Elizabeth Digby Belcher

Verbal/Material Lore – Gravestone Epitaph

“Elizabeth Digby Belcher”

English and Latin

Elizabeth Digby Belcher
Tuck Drive Graveyard – Hanover, New Hampshire, United States
October 28th, 2017

Informant Data

She was the daughter of the late Reverand Thomas Fytche Oliver and the wife of Jonathan Freeman Esq. of Hanover. She was born at the Rectory of St. Thomas’ Church in Baltimore, Maryland on May 3rd, 1795. She died in the Communion of the Catholic Church on April 7th, 1852, aged 56 yrs.

Contextual Data

Epitaph appears to be a play on “Pie Jesu” (the text from the final couplet of the hymn “Dies Irae”). A similar line is used often in musical settings of the Requiem Mass.

Text

“Domine dona nobis requiem sempiternam.”

roughly translated into English: “O Lord (Jesus), give us everlasting rest.”

Peter Tiktinsky, 21
101 Hulls Farm Road, Southport, CT 06890
Hinman Box 4569, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Dartmouth College
Russian 13
Fall of 2017

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