107 year old tombstone epitaph

+5 votes
344 views

Is this what it says? {{FindAGrave|99395615}} 

This mound of earth we hold most dear 

A mother's sacred dust lies here 

An aged lotter for the right 

Has gone to realms of the night

WikiTree profile: Nancy Lee
in Genealogy Help by Porter Fann G2G6 Mach 9 (94.7k points)
Great eyes, I don;t see many epitaphs on tombstones anymore. With the everyday use of sites like Find A Grave, Ya think that it would appear more. Thanks!

3 Answers

+5 votes
Sure looks like it. Good eyes - I wouldn't have made out most of the words without your transcript! (What does "lotter" mean?!)
by E Childs G2G6 Pilot (133k points)
Maybe a lotter is one who accepts or otherwise makes  the best of their lot in life?

Some kind of poetic license to keep the rhythm going or else the chisler slipped.
It's a word. But not this meaning, I presume:

lotter noun
lot·​ter | \ ˈlätə(r), -ätə-\
plural -s
Definition of lotter
: one that separates into lots
specifically : one that appraises merchandise to be auctioned and assembles it into salable lots
+7 votes
I think the word is 'toiler.'
by Living Tardy G2G6 Pilot (766k points)
Makes perfect sense.

We don't use the word toil or toiler much anymore, but it was in common use, especially in the context of this elegy, only a few generations ago.
I think you're correct, Herbert.

If you look really carefully you can see there is a miniscule crossbar making what at first glance seems to be an l actually a t .. and a dot above the next seeming l makes it an i.

I'm also not sure the second last word is "the".  It throws the rhythm off.  It needs another syllable or two.  It seems to be more like "eternal light", because the first letter of the last word is an l, not an n.
That last line is tough.  'True delight?'  'Pure delight?'

Again, you could be right.  What I took for a space could easily be an e.

It'd make sense, as well:

This mound of earth we hold most dear 

A mother's sacred dust lies here 

An aged toiler for the right 

Has gone to realms of pure delight

It's way more a p than a t.

Now I'm curious what kind of right Nancy toiled for.  smiley

Maybe she taught Sunday School for most of her life.
Why a red flag?
Possibly someone who is not familiar with G2G thinking they were upvoting / approving of the post?  Hopefully that's the reason, anyway.  (It's been there for hours.)

Maybe it's the infamous 69.136.150.9.  Or maybe just a mistake.

Page not found

laugh

A potentially epic G2G thread, disappeared shortly after I linked to it.  frown

But, hey, I still have my flag proudly raised on high!

Screenshot it before it, too, disappears!  cheeky

+5 votes
Biblical -- King David -- our lot in life, and it's pun-ish the grave plot = lot = lot in life = etc and so forth ... someone with a very complicated mind and a sense of humor wrote that

OF COURSE, that's my guess on it

BTW, is that in limerick form?
by Susan Smith G2G6 Pilot (657k points)

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