Photo Monument 5/6/2010

Cenotaphs
by Gale Wall

Definition: a sepulchral monument erected in memory of a deceased person whose body is buried elsewhere.

Source: cenotaph. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cenotaph (accessed: May 04, 2010).

Word history: A cenotaph is literally an ‘empty tomb’: the word comes, via French and Latin, from Greek kenotaphion, from kenos ‘empty’ and taphos ‘tomb’. The idea behind the name is that someone who had been killed far away from his or her home (for instance, in battle), and whose body could not be brought back, should be commemorated by a symbolic tomb.

Source: http://www.word-origins.com/definition/cenotaph.html

Sometimes it may be hard to determine if a stone is a cenotaph or headstone. The two examples shown for Field and Richardson need research to determine if the bodies were recovered.

I have only found one that actually notes “cenotaph” on the stone. [Ellis stone]. I can understand the need to remember a loved one lost or buried elsewhere. We all want to be remembered.

• Worthington – Haven Priest Cemetery, Reno Co., KS
• Kinnamon- Hazen Cemetery, Reno Co., KS
• Branaman – Hazen Cemetery, Reno Co., KS
• Demand – St. Paul Cemetery, Reno Co., KS
• Field – Eastside Cemetery, Reno Co., KS
• Ellis- Walnut Hill Cemetery, Kingman Co., KS
• Young – Lebanon Cemetery, Kingman Co., KS
• Richardson -  Murdock Cemetery, Kingman Co., KS
• Atherton – Gypsum Cemetery, Saline Co., KS
• Friesen – N. Inman Cemetery, McPherson Co., KS