't like Mr. Wood

In Memory of Beza Wood

Departed this life

Nov. 2, 1837

Aged 45 yrs.

Here lies one Wood

Enclosed in wood

One Wood

Within another.

The outer wood

Is very good:

We cannot praise

The other.

On a grave from the 1880's in Nantucket, Massachusetts

Under the sod and under the trees

Lies the body of Jonathan Pease.

He is not here, there's only the pod:

Pease shelled out and went to God.

The grave of Ellen Shannon in Girard, Pennsylvania

Who was fatally burned

March 21, 1870

by the explosion of a lamp

filled with "R.E. Danforth's

Non-Explosive Burning Fluid"

Harry Edsel Smith of Albany, New York

Looked up the elevator shaft to see if

the car was on the way down. It was.

In a Thurmont, Maryland, cemetery

Here lies an Atheist

All dressed up

And no place to go.

Dr. Fred Roberts, Brookland, Arkansas

Office upstairs

In Newbury, England [1742]

Tom Smith is dead, and here he lies,

Nobody laughs and nobody cries;

Where his soul's gone, or how it fares,

Nobody knows, and nobody cares.

In a Leeds graveyard [1861]

Here lies my wife,

Here lies she;

Hallelujah!

Hallelujee!

John Dryden (1631-1700) on his wife

Here lies my wife: here let her lie!

Now she's at rest, and so am I.

The Tired Woman's Epitaph

Here lies a poor woman who was always tired;

She lived ina house where help was not hired.

Her last words on earth were: "Dear friends, I am going

Where washing ain't done, nor sweeping, no sewing:

But everything there is exact to my wishes;

For where they don't eat there's no washing of dishes...

Don't mourn for me now; don't mourn for me never -

I'm going to do nothing for evere and ever.

To the Memory of Abraham Beaulieu

Born 15 September 1822

Accidentally shot

4th April 1844As a mark of affection

from his brother

Hillaire Belloc (1870-1953)

Here richly, with ridiculous display,

The Politician's corpse was laid away.

While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged,

I wept: for I had longed to see him hanged.

On an inkeeper 1875

Beneath this stone, in hopes of Zion,

Doth lie the landlord of the Lion;

His son keeps on the business still,

Resigned unto the heavenly will.

In a Welland, Ontario cemetery

Here lies all that remains of Charlotte,

Born a virgin, died a harlot.

For sixteen years she kept her virginity,

A marvellous thing for this vicinity.

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