More families embracing tombstones that tell a story

Font Size:

By Chris Poynter The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal | Tuesday, July 18, 2006 12:04 AM CDT | () comments

GANNETT NEWS SERVICE PHOTOS When Kate Torp and Matthew Falk died in a car crash in 2001, the families of the 19-year-old Kentucky sweethearts commissioned an artist to create this sculpture of Matthew holding Kate in his arms. Lots of families are forgoing basic tombstones and having memorials designed that reflect the personalities and the lives of the departed.

Kate Torp and Matthew Falk were 19-year-old sweethearts when they died together in a car crash in 2001 — a couple who laughed together and loved music and art.

When it came time to order tombstones for their side-by-side graves, their families knew they must be unique.

“A typical headstone didn’t seem worthy,” says Paul Torp of Louisville, Ky., Kate’s father.

The Torps commissioned artist Raymond Graf to create a sculpture of Matthew holding Kate in his arms. The image was taken from a photograph that Kate snapped.

The sculpture sits atop a pedestal that features lyrics from a Dave Matthews song.

Like the Torps, a growing number of families are forgoing basic tombstones and having memorials designed that reflect the personalities and the lives of the departed. And people are increasingly buying monuments before they die, rather than letting their families do it.

Ernie Stewart, executive vice president of the Monument Builders of North America, based in Chicago, says the personalization trend is national.

“Monuments are really more for the living than the dead, and more and more they tell a story,” Stewart says.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, tombstones often contained glimpses into people’s lives — with references to their careers or families. But that tradition gave way to simple monuments with names and birth and death dates.

“Now people are taking more control over how their life is remembered,” Stewart says. “It doesn’t make sense that people live a unique life and then in death be remembered with this plain stone that looks like all 500 others out there,” says Jason Matzek, a designer with a Louisville monuments and memorial company.

Matzek and fellow designer David Lanham have helped create tombstones that incorporate, among other things, photographs and poetry written by the deceased.

The tombstone for a police officer killed while answering a hit-and-run call contains a replica of his badge and images of his favorite animal, the dolphin.

Dan Davis, an artist with Charlestown Monument Co. in Southern Indiana, says the trend of personalized tombstones has surfaced within the last decade, in part because technology — especially lasers — allows for more elaborate etchings.

Davis says some of the most unusual gravestones are for people who die young.

“They (families) put a lot of thought into those stones,” he says. “They want it to tell something about that person.”

Rose Mahaffey wanted a monument that would reflect her daughter’s personality and would incorporate her poetry. Ronda Rose Mahaffey was 22 when she died in 2003 from injuries in a car wreck.

She loved flowers and plants, and at the time of her death was taking meticulous care of a bonsai tree that her mother had given her.

A friend took a photo of the small tree to the monument company, which commissioned an artist to sculpt a bronze relief of the plant for the tombstone.

The gravestone also contains a poem that Ronda wrote:

“Wind is Wild

“Air is Tight

“Time is Lost

“And Where Did I Go.“

Ronda’s signature, taken from one of her writings, is etched at the poem’s end.