Adventurer
It’s a gorgeous blowy spring-like afternoon here. I went for a walk in the cemetery about a mile from where I live, and in wandering about I saw a surprising inscription:
Elisabeth Utke Jorgensen
Scholar, Pioneer, Artist, Adventurer
1867-1939
I looked her up and found a brief biography by Seattle historian Paul Dorpat:
One of the first women to graduate from the University of Copenhagen, Elizabeth Utke immigrated in the early 1890s to the United States, where she found her degrees in logic and mathematics useless. Pursuing two of the few occupations open to her, she attended secretary school while earning her way as a seamstress with a knack for “fancy work.” She married Carl Jorgensen, a Norwegian sea captain, and the couple toured the West Coast before winding up in Nome, Alaska, during the gold rush in the early 20th century.
In Alaska Elizabeth designed and built shallow draft landing craft that she and her husband operated in a prosperous lighterage (barge) business, moving miners and supplies between the ships they arrived on and the shallow shoreline of Nome. After returning to Seattle and constructing their home overlooking the ravine, the couple raised a family while Elizabeth continued to practice her skills in photography, sewing and watercolors.
“Adventurer” is a cool word to have in your epitaph. I’d arrange for it to be put in mine, but I don’t think my misspent youth in roleplaying games qualifies.
Isn’t it?
I think that mine will likely include ‘misadventurer’. Not pertaining to the legal definition, I hasten to add.
I’ve always enjoyed wandering through old cemeteries. Victorian-era graveyards can give a fascinating insight into the society in general, the headstones and monuments being a pretty accurate indicator of the wealth of the families, with everything from simple grave markers for the working class – at least those who could afford to avoid a pauper’s funeral, through the middle-classes with proper headstones and, for the upper-middle religious statuary, right up to the upper-classes’ private mausoleums and family crypts with the most intricately carved stonework and the largest of the statues. Back then being the richest family in the graveyard was something to be writ large.
For anybody with an interest in social- or local history cemeteries are a terrific source of information. It can, however, give one a greater sense of one’s own mortality, as I found out many years ago when I came across a headstone with my exact name on it, middle names included. Fortunately, unlike the urban myth my namesake neither shared my date of birth, nor was the death date blank; this fellow ‘fell asleep’ (an unfortunate phrase, I feel) two centuries ago. Coincidentally, his wife’s name was Charlotte, the same as the German Shepherd I had at the time.
Why not? You played an adventurer, right?
Do you mind sharing which cemetery this is?
I live not too far from the graves of Bruce and Brandon Lee, and whenever I talk a walk up there I take a few flowers from one of their graves and put them on a small plaque immediately next to theirs. It rests in the earth like this one, and marks the grave of a man from County Mayo, Ireland, who passed away in the 19th century, and who is probably long forgotten. There are no commemorative words as on this marker, but I just like acknowledging the voyage he made.
I don’t mind a bit. It’s called Mount Pleasant and it’s at 700 W Raye Street in Seattle. It’s at the north edge of Queen Anne Hill, so it slopes downward from the entrance, and has views between the trees of the Cascades and a bit of Lake Washington.
Thank you! If we get ANOTHER SUNNY DAY SOON PLEASE – I MEAN, COME ON!, I will make my way there. i am sure I’ve been, but not since who knows when.
Ohhh, you’re a local. I love that cemetery (I didn’t know Lee was buried there). That’s another that’s sited where a hill slopes down to the north.
The graves of the Lees, pere et fils, always have scads of tourists visiting. I heard a story on KUOW not that long ago, an interview with a woman whose very young son died recently and is buried there. One of the things she spoke about was going to visit the grave to mourn and being asked by some stranger, every singly time, where the Lees’ graves are.
Right, the hill does slope down to the north, but also to the east, which provides a view of the Cascades. I used to think that cemeteries were wasted space, but I eventually realized my folly.
Seriously. Cemeteries are wonderful supplements to parks, especially places where there aren’t enough parks and many of them aren’t much good – like Seattle. For people who like walking in large green spaces, they’re a gift. (They’re not of course good for everything a park is, one doesn’t go there for picnics or games, but for quiet polite walking they’re great. Better, in some ways, because of the quiet polite part.)