The
Gravestone...
that marks where David,
Debbie, Phoebe and
Jai's bodies were laid
to rest until the rapture!
Many people have asked
me about the unique
design of the gravestone,
so I decided to tell the
story behind it's design...
I've also included the
story behind the design
and making of
Caldwell Memorial Markers.
The drunk driver's car crashed into
my family about 9:20 pm on a Thursday night, but because of the seriousness
of so many injuries, the first chance I had to leave the hospital was on
Sunday... I still did not want to leave because of the seriousness of Mary's
injuries, but I had to go make funeral plans and I wanted to see Kezia.
I went back to the hospital that evening, but came home again on Monday
evening for the private viewing. After the viewing I met with Pastor
Dick Brown, the Pastor I had as a teen and who married David and I.
He had moved on to Hobart, Indiana, but was very willing to come home to
help me through this very tough time. After meeting with him, I went
back to my house for the first time because Kezia and Zeke were there...
I sat down in David's favorite chair and sitting beside it was his Bible...
I opened it up and on the inside was written "I want this verse on my
gravestone 1 John 2:17". I knew then that the gravestone was
important to David and would be the last memorial that we would have and
I wanted it to tell a story of our life and love together...
When I went to purchase the gravestone
early in the Spring, I had wanted to put a single heart stone for each
of the children and a double heart for David and I... but when I discussed
it with the man, he said that there was not enough room for that many stones,
because I only had two lots since I had buried David and Jai together and
Debbie and Phoebe... even using my lot would only give me three lots, so
I had to come up with a new plan. The man was very helpful in telling
me my different options and together we came up with the design that we
now have... I had preferred a black stone but because of price, went with
the red and felt it was symbolic of our love... I told him of the verse
that David wanted on the stone and I couldn't pick just part of it and
felt we should use the whole verse... he told me how we could use two separate
stones and place an illusion of a cross in the center, also making it not
as heavy and easier to set... so we came up with the cut out cross and
the full verse would fit on the base along the whole bottom. I still
wanted hearts, so when the stone came in, we carefully placed the heart
templates until we had them where we liked them, the three children's hearts
adjoined on one side and David and mine on the other side with the family
name "CALDWELL". There was enough room to put full birth and death
dates, which I had wanted, I wanted people to know that Jai's life had
been taken from him only the day after he turned 7 years old, I wanted
people to know how young the children were when their lives were takenfrom
them! But still one thing was missing...
WHAT KILLED THIS FAMILY!!!
Later that Spring, the Wellsboro Fire
Department contacted me to let me know that they had a special flag and
holder to be placed at David's grave to show he was a volunteer fireman
for them. This pleased me and would tell more about David's life
and interests. When I placed the flag at the gravestone, I got my
first thought of making another flag and holder similar to that to place
on the other side of the stone, to balance it out and to tell people that
this family was killed young because of a drunk driver. I pondered
this for a couple years, thought up a design, but was not sure where to
begin. In the meantime I had come to a very tough time of depression
in my life and had gone back to college to further my art education and
hopefully come out of the depression. While taking the art courses,
I realized that this could become reality and no longer be a dream.
I came up with a design I was happy with that would be simple, but symbolic.
I filed for a patent and found a place where I could produce them to meet
the needs and make them affordable... thus began Caldwell Memorial Markers.
The patent was filed and my first markers
were made in April of 1995... at the end of that month I remarried and
had another child Harley which
has kept me very busy, along with my other surviving children Mary,
now a teenager and Kezia and Zeke.
I haven't had time to market them like I would like... I feel the more
markers that are out there the more people will start to realize that the
statistics are REAL people! I hope someday that as people pass along
a cemetery they will see these markers and flags, different from any other
and be reminded that
DRINKING and DRIVING KILLS!!!
"The world passeth away and the lust
thereof, but he
that doeth the will of God, abideth
forever"
I John 2:17
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