My wife and I went graveyard hopping on Memorial Day. She’s an amateur genealogist and a member of her local DAR chapter. We started the day at a small cemetery in Vancouver, Washington where she and I, along with five other members of DAR chapter, placed flags on the graves of every veteran in the cemetery. Then we did something that I’ve been wanting to do for years but never had the opportunity—we drove down to Lake Oswego, Oregon and visited Linus Pauling’s gravesite. He is buried next to his wife Ava, and three other members of his family. Somebody had already been there, probably that same day, and placed puka shell necklaces on all five markers. I Googled it to see if I could find any reference to this, but came up empty-handed. Did puka shells have any significance for Pauling or anybody in his family?
Those particular ones were found to be unusually high in ascorbic acid. They were Vitamin C shells.
Sorry, let’s just call this a bump.
Certainly not a new thing, not specific to the Pauling family.
It seems that shellls are suitably long lasting, sort of bright and resistant to turning dark, but not much value to a thief.
There have been meanings ascribed…
See
Why Victorian-era Southerners created seashell graves and where you can still see them - al.com