Tombstone Iconography: From tiny acorns ....

I've found myself wondering, while admiring in person this rough-hewn chunk of granite adorned with an elegant cartouche of clustered oak leaves and acorns, if it was selected to reflect the character of Nehemiah A. Hart (1843-1911), the Wayne County pioneer whose grave it marks.

It is located in Hogue Cemetery, Washington Township, Wayne County, at the end of a long lane leading off a gravel road southeast of Cambria with the South Chariton River valley to the south.

Of course it also marks the grave of Permelia (Cox) Hart (1844-1900), the other half of this pioneer equation, but she spent many of her final years confined to the Iowa Hospital for the Insane at Clarinda, where she died, so it seems more likely that whoever selected the stone would have been thinking more of Nehemiah.

Oak leaves are among the most ancient of symbols, used most often in reference to males, signifying strength, patience, endurance and power. Acorns represent resurrection, rebirth --- and continuity. 

Nehemiah (and Permelia, too) certainly was of pioneer stock. He would have been about 5 years old when he arrived in Wayne County from Clay County, Missouri, during 1848 with his parents, Myrtillo E. and Cassandra Hart. His father died in 1852, when Nehemiah was 9, and also is buried here at Hogue. The loss of a parent always is painful, but at that time it could be catastrophic to a young family.

His mother remarried and Nehemiah persevered, obtaining for himself the best education he could under pioneer circumstances, then married Permelia during 1863. They had seven children, six of whom lived to become adults. The Harts farmed not far from Hogue Cemetery, in adjoining Benton Township, throughout their lives together.

There always are many interrelationships in small cemeteries like this. My uncle (by marriage), George Washington Cox, is buried nearby --- he was Permelia's brother. Nehemiah's and Permelia's son, Martin Luther "Lute" Hart, married a Ratcliffe cousin, Emma. Her parents are buried at Hogue, too.

And sometimes it's tempting to read too much into tombstone iconography. It's always possible that whoever ordered these fascinating testaments in stone my simply have liked the way they looked.