Funny Inscriptions
July 17th, 2009 by John Wolfe
I’ve recently been reading the book Comic Epitaphs – From the Very Best Old Graveyards. With regards to the legitimacy of the included inscriptions, here’s an excerpt from the introduction: “Most of the items are genuine, but many are suspect, and a few are frankly contrived. In some cases genuine inscriptions have been somewhat altered; and the place names are not reliable.” In other words, most everything’s pretty much made up. 
Here are five of my favorites:
First A Cough
Carried Me Off
Then A Coffin
They Carried Me Off In
—
Here Lies Hermina Kuntz
To Virtue Quite Unknown:
Jesus, Rejoice!
At Last She Sleeps Alone
—
Beneath This Stone
A Lump Of Clay
Lies Uncle Peter Daniels:
Too Early In The
Month of May
He Took Off His
Winter Flannels
—
Owen Moore:
Gone Away
Owin’ More
Than He Could Pay
—
Wilbur Guttman
And His Wife
Their Warfare Is
Accomplished
After reading the above, I was inspired to write a comical inscription for myself: 
A Life of Worry
And Regrets
Should Be Calmed
Yet Still He Frets
One Last Item
Has Him Vexed
Quite the Conundrum
John’s Perplexed
Sealed In This Ground
What Shall He Do
When It’s Time
To Go Number Two
July 17th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
Those are fun. I’ve read some weird things at the hundred or so cemeteries I’ve visited in my life. I like to take pictures of names that are appropriate like “Angel” or “Coffin” or “Underwood”.
July 18th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
So there really are epitaphs that are that off-the-wall, huh? I’ve never come across any in all our times at different cemeteries. Once the book admitted their collection was “tweaked”, I assumed no one would actually have epitaphs like these. Of course, I have immense respect for cemeteries and those that have passed, but I like to poke fun at myself.
Thanks for your response, autumnforest.