These epitaphs remind me of one by Scotland's "best worst" poet.

Here lies the body of Major Sydney His horse jumped the fence, but Sydney didny

jlf

for 8/10/99 Funny epitaphs

These epitaphs were taken from actual tombstones:

On the grave of Ezekial Aikle in East Dalhousie Cemetery, Nova Scotia: "Here lies Ezekial Aikle Age 102 The Good Die Young."

In a London, England cemetery: "Here lies Ann Mann, Who lived an old maid, But died an old Mann. Dec. 8, 1767"

In a Ribbesford, England, cemetery: "The children of Israel wanted bread And the Lord sent them manna, Old clerk Wallace wanted a wife, And the Devil sent him Anna."

Playing with names in a Ruidoso, New Mexico, cemetery: "Here lies Johnny Yeast. Pardon me for not rising."

Memory of an accident in a Uniontown, Pennsylvania cemetery: "Here lies the body, Of Jonathan Blake, Stepped on the gas, Instead of the brake."

In a Silver City, Nevada, cemetery: "Here lays Butch, We planted him raw. He was quick on the trigger, But slow on the draw."

A widow wrote this epitaph in a Vermont cemetery: "Sacred to the memory of my husband John Barnes, who died January 3, 1803. His comely young widow, aged 23, has many qualifications of a good wife, and yearns to be comforted."

A lawyer's epitaph in England: "Sir John Strange Here lies an honest lawyer, And that is Strange."

Someone determined to be anonymous in Stowe, Vermont: "I was somebody. Who, is no business of yours."

Lester Moore was a Wells Fargo Co. station agent for Naco, Arizona in the cowboy days of the 1880's. He's buried in the Boot Hill Cemetery in Tombstone, Arizona: "Here lies Lester Moore, Four slugs from a .44, No Les, No More."

In a Georgia cemetery: "I told you I was sick!"

John Penny's epitaph in the Wimborne, England, cemetery: "Reader, if cash thou art, In want of any, Dig 4 feet deep, And thou wilt find a Penny."

On Margaret Daniels' grave at Hollywood Cemetery Richmond, Virginia: "She always said her feet were killing her, but nobody believed her."

In a cemetery in Hartscombe, England: "On the 22nd of June, Jonathan Fiddle - Went out of tune."

Anna Hopewell's grave in Enosburg Falls, Vermont has an epitaph that sounds like something from a Three Stooges movie: "Here lies the body of our Anna, Done to death by a banana It wasn't the fruit that laid her low, But the skin of the thing that made her go."

More fun with names with Owen Moore in Battersea, London, England: "Gone away, Owin' more than he could pay."

Someone in Winslow, Maine, didn't like Mr. Wood: "In Memory of Beza Wood, Departed this life Nov. 2, 1837, Aged 45 yrs. Here lies one Wood, Enclosed in wood, One Wood within another. The outer wood is very good, We cannot praise the other."

On a grave from the 1880's in Nantucket, Massachusetts: "Under the sod and under the trees, Lies the body of Jonathan Pease. He is not here, There's only the pod, Pease shelled out, And went to God."

The grave of Ellen Shannon in Girard, Pennsylvania is almost a consumer tip: "Who was fatally burned March 21, 1870, by the explosion of a lamp filled with "R.E. Danforth's Non-Explosive Burning Fluid"

Oops! Harry Edsel Smith of Albany, New York: "Born 1903--Died 1942 Looked up the elevator shaft to see if the car was on the way down. It was."

In a Thurmont, Maryland, cemetery: "Here lies an Atheist, All dressed up, And no place to go."

But does he make house calls? "Dr. Fred Roberts, Brookland, Arkansas, Office upstairs."

Joke Submission by: Fred T. Beeman