Fallen out with him!

[KarenMG]

Not really a Q&A, so apoligise that this is not the most appropriate board, but.
Has anyone had anything similar?

I have just returned from a visit to one of the local cemeteries looking for a gg uncle. After wandering around for some time with no luck, I put in a call to the cemeteries office, while I was on the phone to the lady, she mentioned that 3 others of the same surname (all related - not common surname) were buried there too. She directed me to the plot of the person in question, and after finding his I discovered that he was not buried with his wife, but another lady of another name - his dearly beloved wife!! After looking a little closer I found his brother and sister in law - buried seperately, but still couldnt find the grave of the lady who should be our original mans first wife if her name was anything to go by. After a bit longer searching, I gave in and rang the office back, the lady very kindly directed me to an unmarked lonely grave.

I dont know why but I got a little annoyed with Percival (our original man) that his first wife, of about 50 years is lonely and lost in the cemetery, yet his new wife, of 6 years is beloved!

I know its not down to him what his headstone reads (2nd wife died after he did), and that he may not have been able to afford to a headstone for his first wife when she died, but still....

Silly thing to be annoyed with him over i know. lol

[Christine in Herts]

The second wife will have arranged the wording of the headstone - she may not have cared to be in the shadow of the first wife!

Some longstanding friends of mine were at their father's funeral - and people local to where the father had been living were astonished to find that he had any children - never mind mature adult ones... and it's not as if they'd never visited him. They were also very hurt/offended that there was practically no mention of his first wife - their mother. He is, however, buried with wife No 1, who had died some years before of cancer.

Christine

[Little Nell]

On the other hand I have a great-grandfather who married twice. He was buried with his first wife and they have an elaborate gravestone.

2nd wife had a cheapy cremation.

[Phoenix]

Unless you have it carved before you die (!) the one thing you have no control over is your epitaph.

I find the double stones with memorials to the spouse who died first, but nothing to commemorate the second, deeply upsetting.

Sanderstead, Surrey church has a memorial to a woman so well loved that her second husband had her buried with her first husband because she had been so happy in her first marriage.

[KarenMG]

I know that there a 100 reasons or more for the burial situation being the way it is, just feel for his first wife - very strange how we re-act to things in our history.

[Blackberry]

The second wife will have arranged the wording of the headstone - she may not have cared to be in the shadow of the first wife!

Very possibly, and she almost certainly arranged the burial in a new grave with room for herself. I think you're being a bit hard on him, Karen! we should give him the benefit of the doubt.

Unless you have it carved before you die (!) the one thing you have no control over is your epitaph.

I've often seen, in cemeteries in France, family tombs with the name and birth date of a (presumably) still living person already inscribed, with a space left for the date of death to be added.

[clematised]

Dont be angry, as previously said, he had no controll after his own death what had been written.
His first wife was probably loved, but finances may have been the problem.
Second wife may have had money when his turn came around.

Edna

[susan h]

Karen,

Maybe your annoyance should be directed toward the second wife, afterall it was probably her who chose the words for the headstone. It would seem that what happened after his demise was out of his control, and you may argue that what happened before, ie his first wife's death was within his control, but...........finances dictated many unfair things.

I would take comfort from - what appears to me to be a second wife wishing to prove her husband's love, doesn't that tell you she may have felt insecure, perhaps believed her husband had more love for his first wife?

[Elaine]

Well my dads funeral was in April and his second wife completely obliterated his past with my mum and all of his children, sounded so much like Christine's posting above had to mention it.

[Mary from Italy]

Goodness, Elaine, how upsetting.

I have a similar situation with ancestors in Australia - a lady was married twice, and not only is she buried with her first husband, the name that appears on her tombstone is her first married name!

This was presumably organised by the children of the first marriage - I can only assume that they didn't get on with the second husband.

[KarenMG]

I know its not a rational feeling, and I dont know why I reacted so strangly to it, I know its not his fault.
I dont hold it against him.
Just bizarre how people we never met who are a long time dead can provoke such strange reactions in us.

[Wor canny Lass]

I'm like Elaine.

My father remarried after 42 years marriage to my Mum. His 2nd wife had been setting her cap at him even when my mother was alive. At his funeral, his second wife made sure that her family took precedence over us, and then we discovered that he had changed his will to leave everything to her, and even if she had predeceased him, her family would have inherited. Instead of living in a rented flat, she now owns a bungalow worth quite a bit!

However, he had made plain that he was to be buried with my Mum. And that was carried out.

Anne

[Tom Tom]

I have a relative who was married three times. He and each of his three wives are all buried in a line (each grave is next to the other one).

[Elaine]

Wor Canny Lass, so matches what has happened in my family.

Nice to speak to you again Mary, hope you are OK

[Mary from Italy]

Hi Elaine,

Fine, thanks - nice to see you on here.

[Kit]

It's funny how things can upset us, isn't it?

The only case of remarriage where I have seen the grave is my OHs great grandfather. Both wives were related to each other and they are buried together with the husband and one of the wives parents.

[Olde Crone Holden]

My great great uncle is buried with his parents and brothers. There is no mention of his much-loved wife and children.

He died quite young and his widow never remarried. I have no idea where she is buried and no idea why they were not buried together.

My family were comfortably off at the time. The widow was not. My family could easily have afforded a separate grave for him at the time, one with space for his widow later. I find this quite upsetting, as does the direct descendant of this man, who, until I told him, had no idea where he was buried.

OC

[Blackberry]

He died quite young and his widow never remarried. I have no idea where she is buried and no idea why they were not buried together.

My father died young, he was cremated and his ashes buried with his father. I'm not aware that my mother ever had any objection to this, and it may well have been his wish. In due course his mother was buried in the same grave, and there would have been no room for any more burials.

Years later, my mother mentioned that she had no preference for either burial or cremation, but would like to be with her own parents. So that's where she is. Same churchyard, so it may look odd to casual visitors or any distant relatives who may visit in the future, but it was all perfectly amicable.

I don't think there's any point getting upset unless we know there was a deliberate snub.

[Hilary G]

My husband's grandfather died when his father was a boy. His mother remarried and died before her second husband. She is buried where she was living when she died which is a neighbouring village to where her first husband is buried. Her second husband remarried (not sure what happened to the second wife) he died the other side of the country and is either buried there or was cremated.
The only one who has a headstone is my husband's grandfather and he also is mentioned on a headstone in his home village alongside his parents.
He may have died young but he was not forgotten.

[Penelope]

Redacted