Yeah, but that was informal. Had to get rid to them somehow. Nothing like have a corpse around to get you into trouble.

Now, my brother was a formal, paid gravedigger and in the course of his duties he had to shoot an old horse. That was after he followed me into the business of making and setting tombstones at the monument company, though.

When the family goes to a cemetery my wife is always fascinated by the interplay between my brother and me. He'll point to a stone and say, "What is it?" and I'll say something like, "Rainbow, of course." Then we'll get into a discussion of the lasting qualities of various granites, like Rainbow, Mahogany, Georgia Pink, Barre, and Swedish Black. We'll discuss the disasterous decision to stop quarrying Swedish Black with blasting powder and to start using dynamite instead and what that means for the longevity of the stone. Blasting to a bead is important and we'll trade stories about that, including the tricks used to repair stones when a part of a letter pops off due to freezing. The question of foundation depth will come up and we'll debate the necessary auger depth. And all the while we'll be swapping stories of cemeteries and jobs we have known.

I once wrote (longhand) four pages, both sides, on the "master stone" at my burying place of the paternal side of my wife's family in Holyoke, Mass.