Fire!

I was going back over all my old photos and found one for which I somehow had not tagged an awesome "cause of death" epitaph! Shame on/kudos to me.

Unfortunately it's a bit blurry. Taken in Walnut Grove Cemetery (the non-Jamesville one), and between the cloudy sky, heavy tree cover, and the aging camera I had at the time, the low lighting was too much for a crisp shot. Sigh. And now I have no chance to re-take it. Anyhoo:

This is the headstone for Jennie Hutchinson, wife of Wm. S. Stewart, aged 36 years, who was Killed at the burning of the Southern Hotel, St. Louis, MO...

According to this, she was specifically "killed by the breaking of an improvised rope while being lowered by her husband from a fifth-story window." Yikes. This page has a NYT dispatch about the fire and a few images of the hotel.


Also, from Greenwood Cemetery, New Orleans, LA, another couple deaths by fire:

The overall monument

Close-up of the left panel:

To the Memory
of
Daniel S. Woodruff
Born November 9th, 1797
and
William McLeod
Born January 6th, 1800.

Close-up of the right panel:

Who were Killed while in the
active discharge of their duty
at the fire corner of Magazine
and Natchez Streets.
March 17th 1854.