Sunday 20 October 2013

Five in a grave


To lose five children, four of them just toddlers, must have been a huge blow to James & Mary Wyatt. That Sarah, who managed at least to get to twenty years old, in 1891, should have then died just as she was entering adultdhood, must have been just as terrible.
As the inscription, on this grave in Whitmore churchyard, says: A bitter grief, a shock severe / To part with ones we love so dear.

The Victorian era was when the modern met the past. 
In the times before, death seems almost to have been a rite of life - albeit the last rite -; but the Victorians, so close to medical break-throughs, found the death of loved ones very, very hard to bear - as we still do now.

This post was featured on the Cemetery Sunday website

2 comments:

  1. Beautiful gravestone in such wonderful condition. How tragic for James and Mary Wyatt. It seems that some families came through untouched by death and others had to bear more. I often wonder what happened to the parents afterwards, what their lives must have been like, in an era where depression was not truly understood.

    Thank you for linking up with Cemetery Sunday.

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