Furnishing Memorial: Gravestones Made from Repurposed Furniture Tops at African American Cemeteries

Abstract

Abstract More than 100 graves at East End and Evergreen cemeteries, adjacent historical Black burial grounds in Richmond, Virginia, are marked by unusually thin headstones with physical features indicating prior use as the top surfaces of wooden furnishings. Using biographical sources for the deceased (with known death years ranging from 1899 to 1958) and the family members who likely provided the headstones, as well as records of a local stone-carving company, selected examples from cemeteries elsewhere in the American Southeast, and archaeological theories of reuse, this study explores possible economic, social, and symbolic motivations for repurposed furniture-top grave markers. While resourcefulness and thrift probably played some role, much of the evidence collected here challenges the assumption that furniture-top gravestones were merely quick or affordable solutions. Provided by women more often than by men, these markers carried a symbolic connection to household and family that made them particularly apt for reuse at African American cemeteries, where gravesites often held offerings of personal property and household objects.