John Ivey in Lake Hill Cemetery, Orlo Vista, Florida

Warning! I have very few photos  for this post. These headstones are in a shaded area and I visited 3 times at different times of day in an attempt to get better photos, but to no avail. John Ivey just does not want to be photographed.

I’ve wanted to write about John Ivey for quite some time, but this is the first opportunity that I’ve had to kind of dive into a little research in awhile. Lake Hill is one of my favorite cemeteries in Orlando, and it’s the one that I go to after storms and hurricanes to make sure everything is still okay. When I’m there I always stop by Mr. Ivey’s grave site and check on their plot.

The cemetery used to be called the Patrick Cemetery and when you go you will see several names over and over again, Patrick, Beasley, Jernigan, and Ivey. Many of the bodies here were moved from the original Patrick cemetery to this plot in 1884, and have been here ever since. This cemetery is of historical significance because the people here were some of the first founders and pioneers in Orlando, though the place looks unassuming and simple. Other Orlando influences can be found in Greenwood Cemetery downtown, which is more ostentatious than simple Lake Hill. Aaron Jernigan has his own tidy memorial right in front of the small shed on the property (next to the flagpole). Someone regularly leaves alcohol for him, and it appears that is preferences are Wild Turkey and Jim Beam. I’m a Beam girl myself.

John Ivey (1834-1923) was a man with many jobs. First, he was husband to two different women in his life, and he had 6 children with each of them. Next, he was Orange county’s first Sherriff and tax collector. Finally, he was the elected Justice of the Peace and Coroner. Viewing their page on Find-A-Grave is wonderful, you see who married who, what their headstones look like, and how the family merged with the Patrick family by marriage. I’d love to see their family tree!

John Ivey died at 1:30 a.m. at home, and his funeral was the next day. His funeral record does not list a cause of death, but he was elderly. His occupation was listed as “Farming”, so he must have retired a gentleman farmer.

Nearby you will see the grave of Emma R. Ivey, who is supposedly the first burial at this site in 1884. She and several of the family members have beautiful hand stamped headstones with the patent at the bottom of a couple of them, and delicate floral (or maybe wheat?) motifs. I LOVE them. These are the ones I panic over during storms since there are so many trees nearby. After the last hurricane when I got to the cemetery several large branches had fallen near the stones, almost encircling them but barely touching them. These stones are similar to ones in Greenwood Cemetery downtown that have an ivy and anchor motif stamped on them. She is the daughter of John and Matilda.

If you get a chance please visit Lake Hill Cemetery. The Ivey plot is to the far right once you’re in the gates.

Last weekend was our first ‘official’ clean up at Page Jackson Cemetery and I was thrilled to see the people who showed up pour their hard work and passion into restoring the cemetery. They asked questions, vowed to come back, and scrubbed off lichen like they’d been doing it all their lives. I felt so lucky to be there on such a beautiful morning with such an incredible group of people. The next one will be this fall, and we will be advertising it early so we can get a larger group. I hope I can meet some of you.

Additionally, please take a look at what my friend Chris is doing this summer! She’s traveling to cemeteries in the Eastern U.S. in preparation for another book. I enjoyed her last book, Drawn to The Dark, which is about her travels all over the world to explore different forms of dark tourism. My favorite chapter was on the Krampus Festival in Salzberg, which sounded both terrifying and painful. Apparently, you can attend a Krampus Lauf and get whacked on the legs- hard enough to leave a welt. She also went to Italy, Japan, and (my dream trip) Transylvania. If trips like these sound like your dream vacation, be sure to check out her book!

 

Requests on Find A Grave

If you’re familiar with Find A Grave and love all things graveyards, it might be fulfilling for you to volunteer by looking up photo requests and submitting them. To do this, you will first need to register on Find-A-Grave, which only takes a couple of minutes. From there, the world of people looking for headstones is all yours for the taking!

People ask me frequently if I make this a practice and the answer is yes and no. Yes, when I’m working in a cemetery that is not fully photographed or abandoned I will check my photos against the data when I get home. Because of this I’ve been able to add several people. But I don’t do it with every cemetery I visit, though it is my goal this year to be more conscious of the fact that there may be requests listed in the cemeteries that I go to.

Requests will be listed on the cemetery main page on Find-A-Grave. When you click on them you will see a list of the requested photos, along with whether or not anyone has claimed them. I find it interesting to look at any problem requests, just to see what others encountered in that cemetery. Usually it is simply that the marker is missing or there never was one to begin with.

When you register Find-A-Grave will periodically send you an email if someone submits a request in your area, and the other day I got one for Corporal Charles Esters, who died in 1967. When I looked him up on the website it said that it had already been claimed, but there were no notes from the claimant and no photos of his headstone, and I decided to go take a look. Washington Park Cemetery is just about 3 miles from my house, and I had nothing going on that afternoon that couldn’t be put off until later. I’d been by the cemetery before but had never been inside, so it seemed like a good way to spend a couple of hours.

This request was detailed in that it listed his section and the plot number. Sections are usually easy to locate in most modern cemeteries, but plots can be difficult. Section C was quite large and on 2 sides of the road, so I started on the right.

Washington Park isn’t unusual in any way, but it is a very modern take on a cemetery. There are no headstones, just flat markers, and almost no shade. It’s hot as hell in there in the middle of the day and I could feel my skin aging the minute I was out of the car. Since there wasn’t a way for me to tell which way the plots ran I just decided to walk up and down the aisles as best I could. Find-A-Grave says that this cemetery is 46% photographed, and I think the reason why the number is so low is because there are a lot of unmarked graves. In the longer stretches with no markers the ground still undulates slightly and has numerous patches of greener grass. This cemetery is also still a very active and busy site. They have a large supply of vaults around the property and new burials toward the back.

I walked for an hour with sweat running down my face and back before I called it a day. Even though I had been in a section of burials from the 1960’s I still didn’t see his marker.  Disappointed, I drove home to nurse my sunburn and drink a gallon of water.

The next night Shawn and I had just finished dinner when he offered to go out there with me again. It had rained and was much cooler, and we figured that maybe with 2 of us searching we might be able to find him. Because it was the night before Mother’s Day there was steady traffic coming in and out, and a lot of families grouped around graves, talking and enjoying the breeze after the recent rain. We headed for Section C, each of us took a different part, and we started walking.

The cemetery has trees and brush to one side and there was an intoxicating smell coming from them. I took a closer look and saw a lot of pink flowers. They smelled amazing! It made me think of the unidentified floral smell in Page Jackson and I wondered if these were in the woods somewhere.

After an hour dusk was looming we decided to leave. The cars coming in had their headlights on now and the cemetery wasn’t gated, but I didn’t think we should be in there for too much longer. As we walked to the car the sky behind us was the color of fire, and the grave lights were coming on in the cemetery, creating little stars of light against the green grass. It was beautiful, and completely transformed from it’s somewhat stark daytime appearance.

The cemetery dates back to at least the early 1930’s. Shawn and I were unable to locate any graves earlier than 1932. The one that I did see was actually a headstone but had been knocked flat to blend in with the rest of the markers, which was a practice I’d never seen at another cemetery. Mowing this place must be a nightmare. Cemetery maintenance does a good job with the upkeep of this place, and is on a very large piece of property.

I was sorry that we didn’t find Mr. Esther’s headstone, and I’ll probably go look one more time and contact the cemetery office if the claimant doesn’t add notes or photos. His one photo on Find A Grave shows him in his uniform looking young, strong, and proud. I love the photo and hope that someone can locate his grave.

Meanwhile, prayers and positive thoughts for my family would be appreciated as we lost one of our own yesterday. My cousin passed away suddenly on his birthday. He was 57 years old. I am still shocked, and hoping to hear more about what happened when I see my family for the funeral this week.

The Ybor City Ghosts

Chris and I planned this night out for weeks ahead of time. I was all excited the day before I was supposed to meet her in Tampa, but I woke up at 2 a.m. the morning of green-faced, sweating, and vividly remembering a horrible nightmare. Some people don’t recall their dreams, but I can recall them years later. I can smell in them. Taste in them. See colors. Talk, control them, or wake myself up if need be. I’ve tried to hone the waking myself up part a lot over the last few years. Sometimes I don’t make it.

This dream was probably due to eating very late the night before and then immediately falling asleep. Despite the natural reasons, I felt unsettled all morning and stayed in bed with a pile of books, a cup of green tea, and a cat. When it was time to leave I was feeling marginally better, and thought I’d be okay to drive over to Tampa.

Chris and I met in L’Unione Italiana but they were closing in ten minutes, so we visited a couple of other cemeteries before deciding to get out of the heat and head over to Burger 21 to meet two of her friends, Michelle and Sue, for dinner and the tour. We devoted an hour to dinner and then drove to Ybor City, which is gorgeous. It’s beautiful in the sunshine, during the sunset, any time of day, really, but it truly comes alive at night. It literally feels like you’re in another place altogether at night. The men sit outside of the cafes in a cloud of grey cigar smoke watching the women walk by, while the women sit in groups of friends drinking wine or coffee and staring back at the men. It’s all fairly polite and restrained.

We met Max, our tour guide, at King Corona Cigars on 7th. When we walked inside to take a look around it was hard to see because of the haze of cigar smoke that hung like a wreath around everyone’s head. When I went home the smell was in my hair and in my clothes, and it thankfully overpowered the pervading smell of sweat and sunburn that I’d carried around all day.

There were 8 of us on the tour, and promptly at 8 o’clock Max appeared, introduced himself, and our two hour walking tour began.

If you’re concerned about walking for two hours don’t be- there were frequent stops and the highest elevation was about 34 feet at the “hill” in Ybor City. It was an easy walk, and the night was cool and comfortable after the heat of the day. When we stopped at one point I looked over my shoulder and saw that the full moon was rising, the Pink Moon. It was so beautiful, sending a faint glow down over the red brick buildings. The moon added so much to the tour for me, but I’ve always been a moon lover.

I won’t tell you everything that the tour covered to leave some mystery, but I will highlight my favorite part, which was the Cuban Club. I thought that the tour would only include stories about the history of various buildings and inhabitants of the city, but we actually got to go in 2 buildings. The Cuban Club (built in 1917) is stunning, and included in it’s heyday a ballroom, a theater, and much to the chagrin of the Italian Club down the street, a swimming pool. When Max unlocked the door I was pretty excited to go in, and when I stepped over the threshold it was to heat and an odd smell, almost like the smell of an old hotel…if that makes any sense. Older carpet, old paint, plaster, that kind of smell. We walked downstairs and when we got to the bottom of the stairs I saw a movement to my right, but I thought that I was looking at a mirrored wall and that I was seeing the reflection of someone in the group. The lights were very dim and around the corner from where we were, so the section we were in had no overhead lights at all. Several people pulled out their phones in order to look around.

A child had died here, he drowned in the swimming pool. The pool had been bricked in and filled with concrete many years earlier, but you could still feel the energy of the water there, and it didn’t feel good or like it had been a happy place. I walked to the side to look at the corner where I saw movement earlier. It wasn’t a mirror, it was an open doorway. I turned away. I don’t know what I saw.

When we walked up the stairs Max told us we could take a quick peek at the theater, which was overwhelming. The ticket booth was white and gold, and the theater itself was 2 storied, with a balcony and a ceiling painted sky blue. The pendant lamps (not on, we were in the dark) were ornate brass and the air was so incredibly still, as though it were breathlessly waiting for people to file in again, laughing and talking as they found their seats. It was magical, and my favorite part of the whole experience. Also, all of my photos from this part have white marks or streaks on them.

We ended the night with a visit to Cheezy’s, which was a pizza joint/speakeasy and had once been a church. It amazed me that while you could tell you were inside a church because of the shape of the windows and the orientation (unless I’m very much mistaken the bar is where the pulpit used to be), you couldn’t feel the weight of all those years of prayer and petition. I loved it. The owner came and spoke to us, and we had a round of Shirley Temples and chocolate milk since we were all driving home and it was late. The bartender had even decorated the glasses with chocolate syrup to make it all look fancy and it was an adorable touch.

I had such a great time on this tour and plan to go again this fall when the renovations for the Cuban Club are complete and there will be more access to the building, but if you get the chance, go.

I’m doing some work on Pinterest now so the blog might have a few minor changes in the near future.

Roselawn Cemetery, Tallahassee, Florida

A computer glitch kept me from my 2 usual posts last month. I just know I’m going to toss this thing in a dumpster one day. Now onto the post…

I don’t know many people that incorporate a cemetery visit into a girl’s weekend trip, but I did. As it turns out, the ladies that I was with had family members buried in Roselawn, and I really wanted to go and visit them. Jennifer’s mom and grandparents were in Roselawn, and Dawn’s mom was there. I remembered Jen’s mom and grandma, and certainly Dawn’s mom, Carol.

Jennifer’s Grandma Ernestine was a sweet woman, and she always believed the best of us, no matter what we did or how terrible it was. It was her husband that owned the enormous Buick Park Avenue that Jen learned to drive in, and that we all rode around in as kids. That thing could literally hold 8 of us comfortably. Even on this trip Jennifer drove; it’s in her blood since she’s literally been doing it since she was WAY under the legal driving (or learning) age. Grandpa had a lot of well-placed faith in her.

Dawn’s mom died suddenly in 2017 and we stopped first to see her. Before the trip we all trudged to Wal Mart to buy new flowers. Dawn’s mom loved hydrangeas, so we were looking specifically for those and thankfully, they had some.

We met Jennifer at Roselawn in front of Dawn’s family plot. Her mom had been cremated and Dawn had purchased a pretty marker for her, and she cleaned this carefully and then dusted the leaves off of the headstones of her other family members. She prepared the flowers, removed the old ones, and then set them up in the owl vase her daughter had chosen for the space. The rest of us loitered around, very conscious of the fact that there was nothing easy about coming out here or doing any of this. Mendy and I sat on a bench talking, enjoying the music from the wind chimes over our heads. It was a windy day and the sound was rich and vibrant on the spring breeze.

Dawn’s mom was funny and kind, and she drove us to school on many rainy or cold mornings, both in middle school and then later on when we went to high school, the same one she had also graduated from. Spending the night at their house mostly felt like home when I was a kid, and she created that feeling.

Afterward we went to see the Warner’s, Jennifer’s family, which were located closer to the back of the cemetery. When we were kids after a long night out we would sometimes drive out here around midnight or later for Jen to talk to her grandfather. This was before the cemetery was gated, before it became home to over 8,000 burials. Most of the time the rest of us would stay in the car while she sat on his grave for a few minutes. We would roll the windows down and listen to the crickets, and look cautiously around at the pitch black night that surrounded us in the big car. For the most part though, I always felt safe. It’s a beautiful place.

This time I placed flowers on Ernestine’s grave and told her that yes, that was Jennifer running down her road in the middle of the night once when we were in high school, and that yes, Jennifer had lied about it when asked. While we were up to no good that night as usual, we weren’t doing anything more serious than staying out too late.

Jen was still mad about the headstone that her brother had picked out for her mom, who was in the next plot. She gestured to it wildly and asked us what the hell we thought of it. (She phrased it just like that, which is why I’ve always liked her.) Here is Cheryl Warner Coker’s epitaph:

We do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest that have no hope.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.

1 Thessalonians 4-13-14

 

“What the hell is that?” she asked, gesturing again (this time I caught it on camera). We all slumped over, looking a little closer, waiting for the punchline. The truth was, none of us would have picked that for Cheryl’s marker. I think she would have been more suited to a song lyric from the 70’s rather than a long winded and particularly flowery Bible verse. My memories of her included music, cigarettes, and her laughter. Jennifer obviously thought her brother had not chosen appropriately, but there’s nothing to be done about it after all this time, and I still say when people are grieving they’re pretty much out of their minds for awhile. And that’s okay. Maybe that’s why he chose that inscription. At the time, it may have felt perfect.

Or he could have been trying to annoy Jennifer.

I know not many people would meet their girlfriends on a bright Saturday morning in a cemetery, but after being away from Tallahassee for over 20 years without going back, I wanted to see everybody, both alive and dead. We went by all of our old houses and were alarmed at some of the changes, especially Mendy’s, which was abandoned. We went by our old middle school and high school and took pictures. We did all of the things that you do when you come back to a place, all the while layering the present over the past by talking about kids, spouses, and jobs. Reminiscing wasn’t as painful as I’d thought it would be.

I was grateful for that.

I am giving my first talk about a cemetery in Tampa next week, so please quietly cheer me on from wherever you are. I’ll be talking to kids, so I’m pretty excited about that. Can’t wait to hear their questions!

 

 

 

Finding Bones in Cemeteries

 

The cemetery that I’m in the most is Page Jackson in Sanford, Florida. We (Gus and I) recently worked with the city and FPAN to start an Adopt a Cemetery project with them, hosting 4 clean-ups a year. Because some of the cemetery is under private ownership we will be focusing on the front section and the oldest, once called the Friendship and Union Cemetery. As soon as we have a date for our first clean up I’ll be posting, but we’re still ironing out details. However, we are VERY excited. (The section that I mention below is no longer safe to enter.)

Page Jackson is a cemetery that doesn’t follow a plan and it never has. It’s messy and sunken and doesn’t make sense. It’s horribly overgrown. In a place like that, I expect to see bones of some sort and it usually happens. We find them scattered around, almost always animal, but still always a shock when we see them. One day last year while we were walking the dirt road that curves around the cemetery we stopped and I picked up what I thought was an unusual rock, but when we looked a little closer it was actually bone. After a moment we photographed it and then tossed it back into the roadway, believing it was animal.

When I sent that photo to a friend that knows about osteological remains he asked me, “Where did you get this?” I told him. “That one’s human,” he said. As a result, I don’t toss them anymore, but instead photograph them in place and sometimes in my hand as well, and then put them right back where I found them. I keep flags in the car in case we ever find anything huge and obvious, but I’ve never had to use them. I use them for buried headstones and that kind of thing.

However, I always knew that there would be a day when I would see something so glaringly obvious in a cemetery that it would shock me. I’m a big believer in the Law of Attraction, and it seems to work with everything, including bones, because I see them all the time now in historic cemeteries. I think it’s like noticing any other thing in life, once you see it you start seeing it everywhere, whatever it is. (When I was looking to adopt a new cat all I saw were calico cats everywhere. It was like other types of cats didn’t even exist.)

On our visit to Carrolton Cemetery in New Orleans we split up, each holding an umbrella and both of us freezing but determined to check out the cemeteries. Carrolton has a lot of decayed vaults and I saw many that were caved in. I would look up, getting a feel for the way the vaults were made, and then I would look down, seeing what was in the rubble. It was a lot of slate roofing tiles and a lot of casket hardware from where they just collapsed when the roof fell. I loved seeing the hardware, I think it’s beautiful and it was interesting to see a few examples. I took a peek in one vault though and there was a rib. It didn’t exactly startle me, I just thought it was interesting. I didn’t touch it and kept walking.

A day later we went to St. Louis Cemetery Number 2, which is actually my favorite one in the city. In that one we saw a lot of bone fragments but nothing obvious, and I believed that some were most likely from animals as well. In that cemetery they seemed to be everywhere, which made it more interesting for sure. I was watching where I stepped the whole time.

On the last day we had 2 hours before we had to head to the airport for a very late flight. I was cranky and hungry, Shawn was trying to find a place to get food for me so I’d shut up, and he passed a cemetery we had gone by multiple times, but had not gone in. (I’d prefer not to say the name.) He asked if I wanted to go in, I said no. He turned in anyway and I asked what he was doing.

“Let’s just take a look, because you’re tired but I know you’ll regret it if we don’t at least look, so come on.” He parked and I got out without comment. I knew he was probably right.

I walked over to the right to look at a mausoleum. I was reading the names and dates and he suddenly appeared and asked me to follow him in a tight voice, so I did.

“Look,” he said, pointing to a grave.

I looked. We were standing by a family plot and right there on the ground, literally next to my foot, was what could only be a femur. And next to that, a hip socket. Then a piece of jaw. Then a vertebrae. It was like the person had been scrambled and thrown into the air for the parts to land wherever they fell. I just stood there, staring.

There were 3 places with bone debris in that cemetery. I’m not exactly sure how they came to have that many bones on the surface, but there they were. It wasn’t a situation where I felt compelled to take action, either, because the cemetery was scrupulously maintained and burials here are different. There wasn’t anyone hanging out, picking up bits and pieces and putting them in their trunk, and it was obvious that no one had been pulled from their grave or casket. The bones were just…there. No vandalism had taken place that I could see. While it wasn’t exactly unsettling,  it was surprising.

We looked quietly but didn’t say much or touch anything. On the way to the airport we were quiet. Both tired, both a little shocked. I have a couple of friends that will pick up anything, and I kept wondering what their reaction would have been. I didn’t feel any inclination to touch these at all.

I still wonder if I’ll react the same way if it ever happens again.

 

 

The Legacy of Traumatic Experiences

This month the trial for the widow of the Pulse shooter begins. Noor Salman pled not  guilty to all charges.

For Orlando residents this trial will bring forth a wave of memories that I’m sure many wanted to put behind them for good. The day I learned about the shooting I was sitting downtown with my fiancee at a Korean Restaurant waiting for the food to arrive, and I just sat there with tears running down my cheeks. I cried for the people who died. I cried for the people who lived. I cried for the police and investigators who had to walk into that crime scene and work. I could barely get myself together and could barely eat, and I haven’t been back to that restaurant since, just because I associate it with those feelings. (Nothing against them at all.) That whole day I just wanted to talk to my mom.

In 2011 when my coworkers and I were in the lobby at my job and a man was dragged in off the street, with his throat cut and bleeding to death, my thoughts later that week were that this was a temporary thing, a feeling that would go away and that we would all heal with time. In some ways I did, but I now recognize that kind of self talk as pure panic on my part. And I was panicking.

-I was afraid to go to work or walk into a public building for months afterward.

-I hired a therapist but found that once I was there I was unable to talk about what happened at all. I went for several months, but always talked about other issues in my life and skirted the big one.

-I was unable to tell my friends about what happened because they were so horrified when I did try to talk to them. My boyfriend at the time broke up with me two days after, because he apparently couldn’t cope.

-I had trouble eating for weeks and lost a lot of weight. I had insomnia and anxiety and ended up taking Xanax for 4 years.

-My mom did not know how to support me, but she managed when others could not.

-I am still afraid of large public buildings and feel scared to attend large events, including church services. I’ve learned to make myself do some things and decline others that I know will make me too nervous.

Even with one death, a lot of people were touched, and I was technically (physically) unharmed. There were the 6 of us working that night, plus my manager, the police officers, the paramedics, the man who brought him into the building (who continued coming in afterward but would never walk through the same set of doors again), the cleaning staff, the shitty counselor that my employer hired for (ONE) session as a group that we were required to attend, and then the friends and family of all the people there that night, plus our own doctors and therapists. This one death went on an on, and I didn’t even mention the victim’s family, or the man who committed the crime and his family.

I feel so much for people in recovery when they’ve been exposed to violence. I can’t even express how much it saddens me. To see it treated as a condition that you just get over, like having a bad cold, upsets me greatly.

I finally was able to talk about it almost 5 years later. It was in a group of my peers, and it was the scariest thing I’d even done- just articulating what happened that night and knowing that the people in the room would be horrified. Part of why I never talked about it was because I didn’t want to upset anyone else with that story. Instead, I was embraced and accepted, and ultimately, assisted.

I still know the man’s name and age when he died, and where he is buried. I know that he doesn’t have a headstone and that the cemetery he is in is not the best one in the area, since the owner died and there is no money for maintenance, so it falls to the city and their limited budget. He is in another state.

One of the men I worked with that night and I have kept in touch. His name is Brian. We both left that job within about a year of each other. It took us both awhile, each for different reasons. I started this blog and started visiting cemeteries as a hobby, and started advocating for one in particular that I felt for. My friend started a series of paintings and works of art that are dark and disturbing and make me feel uncomfortable to look at, but I love them. My favorite is a man with his features blurred, as though the paint ran unexpectedly or was smeared somehow. That painting makes me remember what it felt like to have something simmering inside me that I was unable to talk about. The feeling of being muzzled. I liked it that both of us took what we went through and did something to channel it. I wish I knew what happened to the other people who were there that night.

I should have talked to my therapist, but I’m glad that when I finally did talk about it all I was with such a supportive group of women. And my God, if you’re even in a situation to support a victim or a witness to violence, do it. Don’t act like it didn’t happen. Even if you just listen, it will make a difference.

As this trial begins I can’t help wondering how many people will support the families of the victims, the witnesses, and the officials who worked this crime; this mass shooting. The consequences of that one event will have repercussions that last for generations. Today you can still visit the building and see the memorial that people have created to the victims. Any time I drive by there are people standing there, thoughtfully reading the tributes

All photos of Pulse and the memorial set up in front of the building courtesy of Gus Leigh. You can read his work at this link.

 

 

 

Oakland African American Cemetery, Oakland, Florida

There are a lot of things about Orlando that I dislike, and sometimes progress is one of them. One morning when I was working at the Golf Channel I drove to work at 6:30 a.m. and saw a coyote walk out of the tall grass in a field across from our building and vanish into a nearby office complex. It was an interesting moment since I’d never seen a coyote before, and I sat in my car watching him intently. No one else was there. No one else saw it. And the next week the whole field had been mowed down and was now magically transforming into a storage facility for people to dump all of their crap that won’t fit inside their house.

Oakland Cemetery is facing similar circumstances when it comes to progress. Everything is happening around this site, and I’m not sure where the cemetery will fit in when the construction is completed. There are actually 2 Oakland Cemeteries, and when I saw the first one 2 years ago I thought I was in this one until someone told me recently that no, the other one was in the woods to the left, and that you had to just hike in.

Recently Shawn came home from work and picked me up, telling me he’d passed a cemetery we hadn’t been to yet and that he wanted to take me there. Guess which one it was? When we got to the site around 6 p.m. there were still a few construction workers milling around, but the cleared site is so immense that they never bothered us. They’re building something huge. The site starts right next to the first cemetery that I visited and is a desolate, open expanse of dirt until you look to the left and see an iron arch marking the entrance to the cemetery. We still had to hike over to it through the soft dirt, and then I jumped the fence to get in while Shawn looked around for another way. The arch said it was established in 1882.

At first I didn’t see anything noteworthy except for the fact that the site was heavily wooded and there were no markers. As I walked though I noticed a path and began to follow it. It dipped down into a little valley filled with all types of green ferns and oak trees dripping moss. because of the hour the moss was lit from the setting sun and looked like gold. It was a stunningly beautiful place for a cemetery and I stood there on the path for a few minutes, just looking around and taking in the beauty and odd peacefulness, since the cemetery is very close to the highway. After some time I began to see the odd marker here and there, nearly covered by ferns, and lots of white PVC pipe. In fact I was seeing it everywhere, and I know that each pipe indicated a burial. An archeology group had come out to work on the cemetery a few years ago and they marked the burials they could find with PVC. The Eagle Scouts have also at one time worked here, and from what I was able to find they were responsible for the arch and some previous clean up efforts.

The land was handed over to the city for maintenance and the chain link fence that surrounds the property was put up (there is an open entrance in the gate though, we saw it later on), but the fate of the cemetery is still unknown though it appears that they intend to leave it.

The cemetery is the resting place for many of Oakland’s founders, and also a lot of flu victims from 1918 are buried here. It hit this area particularly hard and many of the cemeteries in the area are a testament to this. It is believed that during that year up to 650,000 people died in America. The totals by state are staggering, and those numbers aren’t even certain. Most likely the numbers were higher. There is once cemetery on Orange Avenue here that is full of flu victims, and the cemetery is actually quite small. I remember reading one account of four funerals being held in one day. For a growing community it would have been devastating.

I used to feel extremely emotional over sites like this, still do sometimes. But I think after the past couple of years of looking for cemeteries that are long gone and doing a lot of reading that I feel more detached. You can stop people from doing what they’re going to do and doing it without regard for others. It’s the way things are now. It doesn’t make the site or the people buried there any less important. They’re still a part of our past and I hope this site will be preserved.

When we got back to the car Shawn spent a good five minutes pulling pernicious little stickers off of me. I was covered.

 

Association For Gravestone Studies Meeting

Have you ever wondered if there were other people who love cemeteries as much as you do? Have you ever wished that you could meet a bunch of them all at once and feel like you belonged?

Well, that wish can come true, my friend. Two weeks ago I went to the first meeting of the Florida Chapter for AGS. I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect, but I was at the last CRPT conference when a short meeting was held to see if there was any interest in starting a Florida chapter. Every person at the conference was interested. We all signed our names and info on a sheet to express our desire to start the chapter, and within a few months, it was done. Shelby Bender is our chapter president and not only did I recognize her at the meeting, but there were other people there from previous CRPT events. Because of that I felt comfortable right away an less like my shy, reclusive self.

When I got to the Alachua County Library in Gainesville I was about 30 minutes early. It was a chilly, overcast day and I walked two blocks to Starbucks to get something warm to sip on during the meeting. By the time I got to the meeting room there was a small queue of people waiting to sign in.

The library looks dull and beige-ly boring from the outside but the interior is gorgeous, with huge wooden beams overhead and a cool green color on the walls. It was a very soothing, grounding space and I thought regretfully of the 10 years that I spent in the Orlando Public Library, which always looked and felt like a prison to me. I know some people love Brutalist architecture and I think that’s great, so you go right ahead. The world needs all kinds of people.

There was a woman standing behind me in line as I waited to sign in and I turned to her and said, “This library is beautiful.” I was in awe of the meeting room, which had stained glass panels at the top of the room with a pattern that made me think of an eclipse. She smiled and agreed…and we’ve been talking ever since. I had met author and speaker Chris Kullstroem from Tampa, and I was in for an entertaining afternoon.

I was also thrilled to look up and see Keila and her fiancee walking in. I knew they were going to be attending the cemetery ramble afterward, but did not know they would be present at the meeting. We had to keep our chatter to a  minimum during the presentation but I’ll admit that I did pass a few notes. After the meeting and business at hand we met in Evergreen Municipal Cemetery for a walk and guided tour.

The cemetery covers 53 acres and was established in 1856 with the burial of a baby girl, Elizabeth Thomas, and then her mother 8 months later. She had given birth at 40, and I can only imagine what she went through in 1856. I actually did not know this at the time of our tour or I would have listened a little more carefully, but their marker is pictured below, carved by W.T. White. First burials are always a curiosity to me, since that seems to be what starts a cemetery most of the time, rather than land deeded or given specifically for that purpose. When the land was sold one acre remained a graveyard until the city purchased it in 1944, though there was a cemetery association in the 1890’s that managed the site. It now holds more than 10,000 people on it’s 53 acres, but Find A Grave lists a number in the nine thousands. The cemetery has a nickname, “The Wondrous Place”.

There are many notable burials here and our guide walked us through while telling story after story, but apparently one of our number was particularly offended by the fact that he left out a grave that she wanted to see, and she was pretty vocal about it. It was the grave of Robert Cade, the inventor of Gatorade. He had an unassuming grave near the roadway, and the guide pointed it out to her (it was so close we could read his name) but she continued complaining and at that point, I became offended as well. My cemetery zen only goes so far, apparently. It was the only thing about the day that irritated me.

We also learned that there was a notable stone mason who made several of the stones in the cemetery, W.T. White from Charleston, South Carolina. Headstones were delivered by bringing them along the coast and then up the St. John’s River to Palatka for delivery. I recalled hearing a similar story in St. Augustine in the Huguenot Cemetery about the headstones being made in Charleston and thought it was fascinating. White’s headstones can also be found in Tolomato Cemetery in St. Augustine. (See below.)

I also was very drawn to a headstone that said Our Mary, with a small, ghostly female image carved out of the stone. It had it’s hands held as if in prayer and a pale, pleading face tilted upward. It was simple and almost folksy in it’s style. I loved it.

I’d like to go back to this cemetery with just a couple of people so I could wander on my own and also check out all of the bells and whistles that they have- including an extensive audio tour with 38 places where you can listen to a recording about the person buried there. There is a tour brochure that you can download here.

All in all it was a great day with friends, and if you’re interested in joining your local chapter of the AGS or starting your own chapter please visit their website for more information. I’ll be cemetery hopping with Keila this spring, and reviewing one of Chris’s books on here soon, so there are adventures to look forward to. Also, is anyone going to head to that abandoned funeral home in Jacksonville with me or not? If you’ve been, please tell me. If you’ve been and were arrested for trespassing, please don’t comment. I don’t want to be anxious about going.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cast Iron Mausoleums

When I think of cast iron I tend to think of two things; cornbread and cemeteries. Cornbread cooked in a cast iron skillet is far better than any other, and cemeteries usually have iron gates…and apparently in New Orleans, they also have iron mausoleums.

I’d never seen one before, so I literally shot out of the car when we spied the first one in Cypress Grove Cemetery. I could not believe it- it was rusted to a bright orange-ish brown but still sturdy and straight, looking impenetrable. I was smitten. I sent a photo to Gus and he wrote back that he was packing his things and would be ready to move in in a couple of hours. I felt the same way, morbid as it may seem. I did knock gently on one just to hear the ring of the iron, and thankfully, no one answered.

My main experience with cast iron in a cemetery has been the occasional grave marker and of course, ornate iron fence work. A lot of it around here seemed to come from Cincinnati according to the small name plates that I occasionally find on gates and fences, and it looks like you can still get ironwork from that area. Additionally, I’ve always been fascinated with the cast iron caskets, especially the Fisk model patented in 1848. Plus, the thing had a viewing window, which is always a draw for me.

The cast iron mausoleums that we saw appeared to be kits, since we kept seeing the same type over and over. One model was in the same cemetery in both the original rusted iron, painted white, and painted silver, which had the exact same sheen as the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz. The silver one had a makers mark on the bottom of the door that said ‘Robert Wood & Co Makers Phila’. His foundry was at 1136 Ridge Avenue in Philly. Online you can view his original catalogs, and they’re fascinating! I scrolled through a book published in 1867 and saw porch railings, spiral staircases, lampposts, and a few cemetery ornaments such as angels and lions. All ornate. All magical. I could never choose if I were building a house in the late 1800’s.

Robert Wood was a blacksmith who operated under his own name until taking a partner in 1857 and becoming Wood and Perot. Robert Wood and Co. became the name after Perot’s death in 1865.

 

The family name was sometimes custom made for the front of the mausoleum and on others it simply said ‘Family Tomb’. The motif on many was the upside down torch, though there were also angels, and one even had an ocean theme with mysterious fish on the sides and waterspouts that looked like seashells. The iron was placed over a brick and mortar base that you can see in one of the photos. Everything, down to the doorknobs and locks was perfectly and ornately detailed. It really is an incredible process and I’m sure these things will last for many more years.

It’s hard to say how many of these came from the same maker since I didn’t see the mark on all of them, but New Orleans has 16 of them in various cemeteries in the city. The ones we saw were in Cypress Grove, St. Patrick’s, and Odd Fellow’s Rest. (You have to look though the fence at St. Patrick’s to see those since Odd Fellow’s Rest is closed for repair.) There is also one in Lafayette Cemetery that I somehow missed, but it’s been in the news because it inspired the resting place for Lestat, Anne Rice’s vampire in Interview With a Vampire (the novel- please skip the movie). The tomb requires restoration and the quote is between 50-70,000 dollars, so they clearly cannot last forever. The tomb is for the Karstendiek family. According to the article, that one was imported from Germany.

Whatever their background it was such a novelty to see so many examples in New Orleans, and I know the next time I visit the city I’ll be trying to see the rest of them. Happy February to everyone! Today is Imbolc so I’m off to burn some sage and light a candle.

Holt Cemetery, New Orleans

 

We skipped off to New Orleans for the week after Christmas, and came home the day before New Years Eve. Skipped may not be the right term, more like wordlessly plodded. We had to get up at 4 a.m. to catch our flight, but the good thing is that we were in the city by 8 a.m., tightly clutching hot beverages and in shock from the cold. I wore Shawn’s heaviest coat the whole time and looked crazy in many of the photos, but I was mostly warm.

Holt was number one on my list of cemeteries to visit. It’s not the most talked about cemetery, it’s not fancy, or crumbling, or full of interesting vaults and crypts. Holt is it’s own kind of iconic New Orleans burial ground.

For one thing, all burials are in ground unlike the other city cemeteries. I know people say that it can’t be done because of the water table but they are successfully burying people here and the caskets are staying in the ground, so I think a lot of those suppositions are rooted in myths and urban legends. The vaults that you find in the other cemeteries are efficient at what they do. People decompose rapidly and with little fuss, and a year later it’s safe to place another body in the vault. However, coping burials are also popular there, where the plot is framed in concrete and the burial vault covered in gravel and dirt. When we went to Lafayette Cemetery it had rained all day and one of the ledger stones was broken in one of the family plots. I leaned over the fence for a better look and saw that the entire grave was filled with water, which horrified me for some reason. I’m not sure why Holt is able to do what it does if it’s true about the water table being so high and unforgiving.

Holt Cemetery is considered a potter’s field and a burial space for the indigent who can’t afford other cemetery sites. It was established in 1879 according to the Save Our Cemeteries website, and has been in operation ever since. It is still an active site. The morning that we arrived we pulled into the cemetery gates around 10 a.m. and saw workmen at the back digging graves…by hand. In all of the visits I’ve made to cemeteries in the South, that was something I’d never seen before, but I honestly don’t believe that they could get the equipment in there in order to do it any other way. The place is packed full, and you can barely walk through without knowing that you are stepping on someone’s grave.

At the back of the cemetery is a brick retort that looks like it was from an old crematorium. It has been locked shut, but the fact that it’s there remains a mystery. I’m not sure why it’s there or if there was a building around it at one time. It has graves crowded up against it on all sides.

Most of the headstones and markers here are all handmade. We saw raw wood, painted wood, plastic, a road sign with a person’s name painted on it, PVC piping, bricks, an oven rack, concrete, all kinds of fencing, and multiple statues- everything from a bunny to the Virgin Mary. Lots of flowers were on the graves in blue, black, and purple. A lot of stuffed animals were on graves, and even framed photos. It’s a bright space, but in the morning after a recent rain in the cold weather it was bleak and sad, with standing water at the curves of the road and in the drainage ditch that runs through the space, and squelching mud everywhere you stepped.

This cemetery was in the news last year because a young woman in New Orleans was going out after heavy rain and harvesting bones that she saw on the graves, and then posting them in a not so discreet fashion online. She was eventually apprehended, but was convinced that what she was doing wasn’t grave robbing since the bones were right there on top of the soil, and she wasn’t charging people for anything but the shipping when they wanted the items. (She was doing a brisk trade, as well.) Some people collect bones just because, and some people purchase or steal them for spell work and magic. Either way, it’s a good idea not to touch bones in cemeteries unless you’re certain it’s from an animal. I’ve picked up animal bones on cemetery walks and have a deer vertebrae in my car (I didn’t know where else to put it), but human bones…no. It’s safe to say that when you visit this city you will see bones in a cemetery. Just leave them there, they do tend to wash up sometimes. On our visit we saw bones at 3 different sites, but not at Holt Cemetery. More on that later.

Please visit this one if you go to New Orleans. It’s much more humble than the others, but certainly filled with love  and sweet tributes everywhere you look.