McMullen Cemetery, Pinellas County

If you got half a post recently I apologize, I hit the wrong button when I was creating the draft. Oops!

In 1999 a family cemetery was moved from Brooks County Georgia to their final resting place in McMullen Cemetery in Pinellas County. James McMullen  was a Revolutionary War soldier and he and his family helped settle the county in the mid-1800’s, and ultimately came to rest in this small but charmingly beautiful cemetery.

I was lucky enough to be in Tampa for 2 weeks and went out one night after a light rain, restless from being in the hotel for a week with just my coworkers for company. It’s an odd feeling to be on a business trip for that long. For two weeks I still woke up most nights looking at the foot of the bed for my cat, Louise, and came back every day expecting to have to do some kind of chore or task.

But there wasn’t one. For two weeks I watched bad TV at night and ate more restaurant food than I ever have in my entire life. So naturally after a couple of days of this I needed to go walk in a cemetery and get some fresh air that didn’t smell like the Hilton.

McMullen Cemetery is right off the road, and it has a neat layout where you pretty much just drive straight through in a curve that takes you past the whole thing. It isn’t very big, only 274 burials. You can see all of it in one trip. On the site is a small shed that looks almost like a little chapel with a cross on the door, and it sits near the burials of the original family. The headstones in that section are very old and delicately stamped with the names and dates, many of which were hard for me to read in the waning light. The style is one seen all over Central Florida cemeteries, though, and the stones are artistic and beautiful.

The cemetery is shaded by fine old oaks and has a carpet of very thick grass and ground cover, so it was a little sylvan glade right there in the middle of Clearwater. What struck me the most as I walked though was the high number of children’s burials. The dates don’t correspond with the Spanish flu (maybe one or two of them do) or even Yellow Fever, like the cemetery in Enterprise Florida that is loaded with victims from the epidemic. It hit the Tampa area in 1883, 1887, 1888, and 1905 according to one old document I found, so it’s hard to say what was going on that caused so many children’s deaths. I always feel sad seeing patterns like that in cemeteries, but some of them are just that way.

This cemetery is active and easy to find. It is impeccably maintained (and I don’t give that compliment out to everyone), with bright new flowers on almost all of the graves and well mowed grass. I don’t think I saw a single broken headstone.

A couple of other features- toward the front of the cemetery there are several odd burials that have ledger stones along with uprights, but on top of the ledgers are urns that are sealed with copper that appear to actually contain cremated remains. They are unique and the first ones that I’ve seen like that.

At the back of the property near the fence is a beautiful plot with a HUGE rosemary bush planted between two headstones. Rosemary was traditionally planted as a symbol of remembrance, and I love that. It’s something I rarely see on graves so I thought it was wonderful to see.

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.

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.

Tampa Cemetery Tour With Grace

My auto correct automatically changed the word Grace to Grave. That seems to say a lot about my life, but I’m going to ignore it for now.

Grace and I jumped in the Jeep a couple of weeks ago and drove to Tampa with a full tank of gas and a bag full of snacks. We had a list of several cemeteries to visit, and we wanted to hopefully be heading back to Orlando before the traffic got out of control.

The first stop was Marti Colon. We spent a lot of time at this cemetery because we both loved it, and it was interesting for me to notice which grave sites Grace gravitated toward and pointed out to me. There are some stunning portraits here, so take your time looking.

The next stop was Centro Asturiano, the immigrant cemetery within the confines of Woodlawn for members of the local Spanish Club. It was here that I got a burr stuck underneath my toes, and I had to find a sturdy headstone to brace myself against while Grace got the evil little thing off of me. This cemetery is such a treasure; I love visiting. Here is where you’ll start to see the graves made out of blue and white tiles, and some with a wreath with a pink tile bow if the grave belongs to a woman or child. Many of the ones in here are still in excellent shape, though there is a considerable amount of damage at the front of the cemetery.

After this- Woodlawn. We drove though and got out to visit the Hampton plot, and also to get a better look at a few portraits on the headstones. This cemetery is enormous and one you could easily spend the day in, with lots of mausoleums for added interest. Since we don’t see many of them around here they always draw me to them and yes, I peek in windows.

A quick stop for drinks and a snack- then Robles Cemetery and it’s 26 burials. This cemetery was one that I feel literally too intimidated to write about. It’s small, uncared for, clearly ignored, and suffering damage, but the history of this family is fascinating and the story is so good, I know I can’t do it justice. Check the link for the contributions they made to Central Florida.

Next- La Unione Italiana and Cento Espanol next to it. La Unione was the site of a break in in 2016 where several caskets (including the bodies) was stolen from one of the mausoleums. I didn’t see any evidence of damage, thankfully, but I felt terrible for the family. There was a descendant living and a reward was offered, but I never heard anything else about it. Grave robbing is still a very real event and it literally happens all the time. It saddens me and makes me angry because I just don’t get it, and I don’t understand how profitable it can actually be. Definitely something for another blog post, and if you have ever witnessed anything like this please reach out to me on here. I’d like to hear your experiences.

While we were there Grace said she wanted a picture of what she kept referring to as “Anchor Jesus”. We walked toward a huge statue and stood at it’s feet, both squinting up at it.

“I don’t think that’s Jesus,” I said.

“Who would it be?” she asked, taking photos.

I looked it up when I got home. It’s a statue of Hope, which is often depicted with a large anchor and a star. The anchor motif is popular in coastal cities, and Tampa does have a number of anchor symbols on grave markers. I especially love this beautiful statue, she’s on the right side of the main aisle (If you’re facing the gates) when you visit, but you can’t miss her.

At the Spanish Cemetery next door I stayed in the car with the A/C running while Grace ran around. I don’t like the feeling of that cemetery at all, I feel like someone is throwing a heavy, wet blanket of grief onto me when I’ve gone in before. No thanks. The funny thing is, she came over to my car door and I rolled the window down, smiling and asking her what she thought about the place.

“This one doesn’t feel right,” she said musingly, and got back in the car a few minutes later.

We planned to end our day with Orange Hill, which is the less prim and proper cousin of Myrtle Hill next door. Myrtle Hill is the fine wine of active cemeteries in Tampa. It is very grand, very large, and very beautiful. Orange Hill, however, has it’s charms. One is an empty mausoleum that you can pop your head into to look around, and another is a huge and strange building at the front with no discernible purpose. I did some digging online and can’t figure out if it’s a funeral chapel or something else, it seems way too large to be a mausoleum. Grace sent a photo to her girlfriend and got this gem in response:

On the way out of Myrtle Hill we noticed a memorial park across the street and decided to drive through for a minute, but it turned into a lengthy adventure. First, it has a huge columbarium in the middle of it that has some interesting architecture and we decided to get out and go peek. We found the doors to the chapel area open and walked inside, and then Grace covered her face with her tee shirt because the SMELL was unbelievable. I mean, BAD. I thought about either backing out of the doors or gagging, but the inside was so interesting that I swallowed hard and walked farther in. After a few minutes I had to leave, but kept looking around for a source of the smell and could only see a few spills on the floor that had dried and were crawling with small bugs. I have no idea what happened in there. Grace said it smelled like the craft supplies that had been stored for a year in a mildewed closet at at Bible Camp. I had nothing to compare it to, but I’ll say again that I hate smells in cemeteries.

I’m encouraging everyone to get to Tampa and take a cemetery tour of your own design. We really had a stellar day, and went home in horrible traffic (we didn’t avoid it after all) full of French fries and caffeine and covered in bug bites.

 

 

Finding Mozart…Part 2

This is part 2 of Keila’s guest post from last week! Enjoy!

 

While walking through the Ehrengräber something bright pink caught my attention in the sea of grey headstones.  I walked through some hedges and came upon a much more contemporary section of grave art.  I apologize I’m not familiar with most of the people, but it appears many of them were artists, actors, and musicians.  Please enjoy:

The cemetery has between 20-25 burials daily and has plenty of room for new burials.  The newer sections are of course not as ornately decorated as the old.  Unfortunately, I did not make it to the Jewish cemetery sections which are further away from the church in the center.  I hope to make it back to explore more of the cemetery in the future. In the meantime, here are some more of my favorites from this visit.

 

Okay, so remember when I mentioned Mozart a little earlier?  He’s not actually buried in the Vienna Central Cemetery, but there is an honorary cenotaph there for him.  He was one of the most influential composers in history and made a great impact in Viennese culture during his time and into modern times.  He died young at the age of 35, leaving behind a widow and two young children.  The cause of his death has been debated and ranges from a prolonged illness, a sudden illness, or a poisoning.  The manner of his burial is also highly debated and this is where the story gets interesting.  Previous versions of Mozart’s death stories account that he died a derelict pauper unable to find work as a musician due to the ongoing Turkish War and was buried in a common, unmarked pauper’s grave in St. Marx Cemetery.  What is probably more true is that he was buried in the normal manner for his time which was to be buried in a shroud, rather than a coffin, in an unmarked or plainly marked grave.  Because of this, it quickly became difficult to identify the exact location of his resting place.  Even after extensive research, they have not been able to identify the location with any certainty.  Because of this an honorary tomb was erected for him in the field where he was most likely buried.  This tomb was moved to the Zentralfriedhof in 1891 on the 100th anniversary of his death.  Another memorial was erected in St. Marx to commemorate his burial in that cemetery.

So let me tell you a little more about St. Marx and my visit there.  The cemetery was closed for burials in 1874 and fell into disrepair.  It began restoration and was open to the public for visiting in 1937.  It is unclear how many burials there are in the cemetery due to the common graves, but it is considerably smaller than the Zentralfriedhof.  You can get to it on the same trolley line as the Zentralfriedhof, but the entrance is not located directly on the line and is about a half mile walk from the trolley stop.  The day I visited St. Marx was very different from the day I visited the central cemetery.  It was grey, freezing, and flurries of snow were falling from the sky.  It is apparently a very beautiful place to visit in the spring when hedges of lilac are in full bloom.  Unfortunately, during my very frigid winter visit everything appeared dead and quite haunting, especially since there was no one else visiting the cemetery that day.  This definitely resembled the morbid image of cemeteries which many people hold.

Upon entering the cemetery there is a map and signs that point you to the honorary marker for Mozart. It is located almost in the middle of the cemetery and it was very well kept and felt almost out of place in this cemetery as it was the only part that seemed managed at all.  Walking through the cemetery was kind of heartbreaking actually.  The city website giving details about the cemetery, which is also considered a park, states that clearing work is underway as well as a project to catalog the graves there.  But as you can see from some of the photos below it is difficult to imagine trying to identify many of the marked graves here as many of the headstones have fallen into such a state of decay and disrepair.  I still found a comforting beauty in the disarray though.  Even as many of the headstones were worn and eroding, you could tell that the markers were crafted with care and precision, much like the ones in the Zentralfriedhof.  Unfortunately, I did not get to explore the cemetery as much as I would have liked because it began to snow, and I could not stand the cold much longer (Florida girl in me). You can find some of my favorite photos below as well as some of the devastating state of the cemetery.

I think people underestimate how beautiful historical grave art can be and think of cemeteries as morbid places. There were so many amazing sculptures in these cemeteries, while many were expressions of grief, there were also many celebrating life, love, and joy.  I think it’s important to remember that grave art is erected to remember those we’ve lost.  Sometimes we express it in the unbearable grief their loss has brought upon us, and other times we remember how much their life meant to us and brought us happiness.  Although I would have liked to have spent more time in both of these places, I feel very fortunate to have been able to visit two mesmerizing cemeteries in Vienna, one built with purpose and still in use today, and the other a reminder of how we should work to remember and preserve the memories of those who came before us.

Resources:

Death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, wikipedia.org, accessed February 28, 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Wolfgang_Amadeus_Mozart

St. Marx Cemetery Park with Mozart’s grave, wein.gov, accessed February 28, 2017, https://www.wien.gv.at/english/environment/parks/sankt-marx.html.

Vienna Central Cemetery, friedhofwein.at, accessed February 27, 2017, https://www.friedhoefewien.at/eportal2/ep/channelView.do/pageTypeId/75473/channelId/-53514.

 

Finding Mozart: The Vienna Central Cemetery and St. Marx Cemetery

Today I am proud to welcome guest blogger and friend Keila to the blog! Keila and I have had many adventures together and she recently went to Vienna and got to see some incredible historic cemeteries. This is a longer post- but her photos are awesome and I wanted to include as many as possible. So- enjoy!

I was lucky enough to be able to visit Vienna, Austria this Christmas.  While Austria and Germany are known for their amazing Christmas markets and famous gluhwein (holiday mulled wine) I was excited to visit for another reason, the Zentralfriedhof (Central Cemetery).  The Vienna Central Cemetery is one of the world’s largest cemeteries and is the largest in Europe for the number interred there, over 3 million.  It is only a short trolley ride from the center of the city and has a dedicated bus line inside in order to help people get around the massive area more easily.  There are three gates (tors) at the front of the cemetery for people to enter, with Tor 2 being the main entrance.  Foot traffic is free, but there is a toll to get in with a vehicle.  This cemetery is unique to most in Europe because unlike many others it was planned.  City leaders realized that the city’s population was growing and a large cemetery would be needed to accommodate burials.  The opening of the cemetery was also quite controversial as it was one of the first mixed faith cemeteries with a large Catholic section, a Protestant section, and two Jewish sections (there are now also Muslim, Buddhist, and Russian Orthodox burials in the cemetery). There is also a church located in the center of the cemetery called Karl-Borromäus-Kirche (Charles Borromeo Church).  It is built in the Art Nouveau style and has undergone several renovations after being bombed during World War II and then later being damaged by subsidence and dampness.  There is a crypt beneath the church with the most notable burial being Karl Lueger, a former mayor of Vienna, which has led to the church also being deemed the Karl Lueger Memorial Church.

 

 

 

The day I visited was one of the warmer days of my stay in Vienna with it being in the high 40s.  It was sunny and rather pleasant, with a slight breeze.  There were many more people there than I expected.  Many who also appeared to just be visiting the cemetery in general. When I first entered the cemetery I was struck by how vast it seemed.  I was knowingly disappointed that I would not have enough time to explore the whole cemetery, but very excited to see what I could. After walking through the massive gate, I was greeted by two mausoleums on each side of the road.  Each contains 36 crypts.  These were the most beautifully decorated crypts I have ever seen and each one had me in awe at the exquisitely unique and detailed artwork.

 

 


After passing through these awe-inspiring crypts, it was difficult to decide which way to go next.  I did what most people do naturally and went to my right.  I walked past some very interesting looking headstones, some with trees (purposefully) growing through them, others which were raw stone.  Something caught my eye in the distance and I began making my way toward it.  Those who are familiar with cemeteries know they are full of statues of the Virgin Mary or veiled angels and women.  I thought I was going to come across a statue of Mary holding up Christ, especially when I noticed that the figure was holding someone.  When I finally reached it, it was so much better than I thought.  Instead of the Virgin, I was facing Death himself, holding his latest passenger.  The statue was faceless and had vines growing on it which made it even more hauntingly beautiful and it is my favorite piece of cemetery art to date. I feel like it was speaking to me in a way no other piece has.  The passenger appeared calm and relaxed in Death’s grasp, and it reminded me that death comes for us all, but it is not something to be feared.

 

 

Another interesting  fact about this cemetery is that it is the resting place for many famous composers, artists, actors, musicians, scientists, and other notable people from history.  Due to its unpopularity after opening because of its distance from the city, officials set aside an honorary grave area (Ehrengräber).  This part of the cemetery was definitely the most crowded with tourists. They moved several famous people from other cemeteries here in order to boost the reputation of the cemetery.  Interred in the Central Cemetery are notables such as Ludwig van Beethoven; Franz Schubert, who were moved to the city in 1888; Johannes Brahms; Antonio Salieri; Johann Strauss II and Arnold Schoenberg. A cenotaph honours Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who is buried in nearby St. Marx Cemetery. We’ll get to that last one in a moment, but first enjoy some photos of the resting places of these famous composers.

 

 

 

 

 

There is much more to tell and this post will be continued next week! See you then! All sources will be listed next week as well in case anyone wants to do further reading. 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

 

 

 

Enterprise Cemetery in Enterprise, Florida

Enterprise Cemetery was established in 1841, and I have a picture of the sign to prove it. It was a gloomy day with a heavy sky, and all of my photos that day looked gloomy and colorless so I switched them all to black and white for this post. It adds drama. That’s what I’m telling myself.

This cemetery is pretty bleak with lots of open space and dead grass, but it had some unique things that made it an interesting one to visit. First, I was freezing to death that day because I’m a Florida native and the surprising high last Sunday was about 48 degrees. I don’t really understand how to bundle up because I never really have to, so I was not dressed warmly enough for a trek outdoors- but I got out of the car anyway and Shawn and I walked in through the side gate. One side of the cemetery is clearly active, and one side is the more historic side, though you can see a small, older plot over to the far left which is all the way in the back. We started there, and I began to realize what made this cemetery different from the others I’ve visited.

Most people place statues of angels on graves. It’s what they do. It’s nice to imagine an angel watching over your loved one in the hereafter, but I don’t think this notion really caught on with the people of Enterprise (population just over 43,000 in 2012), and that is what made me love this cemetery. These people got creative with their grave tributes- no angels for them! Here is a short list of some of the things we saw on the graves there:

-A statue of a green bullfrog wearing a top hat.

-A bigmouth bass statue.

-A larger than life statue of a blue macaw.

-2 tee shirts rolled up on graves.

-2 guitars on one grave- an acoustic one that had been beaten to death and an electric one parked against the tree alongside the grave.

While these gifts are festive and make for an interesting walk through the cemetery, this cemetery is actually the final resting place for some of the victims of the 1888 Yellow Fever outbreak in Volusia County. (Many other nearby counties were affected as well including Orange and Duval.) I found one chilling telegram dated October 26, 1888 saying that there were 2 deaths and 12 cases so far, and that armed men were surrounding infected areas to prevent further transmission of the disease, which is actually spread by mosquitoes. While digging around I also found a letter from September of the same year to the Governor of Florida from several different county health boards begging for help. There is a lot of desperation in that letter, found on floridamemory.com.

The grave of Annie Bradley is dated from the same date of the telegram, which means she was most likely one of the two deaths referenced. The older section has a large fenced area with a grand monument for W.H. Cavin, with a death date of October 27, 1888, so it seems that they could possibly be a victim as well. (I wasn’t able to find out if Cavin was male or female, but I’m thinking they were male.)

Near Annie Bradley’s headstone is the resting place of W.D. Moore, who is said to be the first marked burial in the cemetery with a death date of January 15, 1882.

In the same section of the cemetery you will also see a small plot for children of the Florida United Methodist Children’s home which began in 1908, and a few sad burials. The home was renamed in 1971, so the main stone marking the plot pre-dates that as it simply says Florida Methodist Children’s Home. This children’s home is still operating today and has a fascinating history.

There were also a lot of Osteens here- and so we decided to head to that cemetery next. See you next week!

 

 

Temple Cemetery in Jacksonville, Florida

Temple Cemetery was cold the first time I visited, but that’s always my favorite time to go to a a new cemetery, when the weather is chilly. It was clear that day and the sun was shining brightly so it was a good day to read tombstones. Temple is a Jewish Reform cemetery and it mingles with Old Jewish Center cemetery, which is a conservative cemetery. There is no line or obvious kind of separation, but the space is set apart from the rest of Evergreen and has it’s own gate.

Temple Cemetery attracted me because of the mausoleums, of which there are many varied types. It’s a small Jewish cemetery inside the massive Evergreen Cemetery complex, and it looks to be old and not visited very often. Both times that I went there there was no one else around. Despite this, it’s perfectly maintained except for some vandalism to one of the mausoleums. It will probably never be repaired since most of them are very old with the families probably long gone by now. This particular one has the glass window shot out with what looks like a BB gun, as some of the glass still has holes in it where it didn’t shatter all the way and fall out. Because of this, you can look right into this mausoleum and on that day when I did this I realized that it was freezing in there. My face felt like it touched ice the minute I stuck my head through the window to peek in. I felt sad about the window though, it was done in delicate shades of gold and green and were just panes of colored glass, not the usual ornate stained glass windows that I usually see in mausoleums.

My favorite one here is the Burkheim mausoleum because of it’s very solid and incredibly creepy looking ventilated iron door. Whether it was placed to keep things in or keep them out I can only imagine, but it must have been effective because nobody has messed with this structure at all. Jacob Burkheim has lived in 2 of the places I’ve lived in during my 43 years, including Tallahassee, where I grew up, and Jacksonville, where I was born and lived again briefly in my 20’s. He also lived in Savannah, which I love visiting. He worked as a merchant, a tailor, and he also fought in the Civil War (confederate). He had 7 children, but his name is the only one found outside of his mausoleum, so I wonder if the rest of his family is buried elsewhere. He was born in Germany in 1831, and he died in 1914.

If your back is to the gates and you look to the far left and start walking you will see a small headstone for Hazel, E. Waterman, who died in 1904 at a few months old. Her headstone is a type that I had heard about but had never actually seen in all of my cemetery visits. Usually a child’s stone will feature a lamb or sometimes a small bird. A few times I’ve seen deer. Hazel’s stone has two small baby shoes on the top and two small socks draped down the front of the stone. I was thrilled to see an example of something I’d only ever heard about. Hazel’s small gravestone did not have a record in Find A Grave which made me wonder more about her and her family. I couldn’t find anything on Ancestry, which happens a lot when you’re looking for a child. There is a child’s headstone in St. Augustine that has haunted me since I first saw it and I can’t find out anything about the child or the family, which has bothered me for 2 years. If you’re awesome with genealogy and like a challenge- send me a message.

Temple Cemetery is one of my favorite sites to date in Jacksonville. If you get over there please let me know what you thought! And bring snacks, you’ll need them if you go to Evergreen because you could spend the day in there and never see it all.