Probably the reason that the wife's date of death was not on the tombstone is that the tombstone had been purchased and inscribed while both were still living. This was a practice for some people back then. Later, when Mrs. Thompson died, she was not buried with her husband in the Halesboro Cemetery and her side of the stone was never completed. Charles Lawson Huntsville, TX At 06:13 PM 9/9/2005 , you wrote: >I was in Halesboro Cemetery southwest of Bogata several years ago, looking >at old tombstones and making notes for a newspaper story. I came upon an >obelisk, one of those old tombstones that is about 4 ½ feet high, with the >husband's name on one side and the wife's name on the opposite side and >usually a Bible verse on the front. On the north side of the obelisk was a >woman's name and "Wife of . Thompson." Her birth date was listed, but not >her date of death. That was surprising, since tombstones of that time >always have dates of death. The stones were not inexpensive, and people >whose graves the stones marked were the kind of people who stay around, >who don't just move away. I walked to the other side of the obelisk and >saw the name of the husband, last name Thompson, but I don't remember his >first name. The stone listed his date and place of birth - in the 1850s, >in one of the Carolinas, and the date he died, in the 1880s. And beneath >his name, the explanation: "MURDERED." That word, and the fact that the >obelisk did not have his wife's date of death, was but one of those >questions I always have when leaving any cemetery. Always there are >questions. A few days after the cemetery story was in the newspaper, I got >a letter from a woman who said she was the murdered man's granddaughter. >She said all the family knew about his death was that there was a >nighttime knock at the front door of his house, and when he answered, >someone shot him dead. She said the family does not know what happened to >his wife, where she went, or when she died. The only other tombstone I saw >with the explanation "MURDERED" is in a cemetery in Delta County. I don't >remember the name of that cemetery, but when I went there, it was all >grown up in weeds, and many of the tombstones had been knocked over. >Later, a group of people got together and cleaned up the cemetery, put the >tombstones back where they belonged. The man buried in the Delta County >cemetery was killed by Wild Bill Longley. I always enjoyed visiting old >cemeteries and writing about them, but the newspaper told me to stop. I >have a stack of letters from people whose relatives are buried in those >old cemeteries, all of the letters congratulatory, but newspaper managers >oftentimes aren't impressed by what readers like to read.