David Shewmaker - Hagansport Cemetery - Hagansport, TX, USA - Doves of peace on Waymarking.com

The Woodmen of the World are known today as WoodmenLife, a fraternal society that provides insurance to its members. Visitors to older cemeteries can frequently spot the tree trunk monuments that they placed at the graves of their members, although not every tree trunk monument out there was placed by the Woodmen of the World: It was common in the late 19th century to use a log to note that a person had died young, and many infants have such grave markers. Eventually, those tree trunk monuments became too expensive to produce, and headstones would be marked with a Woodmen of the World emblem of some kind. Earlier ones featured a dove of peace with an olive branch in its beak, flying over a fallen log where the tools of the woodmen's trade -- hatchet, mallet, and wedge -- can be seen. Sometimes, the tools and/or the dove would be part of the monument, in relief. In this case, the dove is perched atop the scroll that hangs from a rope on a sawn-off branch. The inscription reads:

David Shewmaker
Born
Sept. 17, 1861,

Died
Jan. 20, 1915.

-----

Gone too soon but not
forgotten,
Rest loved one, we will meet
you some day in that bright
day.

-----

His Findagrave page has a news article that reported his death. With some irony, he was killed instantly when he was cutting off a limb from a tree, and a branch fell and hit him in the head.

It is common to see short tree stumps -- not associated with the Woodmen of the World in any way -- marking the graves of young children, noting that they were cut down too early. One of Mr. Shewmaker's children, James David Shewmaker, has such a headstone. This is a coincidental pairing, of course, but very appropriate, and an interesting combination.

Kind of dove: Dove with olive branch Used material for the dove: Other (explanation in the long description) Address: Hagansport Cemetery FM 71 and Franklin County Rd 1028A Hagansport, TX USA 75487

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