Cobb Memorial


Inspiration from Stones: Fact-based Fiction

by Rachel Kingsley 


 


It has been about three months now that I’ve been going to the cemetery for inspiration.My publishers have been pressuring me about deadlines, and I’ve got to produce a first draft of the novel before the end of April.Once I get started I have no trouble cranking out pages, that’s what writers do, but I need the initial inspiration to begin, and it has been eluding me.I’ve often wondered where inspiration comes from.Is it something that happens to you, or does it come from within.Whatever the elusive devil of inspiration is, I was hoping to find it in Mount Hope Cemetery.I thought that if I went to the cemetery, walked around its rolling hills, its trees, grass, and tombstones, I would get some ideas for my book.You can’t write a book out of nothing.You need characters and stories, and it seemed that the cemetery had a lot of stories to tell.I wanted to believe that those stones could speak to me, that they could whisper a story to my ear on the breeze.
 

It was a beautiful place, really.Funny that one of Rochester, New York’s greatest treasures was a field full of dead people, but it was a treasure.Mount Hope Cemetery was a place in which to walk and think.It was like a country haven amidst a dreary city landscape, or something like that.I wondered if its builders had any foresight into the impact the cemetery would have in the future.It has influenced the city, the people, the university so close to its gates, and certainly my life.Did you know that they were building one of the first great American Victorian cemeteries?Did they know that it would stand the test of time to inspire generations of visitors?Ah, it was precisely for inspiration that I had been going there.The cemetery was designed to handle an overflow of dean from the cholera epidemic in 1832, but it was filled with so much more than that.It was filled with lives, and families, and famous people, and art, and stories.By God, did I need a story!My publisher wasn’t accepting my excuses anymore.Deadlines are deadlines, and they eventually have to be met no matter how far you have stretched their limits.
 

After months of aimless walking around Mt. Hope Cemetery searching for my lost inspiration, my mind was cluttered with beautiful images:sculpture, angels, crosses, grandiose mausoleums, eternal flames burning in novenas, photographic images of the deceased petrified on gravestones, war veterans, untended graves with cracked or fallen stones, Biblical inscriptions, and foreign tongues.The pace was a wealth of information and stimuli.Still, I was dry with empty pages.No story, no lead.I felt like I had limitless possibilities, but I had found no beginning.
 

Still I had found my favorite gravestone, or stones, really, because it was a family plot.I think I liked it best because it was simple, which meant that it left a lot to the imagination, and it sparked my curiosity.The Cobb plot.Perhaps I like it because it triggered the memory of my fifth grade teacher, Mary Cobb.She took me to the beach and an art museum one summer because she thought I was a promising student.Whatever the reason, I wanted to know more about the Cobb family.I wanted to know how they lived and worked, how they died, why they chose the plot and its stones.It was a beautiful place to spend eternity, and a stunning tribute to their life on earth.The Cobb family plot was a large Celtic cross surrounded by the shade of two evergreen trees overlooking the road, and muted by a large elm tree looming above, one of the few survivors of last summer’s wind storms.It seemed to fit perfectly there, in Lot 23 of Section BB on the corner of Grove and Adlington Avenues.Each family headstone was a simple marker with only their names and dates of existence carved into ribbed granite, as if that was all they needed to pay tribute to their existence and stand the test of eternity.
 


 
 

I had to find more about this family.There had to be a story here, and if not, at least it could inspire me to write my own.I went to the Mount Hope Cemetery Office to see what they could tell me.The woman behind the desk acknowledged my presence with not so much as a sideways glance though she heard me walk up the porch steps and in through the screen door.
 

“I’ll be with you in just a minute.”Her tone was rough, and the minute was long, but I was convinced that today I could bring out anybody’s softer side.The sun was shining and summer was creeping in.No need to be grouchy today.When the woman finally looked up, I told her that I was a novelist looking for information on a grave plot for my latest book.“Oh,” she said.“What kind of novels do you write?I just adore Danielle Steele!”How was I to tell her I abhorred the money-grubbing harlequin style?I decided to avoid the question.




“Oh, I write about whatever happens to inspire me, and right now it’s the Cobb plot on the corner of Grove and Adlington.What information about the graves can this office provide?”
 

“Well, you really need an appointment, but if you give me the name and date of death I can look it up in the books for you,” she replied, sounding a little gruff and disappointed that I would not be giving her an autographed copy of my latest tearjerking romance.
 

“That would be wonderful,” I thanked her.I gave her the name of the most recent headstone:Tyler Perry Cobb, 1917-1991.She frowned and said she probably couldn’t give out that information because it was too recent.I thought it interesting, that there were stages of death and proper etiquette bestowed upon the more recently deceased.Tyler’s wife was still alive:Ann Wolcott Cobb 1919- engraved on the stone beside her husband.Maybe I could find this woman and call her up.No, that would be too awkward.It is the mystery that intrigued me about this plot, and, personally, I would never welcome a phone call from a stranger inquiring about my dead husband.So I have the office woman the other names to see what I could find, what secrets would be revealed.
 

Erastus I. Guller, MD lived from 1894-1971, died of natural causes in Watertown, NY at 77 years old, and was buried on January 23, 1971.I thought of this man and his medical profession at the turn of the century and how many changes he must have seen in his lifetime.The biggest change of all, though, must have been the death of his wife, Catherine O. Cobb, buried next to him.She lived from 1883-1948, dying at 65 years, 1 month, and 22 days of age.I found out that she died right here in Rochester on 253 Alexander St. of arterial sclerosis and natural causes.She was buried on the 23rd of October, 1948, a full 23 years and 3 months ahead of her husband.I imagined what it must have bee like for her husband, with all of his medical training, not to have been able to save her, and then to live so long alone after her death.Maybe this is why he moved out of Rochester to a more peaceful life in Watertown, to meet a more peaceful death there.I was definitely getting ideas for my novel now, but the best was yet to come.Clarence S. Cobb, son of Angeline M. and Amos H. Cobb, February 21, 1882, to June 10, 1918.He died at 36 years old in Fairport, NY as the result of a bullet wound to the head.I could only imagine the scandal involved here.A murder in the quiet suburb of Fairport!Or perhaps a hunting accident, or a family dispute.The possibilities were endless, and my creativity was feeling sparked again.I thanked the woman at the office and walked back to the Cobb plot to think.
 

I set my thinking towards the large Celtic cross.The cross is a symbol of victory for Christians, and the Celtic cross is a strikingly recognizable symbol of European Christianity.It was approximately 8 feet high and carved of sturdy dark gray stone.It was characteristically ribbed like the smaller headstones, but also incorporated more intricate patterns on the front and back.Relief globes rose from the center and points of the cross.The center globe was surrounded by a ring of waves, setting me to imagine that the whole thing floated over on the Atlantic all the way from Ireland.I also imagined the implications of the circle representing eternity and perfection.The rest of the cross contained intricate weaving and infinite loopings.At the bottom was a row of triangles (perhaps representing the Holy Trinity) and the strong impression of the family’s last name Cobb.At the base was the simple yet complex inscription, “I am the resurrection and the life.”It was obviously Biblical and Christian, but it perplexed me.Was “I” the cross, the deceased, Jesus?I didn’t completely understand it, yet its meaning must have been important to the family because it was the only inscription.
 

Another point of perplexity was the strange symbol on the individual headstones.It appeared to be a cross, yet not cross at all.It was more like the capital letters “P” and “X” superimposed on top of each other.I assumed it must have been Christian, but I needed to search it out.After a little detective work on the internet, I found that the University of Rochester Religion and Classics homepage contained a variety of religious symbols including the strange cross.It was actually a Chi-Rho, one of the earliest Christian cross symbols.Formed from the Greek letters Chi and Rho, it symbolized Christ, the crucifixion, and Christianity in its earliest form.Why would the Cobbs choose to use such an ancient Christian symbol, as well as the Celtic cross, with the concise inscription?Maybe I’d never solve this mystery, but I found myself sufficiently inspired, and hurried home to begin my latest novel, to be entitled “Speaking Stones.”I had found that they really can talk, you just have to be able to imagine and hear their stories.

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