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Photography | Rock | Mary’s June 2025 Prompt
Rocks With Stories to Tell
June Six Word Photo Story Challenge: “Rock”
Once a rock, now a storyteller.
In 1939, a block of granite, an impressive rock likely millions of years old, was transformed into a gravestone. When that happened, the rock started to tell the story of Annie Leonard, wife of Charles F. Stewart.
For more than 80 years, many visitors to the cemetery where Ms. Leonard was laid to rest have seen the gravestone and learned that Leonard was born on October 25, 1855, and married Mr. Stewart.
The gravestone not only tells this simple story, but it also prompts a few questions. Why isn’t Annie’s last name on the gravestone “Stewart?” The answer is on Mr. Stewart’s tombstone, right next to Leonard’s. He died in March 1911. After Stewart’s passing, Annie must have married Leonard.
The gravestone also makes me wonder where Ms. Leonard was born. I wish that information were on the stone.
I bicycle by the gravestone occasionally, often stopping to take a look at the rock.
Photograph and story by the author.
