Sometimes, when I visit a gravesite, it's obvious a tombstone or grave marker was added years after a deceased individual's death. Maybe this was not an uncommon practice. Anna E. Hollinshead died 5 February 1913 and was laid to rest in Oaklawn Cemetery at Fort Valley, Houston (later Peach) County, Georgia. On 20 November 1911, she signed her last will and testament. In it, she instructed her executor to erect monuments over the graves of her two siblings and mother "should I not, during my lifetime." Should I not, during my lifetime, erect over the graves of W. E. Brown and his wife, Mrs. Emma Brown, a monument, then I hereby instruct my executor to have erected over their graves a suitable monument at a cost not to exceed One Hundred & Fifty Dollars, which sum I authorize him to employ for that purpose. Emma Hollinshead Brown died 12 October 1906, and Walter Edward Brown died 1 March 1899. This was, respectively, five and twelve years before the signed last will...
Telling the Tales of Tombstones