Headstones

[corosanta]

An interesting situation has cropped up in our family (close & extended) as to whom has the right to dictate what is written on dad's headstone. Should it be son/daughter? Eldest or youngest? Or second wife? What about grandchildren etc? And what about legal and moral issues?
Maybe this isn't the right forum to ask this but am interested to hear where the rest of you are coming from.

Cheers, Corosanta in NZ

[woofgang]

on a material note, who is paying for it?

Certainly if there is a survivng wife I feel that the family should accede to her wishes but that's a personal opinion

[corosanta]

Just to make things a tad more sensitive, dad has been buried with his 1st wife in a combined grave. Mum's headstone, that was paid for and placed there by a grand-daughter about 8 years ago , has been replaced by one with 2nd wife's words. No children issued in second marriage. Estate paid for 2nd stone. Wife number 2 contested the will and was expelled as an executor by the courts. Happy days all around. So what you think now?

Cheers, Santa in NZ

[woofgang]

I think it makes cremation look attractive :-{

serious advice is that this one is going no where. I am thinking that the deceased and his first wife would like above all to rest in peace and not be wrangled over.

Any chance of the family occupying the moral high ground over this one and behaving ina magnanimous and forgiving way as its what Dad and Mum would have wanted?

[woofgang]

PS they don't have to feel like it, just behave like it. Belive me in my exoerience of hot situations, nothing is so annoying to one party and as satisfying to the other as high souled magnanimity

[Peter Pedant]

hello Corosanta in beautiful NZ, what year is it, 1985?

IF NZ lags dear old blighty in absolutely everything which is usual, then you will find that the graveyard is also a stakeholder, and that there may be rules about the type and style of gravestone.

and wording - you wont be able to put - murdered by the NZDAP police and so on....[that's an old one...]

The executors usually pay for the funeral, so they may be putting up the gravestone. Oh, and ask the graveyard - this will not be the first tiime they have had warring grannies, battling it out over the funeral, gravestone or wording.

Note - reminder to put in my will what I want on the gravestone - it's rather exciting, I've chosen Welsh blue slate...sorry sorry

[Peter Pedant]

I've read your postings Corosanta and am sorry that this is so .... sensitive.

Is the family really looking for a third gravestone ?

Anyway from what you say...the executors have paid for the second one and since your stepmother is not now an executor, er they could decide to have a replacement. has anyone asked in polite terms where the 2nd wife wishes to be buried - like you know the other side of your dad ?

and the wording she wants.

I mean you know it might be the first time anyone has asked her......

[hopalong]

Dear Husband of......... and dear father of....