For several years now, I’ve been visiting the Black Oak Cemetery in Grove Oak, Alabama (I have several, several ancestors from the Christian side of my family buried here — if you’re a Sand Mountain Gilbert or Fossett, we’re very likely related) and am really taken with the more primitive monuments of some of those here:
Tree motif:
The upside-down heart motif — which is very interesting, also, the use of ‘bornd’ for the birth year:
John L.A. Brown monument with the beautiful tree and hearts, and the hand pointing upward (occasionally I hear from members of this family since I’ve been posting pics of this monument and cemetery for a while, which is so nice):
This is how the stone appeared in 2005:
