Gone to graveyards, everyone

Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt? (Where are those who were before us?)

Mikhajl Aleksandrovič Šolokhov (Михаил Александрович Шолохов) in the first chapter of And Quiet Flows the Don (1934) has Darja singing a lullabye:

...А где ж гуси?
В камыш ушли.
А где ж камыш?
Девки выжали.
А где ж девки?
Девки замуж ушли.
А где ж казаки?
На войну пошли. ...

...A gde ž gusi?
V kamyš ušli.
A gde ž kamyš?
Devki vyžali.
A gde ž devki?
Devki zamuž ušli.
A gde ž kazaki?
Na vojnu pošli. ...

...And where are the geese?
They've gone into the reeds.
And where are the reeds?
The girls have mown them.
And where are the girls?
Married and gone away.
And where are the Cossacks?
They've gone to the war...

Pete Seeger read this, and in 1955 wrote the song, Where have all the flowers gone?, which was expanded by Joe Hickerson, in 1960, to include:

...Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards, everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?...

Woodland Cemetery Cleveland has a contiguous plot of veteran graves of the XIXth century. Some are so worn in lettering, that it is difficult to tell the front side from the back side. A typical legible stone reads:

S. A. MILLER
CO. F
1ST MICH. L. A.

Knock, knock, knocking

This is an interesting monument for a graveyard. Who would be knocking on a gravestone? There's no door. How many wish entry?

Willie Shakespeare in MacBeth has knock, knock jokes. The hungover, or drunk, porter of the MacBeth's castle hears knocking.

Here's a knocking indeed! If a man were porter of Hell Gate, he should have old turning the key.
[Knocking from inside the castle]
[first of three jokes] Knock, knock, knock! Who's there, i' th' name of Belzebub? Here’s a farmer that hanged himself on the expectation of plenty. Come in time, have napkins enough about you, here you’ll sweat for ’t. ...

Bob Dylan wrote, Knockin' on Heaven's Door for the movie Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. It begins:

Mama, take this badge off of me
I can't use it anymore.
It's gettin' dark, too dark to see
I feel I'm knockin' on heaven's door.

Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door (4x)

Knocking on heaven's door (or gate) is a common allusion. People were familiar with the phrase, Bobby put a song around it.

Both poets were borrowers. Hell-gate was a feature in mediæval mystery plays. It has to be assumed Shakespeare, and his audience accepted humour with death and fate. In Hamlet there is a gravedigger's scene. The gravediggers (listed as clowns) begin their discussion on whether the suicide, Ophelia, should receive Christian burial. They then riddle jokes:

1st Clown: What is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?
2nd Clown: The gallows-maker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.

After a bit, he first clown asks the question again. The second can't dig up an answer.

1st Clown: ... when you are ask’d this question next, say “a grave-maker”; the houses that he makes lasts till doomsday.

See that my grave is kept clean

Blind Lemon Jefferson was a blues guitarist born in East Texas of sharecroppers. He was taken north to Chicago when 1925 turned in 1926. He recorded, on a 78, in October 1927 the song, "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean". It sold enough, to be recorded for a second time in '28. At the time, such music by the lower class [whether it be 'colored', 'hillbilly', or any of many non-english foreigners] was a disposable product. In 1929 he had an heart attack in a snowstorm. The record company sent his body home by train, and he was buried in Wortham Negro Cemetery. The grave was unmarked.

Bob Dylan sang the song on his first album [1962]. Since then it has been covered by others.

Well, there's one kind of favor I'll ask of you
Well, there's one kind of favor I'll ask of you
There's just one kind of favor I'll ask of you
You can see that my grave is kept clean

And there's two white horses following me
And there's two white horses following me
I got two white horses following me
Waiting on my burying ground

Did you ever hear that coffin' sound
Have you ever heard that coffin' sound
Did you ever hear that coffin' sound
Means another poor boy is under ground

Did you ever hear them church bells tone
Have you ever hear'd them church bells tone
Did you ever hear them church bells tone
Means another poor boy is dead and gone

Well, my heart stopped beating and my hands turned cold
And, my heart stopped beating and my hands turned cold
Well, my heart stopped beating and my hands turned cold
Now I believe what the bible told

There's just one last favor I'll ask of you
And there's one last favor I'll ask of you
There's just one last favor I'll ask of you
See that my grave is kept clean

In 1967, Texas put a marker in the graveyard. In 1997 a stone was set. In 2007 the graveyard's name became Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery. His grave has not been found. The stone reads:

Lemon Jefferson
September, 1893-December, 1929
"Lord it's one kind favor I'll ask of you
See that my grave is kept clean."

pro patria mori

To be born in one land, and to die in another. On a gravestone, it is not a novel inscribed; but in a few characters a story is limned. An historian, an antiquarian, or some sort of researcher may be able to uncover more details. One could search for relatives to interview. Often, after the passage of a certain number of years, no one knows more than the marks inscribed. Yet, those marks have some instructive value. St. John's Cemetery, Cleveland. Sargeant James Kelly. Company B, 8th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Wounded at Gettysburg. July 3, 1863. Born in Ireland March 3, 1836. Died July 7, 1863. May his soul rest in peace.
Kelly was an immigrant to America [when did he arrive?]. He died four days after being wounded in the most famous of that war's many, many battles — Gettysburg. The name is Irish. The stone has the clover, the Irish will have you know, is the shamrock. The stone also has a cross, and sits in a Catholic cemetery. It was very important, and very promoted for Catholics to be buried only in hallowed grounds, which usually meant Catholic cemeteries.
Woodland Cemetery, Cleveland. 7th Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry. War for the Union 1861-1865.
Woodland Cemetery was the City of Cleveland's most important public cemetery in the XIXth century. It opened in 1853, and was conveniently available for the war dead. Near the main entrance there are two large monuments for two regiments [23rd, 7th] of infantry. The one for the 23rd was dedicated on August 1, 1865, just a few months after the end of combat. The names of the war dead are written on all four sides, of the lower portion, of the monument. The number is almost evenly divided by those who died in action, and those that died by disease. Remember, the four horseman are war, famine, death, and pestilence.

The other [1872] is harder to read, for the engraving in the color of stone. Raised lettering is easy to read. It has four freshly restored, union painted, rifled cannons [West Point Foundry] defending it. The regiment was infantry.

That war had many names, but in Cleveland, at that time, it was called 'War for the Union'. The Republicans were successful politically. There were no Republicans in the South. To-day, things have changed. The South is full of Republicans, and no Republicans would use the term—'War for the Union'.

Woodland Cemetery, Cleveland. Alfred J. Straka. Born July 5, 1895. Died May 26, 1914 at Vera Cruz Mexico in the service of United States Navy.

I heard Woodrow Wilson's guns
I heard Maria calling
Saying, "Veracruz is dying
And Cuernavaca's falling"
—Veracruz. Warren Zevon and Jorge Calderon

That Battle of Vera Cruz took place 21-24 April 1914. The Mexicans were having a civil war. The US occupied Vera Cruz to 23 November. Twenty two American servicemen were listed as dead. This fellow, presumably, was one.
Lake View Cemetery. John S. Allen 1893-1918. Private, Company M 18th Infantry American Expeditionary Force. Died from wounds received in action Argonne France.
The Battle for the Argonne Forest was the last offensive of the War to end all wars. It began 26 September 1918. It was the largest American engagement in the war. It was the only engagement for most Americans. It was the deadliest battle that Americans ever engaged in. America does not remember this one. This was the big one. The American Expeditionary Force (an honest name), fought along side the 4th and 5th French Armies, against the German Fifth. The Allied Forces were more than twice the size of the Germans, and suffered more casualties. The Americans were of a larger population than the Germans, and this was the first of their troops. The Germans agreed to an Armistice.

The only surviving veteran of World War I is an English waitress, that signed up in 1918. She is 110 years old, Florence Beatrice Green (née Patterson, born 19 February 1901).