Tombstone Tuesday: Tombstone gives a lesson of what to avoid doing in childbirth

From Solyhull Churchyard, Warwickshire, England

The following Epitaph was written by a certain Rev. Dr. Greenwood on his wife, who died in childbirth. One hardly knows which to admire most, — the merit of the couplet wherein he celebrates her courage and magnanimity in preferring him to a lord or judge, or the sound advice with which he closes:

Go, cruel Death, thou hast cut down
The fairest Greenwood in all this kingdom!
Her virtues and good qualities were such
That surely she deserved a lord or judge;
But her piety and humility
Made her prefer me, a Doctor in Divinity;
Which heroic action, joined to all the rest,
Made her to be esteemed the Phoenix of her sex;
And like that bird, a young she did create
To comfort those her loss had made disconsolate.
My grief for her was so sore
That I can only utter two lines more:
For this and all other good women’s sake,
Never let blisters be applied to a lying-in woman’s
back.

About Donna R Causey

Donna R. Causey, resident of Alabama, was a teacher in the public school system for twenty years. When she retired, Donna found time to focus on her lifetime passion for historical writing. She developed the websites www.alabamapioneers and www.daysgoneby.me All her books can be purchased at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. She has authored numerous genealogy books. RIBBON OF LOVE: A Novel Of Colonial America (TAPESTRY OF LOVE) is her first novel in the Tapestry of Love about her family where she uses actual characters, facts, dates and places to create a story about life as it might have happened in colonial Virginia. Faith and Courage: Tapestry of Love (Volume 2) is the second book and the third FreeHearts: A Novel of Colonial America (Book 3 in the Tapestry of Love Series) Discordance: The Cottinghams (Volume 1) is the continuation of the story. . For a complete list of books, visit Donna R Causey