Availing of the government’s provision that I could drive in order to meet another person outdoors, and also that I could go for a walk. I drove to High Ham to have lunch in the garden with my sister and then to Huish Episcopi to visit family graves.
Huish Episcopi churchyard is where generations of my family have been laid to rest. It is a place with a meaning far more profound than anything that might be found in the traditions of the church. Records of family members run back four centuries, the family presence undoubtedly extends centuries further back.
Walking among the graves at the west end of the church, I came across the grave of the Revd Joseph Stubbs. British History Online says that Stubbs was vicar from 1892 until 1923. His name was familiar because he preached at the funeral of my great-great-great grandmother, Harriet Crossman. This was a report of the funeral:
HUISH EPISCOPI
A REMARKABLE FAMILY The interment of the late Mrs. Harriett Crossman, relict of Mr. Thomas Crossman, of Ham Down, Huish Episcopi, took place on Saturday afternoon last, at the Huish Churchyard. The Vicar, the Rev. J. Stubbs, officiated. A large number of relatives and friends of deceased were present. On Sunday morning the Rev. J. Stubbs preached to a large congregation, founding his discourse on Ecclesiastes xii, 7, “The dust shall return to the earth as it was, and the spirit- to God who gave it”. Special reference was made by the Vicar to the life and character of the deceased. With regard to the late Mrs. Crossman, he said that as far as he could accurately ascertain – and he had taken a good deal of trouble to do so – her family and descendants consisted of 12 children, 96 grandchildren, 38 great-grandchildren, 56 great-great-grandchildren, and seven great-great-great-grandchildren, making in all a total of 259. The Vicar said that this was a proof of the remarkable vitality of the family, which he thought was possibly without a parallel. During the whole of her life the deceased had set a noble example of piety and earnest religious conviction to her numerous descendants, and to all who knew her. Mrs. Crossman’s age was 97 years, and she had seen as many as eight generations. With the exception of failing eyesight, deceased retained all her faculties until the day of her death.
Died NOVEMBER 16th 1897 Aged 97 years
Interred in St Mary’s Churchyard,Huish Episcopi, November 20th, 1897.
The seven great-great-great grandchildren mentioned would have included some of my grand aunts and uncles, though not my grandfather, who was born in 1913 and was some fourteen years younger than his next sibling.
Standing at Huish, there is a wonderful sense of continuity, mortality and place.
Titus Lucretius Carus (c.99-55 BC)
No single thing abides; but all things flow.
Fragment to fragment clings-the things thus grow
Until we know and name them. By degrees
They melt, and are no more the things we know.
Globed from the atoms falling slow or swift
I see the suns, I see the systems lift
Their forms; and even the systems and the suns
Shall go back slowly to the eternal drift.
You too, oh earth-your empires, lands, and seas –
Least with your stars, of all the galaxies,
Globed from the drift like these, like these you too
Shalt go. You are going, hour by hour, like these.
Nothing abides. The seas in delicate haze
Go off; those mooned sands forsake their place;
And where they are, shall other seas in turn
Mow with their scythes of whiteness other bays.
The seeds that once were we take flight and fly,
Winnowed to earth, or whirled along the sky,
Not lost but disunited. Life lives on.
It is the lives, the lives, the lives, that die.
They go beyond recapture and recall,
Lost in the all-indissoluble All:-
Gone like the rainbow from the fountain’s foam,
Gone like the spindrift shuddering down the squall.
Flakes of the water, on the waters cease!
Soul of the body, melt and sleep like these.
Atoms to atoms-weariness to rest –
Ashes to ashes-hopes and fears to peace!
O Science, lift aloud your voice that stills
The pulse of fear, and through the conscience thrills –
Thrills through the conscience with the news of peace –
How beautiful your feet are on the hills!
So pleased to find this – Thomas and Harriet were my 3xGt grandparents. I am related through their son George who married Athaliah Wheller, their grandson Winford Wheller Crossman and great grand daughter (and my grandmother) Emily Crossman who married William Homer in 1900 at Bishops Lydeard. Thank you.