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Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe
Syosset, New York
There's an American proverb: "If men could see the epitaphs their friends write, they would believe they had gotten into the wrong grave."
eSermons.com asked, "What would you think if I told you that on your tombstone would be inscribed a four-word epitaph?... If a newspaper critic wrote of a concert pianist the four words: "He was a failure," you could always say: That was his opinion. But if one of the world's great musicians wrote, "He was a genius," then you are apt to take the remark more seriously.
Inscriptions on gravestones can be very simple or they can become epitaphs, poetic stories about the departed's life. Jaroslav Achab Handler writes, "They are also prayers to the Almighty and tantczewa--a plea and a hope that the departed's soul may be bonded into the bone of life." Mr. Handler reminds us that "They can tell us about the people, wars, epidemics, pogroms. They make it possible for us to reconstruct our history."
Epitaphs are often humorous. Some examples:
"Here lies one, believe it if you can, who thought an attorney was an honest man."
"Here lies an Atheist: All Dressed Up and No Place to Go."
"She Paid the Bills. That's the story of
my life."
Gloria Swanson said that when she
died, her epitaph should read the
above-shown words.
"On the whole I would rather be in
Philadelphia."
W. C. Fields
"I knew if I stayed around long enough,
something like this would happen."
George Bernard Shaw
"I'll be right back."
Johnny Carson, TV entertainer
While visiting Harvard to receive an
award, a reporter asked what he would want
written on his epitaph.
George S. Kaufman (1889-1961), who collaborated with Moss Hart on many successful B'way comedies, was asked to suggest his own epitaph. He came up with, "Over my dead body!"
Charles Lamb, when a little boy, walking in a churchyard with his sister and reading epitaphs, said to her, "Mary, where are all the naughty people buried?"
Sholem Aleichem was the man who gave us Tevye the Milkman. Miriam Weinstein ("Yiddish - a Nation of Words"), says that "Sholem Aleichem was the first person to earn a living as a Yiddish author even though, despite tremendous popularity, his financial position was never secure."
Aleichem died on Kelly Street in the Bronx in 1916 and left behind an eloquent ethical will. It was later published in The New York Times and entered into the Congressional Record. He specified how he should be buried.
"Wherever I die I should be laid to
rest not among the aristocrats, the
elite, the rich, but rather among the
plain people, the toilers, the common
folk, so that the tombstone that will
be placed on my grave will grace the
simple graves about me, and the
simple graves will adorn my tombstone,
even as the plain people have, during
my life, beatified their folk writer."
Sholem Aleichem WAS granted his last request. He was laid to rest among "the common folk" in the Workmen's Circle Section of Mt. Carmel Cemetaries in Brooklyn. On the grave of Sholem Aleichem, a humble epitaph which he had written for himself several years before his death.
Here lies a simple Jew
Who wrote Yiddish tales for women
And for the common folk
He was a humorist, a writer
His whole life he laughed
And joined the world in its reveries
The whole world enjoyed itself
While he--oy vey--had troubles.
And even as the public
Laughed, split their sides, whooped it up
He grieved, as only God knows
In secret, so that no one should see.
What four-word epitaphs appeal to the writer?
1. "Speaks a bisl Yiddish."
2. "Oykh mir a lebn." (What a life.)
3. "Leben ahf dein kop!" (Lit., a long life
upon your head.)
4. "Bei Mir Bistu Shein" (song, To me you are
so beautiful)
5. "Contributed to the UJA"
6. "Zi hot goldene hent." (She has golden
hands.)
7. "Nit oif undz gedacht!" (It shouldn't happen
to us.)
8. "Mach nit kain tsimmes." (Don't make abig
deal out of it.)
9. "Es iz gants gut." (It's all right.)
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Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe's favorite
epitaph: "That's all folks!"
Mel
Blanc
