Mary Paine died on New Year’s Eve in 1713. At 15 months old, she had barely lived. But because of Roland McCandlish, Mary’s headstone saw the world.
In 1955, the then-20-year-old sailor snatched it from a tool shed at Copp’s Hill Burying Ground in the North End of Boston and took it back to his ship, docked at the Charlestown Navy Yard.
Comments
Why was he poking around a wooden shed, and how can he claim it was tossed there? Perhaps it was to be repaired and reset. Yes, thank you for returning a historical artifact that you stole, but don't pretend you gave it and the person it honors a "better" life because you stuffed it into a filing cabinet and used it with college drinking buddies. Thankfully, not every sailor was a thief, and residents and tourists still have the chance to see unplundered pieces of history.
If it salves an old man's guilty conscience to paint this a an act of preservation, I guess we can cut him some slack, and give him absolution, but the fact remains this is nothing but a tale of thievery, albeit one with a happy ending.
I know, but if he had any character at all, this idiot would have admitted he was wrong and apologized profusely.
What gets me is that he spent an entire LIFETIME with that tomb, guilt free. What a moron.
I wonder how he'd feel if someone stole his mother's gravestone and made a coffee table out of it. Sounds like he's now anticipating "a gravestone of his own.". He'd better hope that passers by have more conscience than he did. If this was supposed to be a Feel-Good story, it certainly is not. The taking and keeping of the stone is way bigger than the returming.
Agreed...Not a feel-good. Why don't we just rummage around some of the MFA storage areas and rescue a Monet? He taught English for 28 years? Hmmmm.... great... he actually was in contact with impressionable children.
Something still wrong and a bit mentally unbalanced with this guy, his commander at the time, and his friends and family later ...
Yes, I had some things, stereo, microwave, etc., "rescued" froPlace place on the Cape too. Even got the chance for a pleasant trip to far off and exotic Barnstable County Courthouse to testify. The thoughtfulness of the rescuers remains with me as a reminder of how pleasant people can be.
Robbing antiquities is a serious offense and a cute story doesn't justify or excuse criminal behavior.
I realize the culprit is 70 years old now, but not beyond being summoned to a Boston court house and assigned some community service.
I work with an organization that is active in preserving and restoring these burying grounds.
The expense of re-seating this stone is not insignificant.
The person responsible for the theft should also bear some of the cost of the restoration.
The stone wasn't set when he found it.
A modest proposal for the hardliners: Why not just flog the man in City Hall Plaza?
It seems everyone here thinks the Elgin Marbles should go home, too. I don't condone his actions, but I accept his restitution and appology...the bankers won't give you that.
The Elgin Marbles should be returned.
Since the Greeks and Turks were blowing the place up at the time, the British were right to get the "Elgin" Marbles out of there. Maybe they're safe back in Athens now. The British Museum is full of other people's stuff. Interesting dilemma.
Other than his error at the time, what difference does it really make? The girl saw the world! She had someone that cared. What more could she have asked?
What more could she have asked??. ARE YOU KIDDING?? Of course, beyond the obvious: --that she could have asked for a full life, which she didn't get--- she could have asked not to lie in an unmarked grave for sixty years, because of the crassness and thoughtlessness of such a selfish person. Flippant and meant to be funny, i presume, to say that "She saw the world" is just as crass.
I am trying to think, but not too hard on a snowy day, about some of the crazy and stupid things I did when I was a novice in this world. I can't think of anyone I know who either deisturbed a grave yard or actually would think of taking a grave marker or headstone. As kids we used to hide across from the local mortuary and wait for the delivery van to bring in a shipment of caskets. That was enough to "creep" us out for weeks. I don't understand this gentleman taking a grave marker, in the first place. But, then posing for photos with the stone and finally using it as a coffee table totally escapes me. On a positive note, I hope returning this marker gives him peace.
A positive is that this headstone missed decades of corrosive acid rain helping to preserve it.
Interesting comments and much more negative than I expected.
Hey Matt, bet you weren't expecting these reactions.
From the story I get a sense that Mr. McCandlish had an ethereal connection with Mary’s tombstone and the long forgotten sole it represented. Certainly it didn’t start out as such but I am willing to forgive (or at least put aside) the initial act of thievery and give Mr. McCandlish some respect for doing the right thing and returning Mary’s tombstone. Others may feel differently but if some future sailor finds my long forgotten and neglected tombstone in a shed and takes it on a 50+ year odyssey I’d probably look down and smile. As the saying goes, in heaven there is no beer…
Bill, you and the others make some great points. I might retreat!
OK. I'll admit it: I loved this story.