He had made them the subject of one of his talks. “Today, minimal information is recorded on gravestones,” he would explain, “only birth and death dates, really. But in other centuries, wonderful histories could be read from headstones. Some are poignant, while some are rather remarkable, as in the case of the sea captain buried with his five wives—none of whom, I might add, lived more than seven years once married.” At that point, he was usually rewarded by a ripple of laughter. “Other markers,” he would explain, “are awesome in the majesty and history they convey.” He would then cite the chapel in Westminster Abbey, where Queen Elizabeth I was entombed only a few feet from the cousin she had ordered beheaded, Mary, Queen of Scots. “One interesting note,” he would add, “in Ketchakan, Alaska, in the nineteenth century, Tombstone Cemetery, the burial ground there, reserved a special section for the ‘Soiled Doves,’ as they called the young women who resided in bordellos.”
