Gravestone Symbols
and their meanings
by Steve Slaughter

So often as we browse a cemetery & look at grave stones, we see symbols (either on the stones themselves or in plaques placed in the ground close to the headstone). Many wonder what these are and what they stand for. Sometimes finding the answer to these & many more questions can be difficult. Try looking "FLC" up in the best dictionary you have. Most do not show such a combination of letters. This short article should clear up a few questions - I can't cover EVERY set of symbols but hope to get the future researcher a little further on the road to understanding.

According to www.gravestonestudies.org:

Some initials found on gravestones:

FLT stands for Friendship, Love, Truth, three degrees associated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. The Odd Fellows, first organized in the US in 1819, is a popular fraternal/benefit organization. The emblem of the Odd Fellows is usually shown as three links of a chain. A number on the stone is the local lodge number.

FCL stands for Fraternity, Charity, and Loyalty. These same letters were also used by the Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War and a similar hereditary group called the Ladies of the Grand Army of the Republic.

GHS indicates a type of grave stone.

Fraternal Symbolism
See "Fraternal Organizations" by Alvin J. Schmidt from The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Institutions, published by Greenwood Press, 1980, or see The International Encyclopedia of Secret Societies & Fraternal Orders by Alan Axelrod, published by Facts on File, 1997 or see Markers XI, "Ritual Regalia, and Remembrance: Fraternal Symbolism" by Laurel K. Gabel.

Woodmen of the World
Woodmen of the World derived from the Modern Woodmen of America, a fraternal group which was founded in 1883. Fraternal scholar William Whalen describes it as an insurance society with some fraternal lodge features. Woodmen advertised themselves as an organization for the "Jew and Gentile, Catholic and Protestant, the agnostic and atheist." The Woodmen of the World emblem is a sawed-off tree stump, often with a mallet or beetle, an ax, and a wedge: the motto "Dum, Tacet Clamat" (Though Silent He speaks") usually appears somewhere on the border. These Woodmen emblems are found throughout the United States, but the largest concentration is in the South and Midwest.

Shells
Clam shells, scallop shells, and other types of shells are a symbol of a person's Christian pilgrimage or journey through life and of baptism in the church. In the middle ages, Christians wore the scallop shell to indicate that they had made a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James of Compostella in Spain. Placing a shell on a gravestone when visiting the site is an ancient custom and may in fact have several different meanings depending on the cultural background of the people placing the shells. The idea of crossing over a body of water to the promised land or crossing the River of Styx to the afterlife, the final journey to the "other side" is also part of the symbolism of the shell.

Hands
Hands are found on many gravestones. It may be the hand of God pointing downward signifying mortality or sudden death. The hand of God pointing upward signifies the reward of the righteous, confirmation of life after death. Praying hands signify devotion. Handshakes may be farewells to earthly existence or may be clasped hands of a couple to be reunited in death as they were in life, their devotion to each other not destroyed by death.

The Obelisk
The obelisk is, to quote McDowell and Meyer in The Revival Styles in American Memorial Art, one of the "most pervasive of all the revival forms" of cemetery art. There is hardly a cemetery founded in the 1840s and 50s without some form of Egyptian influence in the public buildings, gates, tomb art, etc. Napoleon's 1798-99 Egyptian campaigns, the discoveries at the tombs of the Pharaohs, and our new Republic's need to borrow the best of the ancient cultures (Greek revival, classic revival, the prominence of classical studies and dress, etc.) led to a resurgence of interest in the ancient Egyptian culture. Obelisks were considered to be tasteful, with pure uplifting lines, associated with ancient greatness, patriotic, able to be used in relatively small spaces, and, perhaps most importantly, obelisks were less costly than large and elaborate sculpted monuments. There were many cultural reasons for the revival styles of the nineteenth century. Freemasonry, while part of the overall cultural influence, was not responsible for the prevalence of obelisks. If you would like to read more about some of these styles, see The Egyptian Revival: Its Sources, Monuments and Meaning, 1808-1859, by Richard Carrott.