Hilary Ward Schnadt

My husband heard the excitement in my gasp as we rounded the corner in an antique mall in Norway, Michigan.  Hanging on the wall of the booth ahead was a framed rubbing of a grave marker that read:

“Good friend for Jesus sake forebeare,

To dig the dust encloased heare.

Blese be the man that spares thes stones,

And curst be he that moves my bones.”

I recognized it immediately.  Years earlier, as a graduate student in English, I had roomed with a classmate whose father had been a WWII war correspondent, and a rubbing he had made of this same marker hung over our couch. 

Still, I was glad to read the neat handwriting at the bottom:

“Rubbing of the inscription from Shakespeare’s Grave  1564-1616 

The Parish Church, Stratford-upon-Avon       July 12, 1944       G. Woodhouse, Parish Clerk”

I took a moment to imagine a soldier from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan carefully bringing home this literary souvenir of the war.  And I rejoiced in the serendipity that led me to it.  As a graduate student, I had seen it as symbol of the academic life we aspired to join.  Now, years after the dissertation on modern dress productions of Shakespeare had been completed and accepted, I saw it as a treasure to be conserved, as a sign of the enduring appeal of a playwright whose grave had been sought out even in the midst of war. 

Had that 1944 visit to the Parish Church of Stratford-upon-Avon brought a moment of respite?Consolation? Excitement?While I will never know the impact of that visit, I have been glad to have its tangible result.