You might want to think twice next time you’re tucking into a piece of fudge, because it could have been made on a 150-year-old gravestone.
The family of a woman in Michigan, US, was shocked to find out that her marble surface for making seasonal fudge was actually a man's gravestone.
As reported by CNN, the monument was discovered in August on an estate auction site after the matriarch of the family was placed in care for Alzheimer’s.
The family hired an auctioneer to take care of items and found the slab of marble and the family told him they used it to make fudge, but couldn’t remember how it got there.
It was only when the auctioneer turned it over that its true identity was revealed – a tombstone.
Speaking to CNN, Loretta S. Stanaway, president of Lansing’s Historic Cemeteries, said: “We looked into trying to find any relatives to see what we could figure out what the story was from a relative standpoint or someone who could give us permission to put the monument back where it belongs, but we weren't able to find any survivors.”
Until finally, they discovered the gravestone's rightful owner, Peter J. Weller, who died in 1849 in Lansig, Michigan, and was buried in Oak Park Cemetery.
In 1875, his grave was moved to Mount Hope Cemetery, but the monument never made it, and had been missing for 146 years before it was returned.
The auctioneer donated the monument to FOLHC (Friends of Lansing’s Historic Cemeteries) and they got to work restoring the plot where they also discovered that Weller had two daughters and a daughter-in-law buried in the same cemetery.
His daughter-in-law’s stone had been restored in 2014, so they decided to restore his daughter’s as well.
Weller now resides next to his daughters, finally, 172 years after his death.
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