Dateline>City of Angels

Among the things I enjoy most about old graveyards are the many untold tales they contain.

Let yourself wander amid all the monuments to the rich and famous, and you’ll also find countless revelations about the life-and-death struggles of us common folk, whose stories would otherwise be lost to time.

A case in point is this riven marker at Angelus Rosedale for Lawrence A. Prudhont (1894 - 1913), whose epitaph reads:

“Died at Post of Duty as Wireless Operator on S.S. Rosecrans, During Storm at Mouth of Colombia River, Oregon. God Calls Away When He Thinks Best.”

Erected by the Wireless Operators of the Pacific Coast, the front of the obelisk features the chiseled image of a sinking ship. Above it, some sort of seal, or possibly an image of the deceased, has been torn away. On the back, there’s an anchor wrapped in a banner inscribed with the words Honor, Fidelity and Death.

The tombstone inspired me to Google up the Rosecrans, which I learned was an oil tanker wrecked off Cape Disappointment, Jan. 7, 1913, in an area known as the Graveyard of the Pacific. Over a 300-year period, more than 2,000 vessels and 700 lives have been lost in those deadly waters.

Thanks to a piloting error, the Rosecrans ran afoul a sandbar. Her captain then made the ultimately fatal mistake of dropping the ship’s anchors, dooming his vessel to flounder offshore beyond the reach of rescuers. Out of a crew of 33, the heroic Prudhont and 29 of his shipmates perished.