The last trumpet’s joyful sound

The shadows were long and the light was fading fast when I stopped to snap photos of a gravestone bearing the image of a trumpeter. It was the gravestone of a young woman, Anna Howard (d. 1837).

In Memory of
ANNA
consort of H. Howard
Dau. of Abraham & Betsy
Smith died March 4
1837. Aged 18 years
__ mo & 17 days

The meaning of Anna’s trumpeter becomes clear when you read the epitaph, taken from an Isaac Watts hymn.

My flesh shall slumber in the ground
Till the last trumpet’s joyful sound
Then burst the chains with sweet surprise
And in my Saviour’s image rise

Oak Grove Cemetery, Delaware, Ohio