Some epitaphs are lengthy and give an unusually large amount of information for being on a tombstone. This is true of the sentences carved into the stone that marks the Female Stranger’s grave. This tomb is almost a tourist site, part of the colonial heritage of Alexandria, Virginia where we live. I suspect many people visit it. I happened to discover it on October 14, 2007, the exact anniversary of the Female Stranger’s death. Here’s what I wrote at the time, followed by the sad tale told on the stone:
This epitaph is on a grave-sized stone that lies horizontally on six legs, like a table. When I stopped there I found a slightly wilted but recently fresh bouquet of flowers on the table, and at the eastern or foot end, four large hedge apples and a white, ceramic, one-liter pitcher trimmed in forest green with flowers on the front. Here are the words engraved on the stone:
To the memory of a
FEMALE STRANGER
Whose mortal sufferings terminated
on the 14th day of October,1816.
Aged 25 years and 8 months.
This stone is placed here by her disconsolate
Husband in whose arms she sighed out her
latest breath and who under God
did his utmost even to soothe the cold,
dead ear of death.
How loved how valued once avails thee not
to whom related or by whom begot
A heap of dust alone remains of thee
Tis all thou art and all the proud shall be.
To him gave all the Prophets witness that through his name
whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.
Acts 10th Chap. 43rd verse
The first thing that moved me then was that somebody had honored the memory of the Female Stranger, almost 200 years after her death. After reading the epitaph, I wanted to be one of them.
The words raise more questions than they answer. If the stone was placed there by the husband and her age was so precisely known, then the woman who died would not have been a stranger. Why would he bury his wife but keep her name a secret? The poor woman’s identity and the story surrounding her demise is a local mystery, never solved. Most accounts report that a ship docked off the Alexandria Harbor from which a small boat was rowed ashore bearing a man and a young woman who was very ill. She wore a heavy, dark veil even in that sweltering Potomac August. The man called on a doctor and two women to help care for the sick woman, but he swore them to secrecy about anything they might discover while helping. The woman died after a few months, the man soon left and either returned every October for about ten years to tend the grave or else never came back. The doctor and the two women kept their promise, taking whatever they had seen and learned about the poor woman to their own graves. I think this unusually interesting epitaph lends itself as the seed for a story. Any ideas?
On my list of things to do someday when I have the time: make and have framed a rubbing of this stone. Maybe when I write and publish a novel based on this epitaph, I will.
