Dear Sylvia and Others who might be interested:

I have an answer for the question Sylvia raised.

Shortly after the Convention in Louisville I received a lovely letter from
Mary Ann Sage (Walter's mother).  She enclosed a photograph of  Walter's
Grave Monument which has on it  very appropriately a scallop shell.  And
also on the slight extension of the base rests two small stones.  She said
Sol and Mary Weiss had visited the grave site when they were in Louisville
in June and left the stones saying it was a Jewish custom to leave a stone
on the monument to show a visitor had come.  What a nice gesture.

Betty Jean, La Jafe (which is what Walter called me after we shared a
collecting trip to Panama many years ago)

At 06:01 PM 8/23/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Now that you mention it, I toured a cemetery in New Orleans once.  The bury
>there people in above the ground vaults.  It was a very old cemetery and I
>believe they said families would just push the bones to the back and reuse
>it.  >
>I seem to remember some very old and bleached shells on top of these
>vaults - but I remember them as queen conchs.
>There is a religious custom (I don't remember which religion) of placing a
>stone on a grave site.  Does anyone know the significance of this?
>
>Sylvia S. Edwards