Tombstone Tuesday - Martha Browning (1868)

This little tombstone belongs to Martha M. Browning. She was the first child of Edward Alfred Browning and his second wife Mary Elizabeth Gibbons. She lived her short little life in Spring Point Township in Cumberland County, Illinois. She was born sometime in early 1868 and died on 1 July 1868, exactly 99 years before I was born. Her parents Edward Alfred Browning and Mary Elizabeth Gibbons aren't even buried next to her -- both are buried in the nearby Faunce Cemetary in Cumberland County.

Martha is buried in the Needham Cemetery in Spring Point Twn., near Montrose in Cumberland Co., IL. As you can see, her tombstone is now partially absorbed by a tree that took root in the area of her stone. I took the picture from above but the tree was so hopelessly enmeshed around her stone that it was very difficult to read anything at all. I was able to see a few words, like her name, and I tried to take the picture so that they would be seen. For the most part, though, the inscription was pulled from old cemetary records.

The cemetery she's buried in is also the final resting place of her father's first wife and their child, as well as Martha's brother and sister. The Needham Cemetery is in a state of disrepair -- at least it was when I was there in 2001 -- and it was sad to see all the stones leaning or toppled or otherwise defaced. Martha's was one of the few that would have been fairly readable.....if it weren't for the tree. If I lived there this cemetery would be the first one I'd work on.

Every time I look at this I feel sad. Someday Martha's stone will be engulfed by the tree and no one will know this little girl existed.