Chelone, the cat's name is Lily, sister (in spirit) to Tiger, an orange male and the coolest cat who ever walked the face of the earth. Lily is more normal cat, Tiger thinks he is a person. He knows more people in the neighborhood than I do, and frequents most of their homes. There is also a third orange long-hair named Molly. Orange cats have the best temperaments IME. Thanks for the compliments - - it's nice to hear after all that sweat I invested! All of the materials used were found on my property except for the stone dust, which I got at a discount through a friend. I have to say right now I actually love the look of the walkway, while I think the patio is just "ok". I do prefer the irregular stones, impractical as they may be. The patio stones are a bit out of line since I was just eyeballing them and then I had friends come in to help finish who weren't as picky as me! As for Poor Martha (as she has come to be known in the neighborhood), my next step if the town historian doesn't call back and take over is to go to the Bureau of Vital Statistics (I think that's what it's called) in Hartford and search for that date of death. If there is a Martha, well, Bingo. If not, and there are one or two other people with that DOD, I can check which cemetery they were buried in and see if they have stones (and whether they are replacement stones). If there is no match that way, I might be out of luck because that means the stone was not local. In that case I would just beg the historical society or a cemetery to take it. The woman from the Connecticut Gravestone Network also said she can search ancestors.com because she has a membership. So we'll see if she comes up with anything. For now Poor Martha has been moved to the patio, where I'm sure she's doing a great job of freaking out the mailman when he walks up to my house everyday. Hopefully he has figured out that she was unearthed during the walkway reno!

Couple of things I forgot to mention...... A large area of one of these cemeteries is covered in poison ivy. I didn't realize it until I'd been walking through quite a bit of it. I'll the person in charge of the cemetery to let them know. It would be an easy matter to spray it now, before it gets completely out of control. Also, I came across a gravestone for a father and his two daughters. No mention of the wife. Both daughters lived into their forties, and both died in the same year. No detailed dates were mentioned, so it's possible they died at the same time. Stones like this make me want to hear the whole story.

I found the cemetery on USGenWeb and there are Bishop's listed in it but not any of these 3 are listed. Sorry.. I wish they were. I agree with you tho I think It's Hattie, short for Harriett. Have you ever tried doing a foil brushing? It's where you lay a piece of foil over or around the stone and with a soft paint brush dab on it. The foil goes down into the lettering making it easier to read. I have seen photos of it done before that really brought out the lettering.. I tried it once and it didn't work at all for me.

I have walked several cemeteries looking for clues about my ancestors, and photographed important finds. The sadest one that I found was a husband-wife grave flanked by 5 smaller, closely spaced stones in a neat row. These 5 stones held names of their children, all who had died in infancy. The ages ranged from 2 days to 1 yr, one child immediately followed by another in time. This couple did finally have two more children who survived. Your first photo shows a tree with a stone at its base in the roots of the tree. This is a very good clue. The age of this tree is indicative of the age of this grave. The stone showing the names of a family with the same death dates were likely killed by accident - maybe a car crash, train or bus accident, or house fire. In rare csses, it could have been by murder or a muder-suicide. I have found a stone bearing the names of granddaughter and grandmother. The grandmother had been married 3 times - 1st marriages had ended by death of the husbands. However, the 2nd husband had died by jutifiable homicide and the family who buried this pair left off the surname of the husband who had been killed by homicide. On occasion, dual dates maybe found on very old stones. These dates will be in the range of January through March. This occurs due dual calendars that were in use: the Julian and Gregorian calendars. The Julian calendar began the year at Spring, or near the first day of April. because it was not an accurate calendar, it had drifted off by 10 days. The Gregorian calendar was devised to replace the Julian calendar. A system of leap days were added to keep this calendar in sync with the equinoxes and the New Year's d Day was moved to Jan. 1st. Adding a leap day every 4 years is tiny bit too much so about every 400 yrs, one leap day is omitted. Even with omission adjustment, the Gregorian calendar is not perfect, but is quite good and will not require other adjustments for several centuries. When the Gregoian calendar was introduced, it was not accepted by all, mostly those of certain protestant faiths because the Gregorian calendar was a Roman Catholic one, and it had 'messed' with the New Year Day. Easter Day did not change (much) since this day is based on a lunar calendar. Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon in spring, therefore, Easter moves around by almost a month. (Also, in the first year of the Gregorian calendar, all holidays took a move of 10 astronomical days, the error that had accrued in the older calendar.) However, much of the rest of the world adopted the much improved Gregorian calendar. The result was that in the religious settlements of the New World, both calendars were in use.