I could walk you to at least three tombstones similar to this one, scattered around Lucas County --- giant stone balls, marble or granite, resting in cradles atop plinths. On another, in the Chariton Cemetery, the granite sphere is larger but the plinth is very low.
These monuments defy gravity since only their weight holds the balls in place. The ball atop Ellen Noble's tombstone at Brownlee Cemetery (below) was at one point pushed (or fell) from its cradle and had to be retrieved and reinstalled.
The sphere symbolizes eternity --- circles have neither beginnings nor ends --- and resurrection to those who look for meaning in tombstone shapes and symbols.
This one, in Oxford Cemetery, marks the graves of Jacob (Oct. 22, 1837-April 24, 1896) and Phoebe Boylan (April 10, 1842-Dec. 22, 1910) McDowell. Both arrived in Lucas County during the 1850s with their parents and married here on June 9, 1857.
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of their marriage was that all 11 of their children lived to be adults and survived their father. Two, however, had passed by the time Phoebe died 14 years after Jacob succumbed to tuberculosis in 1896.
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