This is the gravestone for Truman Bovee, my great-grandfather George Bovee's youngest brother who died in a tragic accident.
Now let's be honest, this thing is hideous! But it's undeniably eye-catching. I went to the cemetery in Fairchild, WI in December and as you can see it was blanketed in at least a foot of snow. Any row markers were covered and I had started to despair that I would find anything.And then I spotted this monstrosity. I couldn't help but look at it and to my delight I saw the name Bovee. Below the name is a short poem that touchingly expresses the awful pain his family must have felt at his loss. To the left I found the graves of his parents, both buried in the snow. I dug them out with the ice scraper from my rental car. And to the right was a tiny little grave marker for Hiram Cornell Bovee, George Bovee's little son who died just days after birth.
My great-great grandparents, a lost son and a lost grandson. I don't think cemeteries are by nature grim and mournful places. I like to think of myself as being not among the dead but among the living, for their lives feel very real to me and I know they're not truly gone. But in this place it was hard not to feel sorry and a little sad.
