Reading the Stone

Back in April 2019 we stayed in a lovely house in Llanwrda, the village my great-grandma Anne Thomas came from and married our greatgrandpa in 1880.

Dad took us there once to try and find the grave “Nana visted to put flowers on” when he was a child.  He thought it was “on the left of the path under the yew tree”, but we couldn’t find it.

One evening I went to the churchyard to see what I could find.  I went in through the Edwardian lych-gate from the main road.  I searched and searched but found no Thomas, surprising for a churchyard in Carmarthenshire where it’s a very common surname;  Evans, Lewis, even a Christmas but no Thomas.  Eventually I gave up, took myself to the north side of the church and leaned against the wall overlooking a field, the stream and listened to it and the sheep.
I decided to go out through the older, plainer, gateway on the south side of the church and there a short slate stone caught my eye. 

“M^t Thomas”  

 I had to dig down through the mould to find the “Died 1882”.

Next to it was the remains of a similar stone but no amount of scrabbling could reveal anything written on it.   

 

 

In front, and cutting into the second grave, a very fancy grave stone sided grave with a stone which appeared to have no inscription at all.

Bigsister has a sampler from home stitched by a Margaret Thomas in 1872 who may have been Anne’s sister.  It may just be a happy coincidence of course. 

It’s such a lovely little ancient church and churchyard that I visited the grave again in October 2019.

As we weren’t planning on our usual Wales Friday tradition of WI market in Llandeilo, lunch in the Ferrycabin Ferryside and visit to the Manordeilo graves, I said I wanted to visit Llanwrda.  The boys went off for a walk to the railway station.  There was a closing down sale in a little craft shop where I spent quite some time and a little money.   

Then I visited the churchyard, going through the older side gate.

I’m not sure whether it was the brighter June sunlight, or the angle of the noonday sun, but I could just manage to just make out the engraving on the posh gravestone.

 In loving memory of

John Thomas

died Sept 1906

Mary

his beloved wife

died ???? 1896 (?86)

and their daughter

Margaret

died March 1882

By the way it's written it seems to me the big stone was put up when John Thomas died (otherwise surely Mary or Margaret's names would have been first).  

It seems curious to me that it is so unfinished, not 'inked in' with a lot of room at the bottom, where one would normally find some sort of “Rest in peace” type legend.

With no other Thomas in the churchyard I’m pretty sure that must be our great-great-aunt-Margaret, and thus our great-great-grandparents.

But why the strange graves, and the unfinished gravestone?

We will never know, but I wish I were a novelist as it leaves such space for the imagination.