A woman was shocked to find a lost World War One gravestone in her back garden while gardening. While digging up the paving stones that had been at the property since before she moved in, she noticed writing on the other side and quickly realised she was holding something of historical significance.
However, on closer inspection, she discovered the gravestone included an error - and that's why it was discarded.
It is thought the engravers cast it aside due to making a mistake when writing Mr Moran's death date considering WW1 ended in 1918. The gravestone reads: "Theodore E. Moran. Ohio. PFC CO 334 DN Tank Corp. World War One. March 15 1896. Feb 17 1957."
Her friend uploaded a picture of the gravestone on Reddit, saying: "She turned over a landscaping stone in her backyard once and found a WWI gravestone.
"I remember it being explained as a misspelling or a mistake in the birth or death date.
"I never did the research on it, but the word is these grammatical errors were really common during wartimes because the number of deaths were so high that gravestone engravers basically had to mass produce them.
"When one was found to be incorrect, it was sent back to be redone. A new one was produced and the old ones were sold to be made into gravel. I guess some found their way into the hands of landscapers."
Users went on to explain how some families would replace their love ones' standardised gravestones with custom ones when they could afford to do so, while others claimed landscapers would buy those with typos on them because they were cheaper than usual stones.
One user said: "These were standardised markers so if a family opted to later replace it with a customised headstone, they could keep the old one.
Another user added: "They would sell the ones with typos as paving slabs. There's a sidewalk in my town that has an infant's grave from the 1700s as part of it.
A third user said: "Landscaping stone is fairly expensive, and a nice piece of finished stone has all sorts of applications.
"I was building a low wall to surround a sitting area in my garden last year, and I would have built the whole thing out of erroneous grave markers if they were 50p cheaper than the other options."
Others urged her to get in touch with Mr Moran's family to see whether they'd like to keep the gravestone.
One user said: "I hope your friend tries to get in touch with the relatives of Theodore E. Moran. I'm sure his family would be grateful."
Another user added: "Wonder if they replaced it with the dual stone back in the 60s? Bet the family would love to have it back though."
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