In this Tombstone Tuesday post, 19th-Century Dutch gravestones reunite couple.
A couple who had different religions did not want to be separated in death. So these wonderful 19th-century Dutch gravestones were the solution.
A Couple Reunited in Death
Het Oude Kerkhof, Roermond, the Netherlands
A Catholic woman and her Protestant husband were not allowed to be buried together because of their differing faiths.
Jacobus Warnerus Constantinus van Gorkum, a colonel of the Dutch Cavalry, was buried on the Protestant side of the Roermond Kapel in ‘t Zand Cemetery in Limburg, Netherlands.
His wife, Lady Josephina Carlina Petronela Hubertina van Aefferden was buried on the Catholic side. They married in 1842, when Josephina was 22 and the colonel 33. He was a Protestant and not part of the nobility.
19th-Century Dutch Gravestones
In the 38th year of their marriage, the colonel died in 1880 and was buried on the Protestant part of the cemetery against the wall.
His wife died in 1888 and had decided not to be buried in the family tomb but on the other side of the wall, the closest she could get to her husband. Two clasped hands connect the graves across the wall. According to a local blogger, this caused quite a commotion in Roermond.
My tombstones are never this exciting. How about yours?
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