The cement elf wrapped in Confederate flag bandana, an angel draped in Mardi Gras beads, solar-powered bulbs and flapping-winged ladybugs, teddy bears and sealed envelopes, football helmets with Virginia Tech or Washington Red Skin logos inscribed on stones, pictures of the deceased flanked by lip-shaped gel stickers, benches with hand-made mosaics, bird feeders, wind chimes, an unopened can of Budweiser all adorn grave sites in the Valley of Virginia. The proliferation and diversity of mementos recently gifted to the deceased are astonishing. Many, perhaps most, are ephemeral: the cards, stuffed animals, candies, and alcohol are bound to disappear. But other testimonies inscribed in recent decades on gravestones are more enduring; they contrast with earlier prevailing commemorative tendencies and imply, in various ways, the continued vitality of and communication with the departed. Epitaphs note that “God needed some laughter in Heaven so he called Keith home,” or “I’m so proud of you. With love, from Dad.” Some inscriptions appear intentionally humorous: “I told you I was sick,” or “Stuff it.” Many images seem incongruous with graveyards’ general solemnity, including a “Monsters from the Vault” inscription with zombie motif. This paper focuses on expressions of irreverent fun in municipal cemeteries in Rockbridge and Augusta Counties in Virginia, contextualizing them in broader patterns of gifting at graves. The latter seems necessary to understanding the former: humorous images, epitaphs, and objects appear consistent with a larger movement to affirm the continuance of vivacity, despite corporeal death. In this sense, Monsters from the Vault, whirligigs, and solar-powered bulbs flanking gravestones – representing respectively fascinated passion, movement, and light – might be functionally parallel to crosses and bible verses in communicating, if in secular form, an assertion of ongoing vitality.
About the presenterAlison Bell
Associate Professor of Anthropology