{"id":240,"date":"2023-04-05T22:30:50","date_gmt":"2023-04-05T22:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/francoamericangravy.com\/wills.\/?p=240"},"modified":"2023-12-29T13:29:42","modified_gmt":"2023-12-29T20:29:42","slug":"graves-and-religious-intolerance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/francoamericangravy.com\/wills\/graves-and-religious-intolerance\/","title":{"rendered":"Graves and Religious Intolerance"},"content":{"rendered":"
The two photos below capture the essence of separation and longing after death.\u00a0 The husband was Protestant and the wife Catholic and they could not be buried together according to church law in Europe.<\/span><\/header>\n

\n\"Graf<\/a>
\nWiki Commons https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/User:Dqfn13<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/header>\n
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\"Graf<\/a>Wiki Commons https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/User:Dqfn13<\/span><\/p>\n

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The brick wall between them is obvious to anyone looking on.\u00a0 The outstretch arms joining the two headstones is clear.\u00a0 No words are needed.\u00a0\u00a0Now, please take a look at this more modest gravestone of a husband and wife below.<\/p>\n

\"headstone<\/p>\n

This is the gravestone of John A. Wills, husband, Elizabeth \u201cLibby\u201d Wills, his wife and their daughter Elizabeth Wills.\u00a0 They were buried in 1936 and 1937 in St. Joseph\u2019s Catholic Cemetery in Waterford, New York.\u00a0 At that time, their marriage was called a \u201cMixed Marriage\u201d and the Catholic pastor forbade a Protestant burial in the Catholic cemetery as was the custom.\u00a0 Apparently, he relented \u2013 slightly.\u00a0 If the children would pay for a brickwall to be built around their father, the pastor would allow John to be near Libby.\u00a0 So during the height of the Great Depression when it was a struggle just to afford food, rent and utilities, the eight remaining Wills children paid up to build the brickwall.<\/p>\n

You cannot see it.\u00a0\u00a0It was constructed beneath the topsoil and separates the coffins of John and Libby.\u00a0 It may even completely wall off John from all the other burials in St. Joseph\u2019s.<\/p>\n

This was state of religious tolerance in the 19th and early 20th century and difficult for anyone born in USA after 1980 to imagine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The two photos below capture the essence of separation and longing after death.\u00a0 The husband was Protestant and the wife Catholic and they could not be buried together according to church law in Europe. Wiki Commons https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/User:Dqfn13 Wiki Commons https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/User:Dqfn13 The brick wall between them is obvious to anyone looking on.\u00a0 The outstretch arms joining … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Graves and Religious Intolerance”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,15,2],"tags":[16],"class_list":["post-240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-couples","category-https-francoamericangravy-com-wills-category-gravestones","category-john-a-wills-1873-1937","tag-religiousintolerance"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/francoamericangravy.com\/wills\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/WillsHeadstone-1-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1702&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/francoamericangravy.com\/wills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/francoamericangravy.com\/wills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/francoamericangravy.com\/wills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/francoamericangravy.com\/wills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/francoamericangravy.com\/wills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/francoamericangravy.com\/wills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":725,"href":"https:\/\/francoamericangravy.com\/wills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240\/revisions\/725"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/francoamericangravy.com\/wills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/francoamericangravy.com\/wills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/francoamericangravy.com\/wills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/francoamericangravy.com\/wills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}