Southern Graves

This past summer, I translated a couple of Latin phrases I've come across on tombstones in cemeteries.  Today, I have one more to add: Esse Quam Videri This translates to "To be, rather than to seem to be." Interestingly, this phrase was adopted as the state motto by North Carolina in 1892. And contemporaneously, the character of Stephen Colbert on his Comedy Central show, had as his motto a play on this phrase.  V ideri Quam Esse , or “to seem, rather than to be," was engraved on his set's fake fireplace. Ellen Turner, memorialized on the elaborate and angelic tombstone pictured above and below, was laid to rest in Magnolia Cemetery at Charleston, South Carolina.

This mausoleum, located at Magnolia Cemetery in Charleston, South Carolina, houses members of the McDowall and Wragg families. Andrew McDowall was born 25th January 1790 in Scotland, and died 4th October 1866.  His wife Pamela was born 25th November 1797, and died 17th June 1875.  Their eldest daughter Caroline is there, as well.  She was born 22nd June 1816, and died 10th November 1858.  An obituary from page 2 of the 23rd November 1858 Charleston Courier (available online at GenealogyBank ): Obituary. DEPARTED THIS LIFE , at Savannah, on Wednesday, 10th November 1858, in the forty-second year of her age, Mrs. CAROLINE WRAGG, wife of Dr. JOHN A. WRAGG, formerly of this city. it is a beneficent constitution of nature, that the ordinary approach of death is manifested, by disease, old age, or some failure of human organization.  By this process, so to speak, not only the sufferer, but surviving friends are prepared for the catastrophy [sic]; yet if the shock b...

Article from 2006 originally published on Southern Graves site. Some newer images added. " An important historical vestige of the cultural landscape of the rural South is the Upland South folk cemetery. " - D. Gregory Jeane Some Southern cemetery traditions include wife-to-the-left burials, bordered family plots, and feet-to-the-east interments. These practices can be fairly common in today's Southern cemeteries, but there are other traditions that may not be. The southern folk cemetery is characterized by hilltop location, scraped ground, mounded graves, east-west grave orientation, creative grave markers and decorations using materials readily available (not commercially produced), certain species of vegetation, the use of grave shelters, and the obvious devotion to God and/or parents and family with the graveyard workdays and monument dedications. Some of these characteristics can certainly be found in other parts of the United States, even the world. It is the comp...