Cemetery news on Hallowe'en

a family plot, Maple Grove Cemetery, Vermilion, Ohio

To-day, is the commercialised day of Hallowe'en. I was not going to post to-day, but a story appeared in the Cleveland daily. The city will spend some money, in the spring, on overdue cemetery projects at Erie Street, Monroe Street, and Woodlawn cemeteries.

This year we are having a late leaf drop, of less colorful leaves. Yesterday was sunny and in the mid 50s °F. If a recent grass cut was more than a few days previous, it was a pleasant, and mood appropriate (melancholic, but comfortable) day to graveyard walk.

Gothic Revival entrances

1870 Erie Street Cemetery, East Ninth Street, Cleveland, Ohio (after sandblasting)

1874 Monroe Street Cemetery, Monroe Street closed entrance, Cleveland, Ohio with 137 years of soot.

Joseph Ireland *1843, † 1905 was a New Yorker who came to Cleveland in 1865, and returned in 1885. A lot of his work has been demolished. The Chardon (Geauga County) Courthouse is still extant. Ireland designed the 1874 gothic revival Monroe Street Cemetery entrance. The Erie Street Cemetery entrance was built in 1870. The two are twins, but i have not seen a reference to an architect for Erie Street. Somewhere, there should be a reference. It is obvious that the second is a copy of the first, and both properties belonged to the city.

Osage Oranges

in Monroe Street Cemetery, Cleveland, O.

You see one of these fruits for the first time, and you will find them interesting. What are they? Well, their home is part of the Red River of the South's valley, which makes the east southern border of the Okies with Tejas, and they extend south to San Antonio. In an age before barbed wire such plantings were used as strong, solid and dense hedges. The phrase employed to describe their placement, and cultivation (regular pruning) was "horse high, bull strong and hog tight". Now the fruit has several names: osage oranges, hedge apples, horse apples (well one type), monkey balls. They are light green and softball sized [type something like that in a search engine, and you will get an answer], they are bumpy, and sticky if the sap comes out.

The leaves look like the mulberry (its relative). The wood is both hard and dense, while being flexible. The French saw the Indians used the wood for bows, 'bois d'arc' [hence, bodark]. It is an extremely warm firewood. They grow male and female.

Maclura pomifera, a tall osage-orange

Franklin Roosevelt's WPA planted more than 200 million of these as windbreaks, and deterrents to erosion. This was called the Great Plains Shelterbelt. Under a Democratic President, and a Democratic Congress, and a sensible population (knowledge friendly) such a project could be done. It could not be done now for the lack of the last two conditions.
On top of this gravestone table some squirrel shredded the pommes to get to the seeds. To the right is a fruit, also to the right, and in front is a sapling with many glossy, lancet shaped leaves. The seeds are buried in the pith. The pith is most of the fruit, and then the seeds are surrounded by slime. Squirrels spend some time and effort for the treat.

“Yeah, what?”

More Monroe Street Germans

Ja, mit der umlaut -- Tünnermann.

Here rests gently a German warrior [soldier]. It was 1899, not 1919.

These two must have had some relationship. He was 45 years older than she. 'Selbst verleugnet' means 'self-denied'. Is 'verleugend' an alternate form? Or did the workman misspell? Or is my German, simply insufficient in understanding this term? The child of these two was quite young at their deaths. The stones, almost assuredly, came years later.

'Gatte' is not a surname, but the masculine form of 'Spouse', the feminine is 'Gattin'
not the only Wilhelmina stone in the cemetery

I was zinking

These zinc markers [see others] were cheaper than stone markers. They came with several panels and shapes to choose from. Some were even simpler. These three are quite small. Two are fused on short stocks, the third is just a top. The second one is for a baby. It is in English. The other two are in German. These were modest fold, with the most modest of markers. And remember, some people could not afford that. Monroe Street was the only city owned cemetery on the West Side of Cleveland til 1900. These zinkers, infra, are for people whom died from 1892-1915. Markers do not always come with burial. Shared markers often come with the first deceased, not always.

Mother and Daughter. Martha Gorenflo, †. 8 August 1901, aged 45 Years. Sleep Gently.

This fellow lived less than three months in 1902

This German fellow lived 17 years until 1892

These bothers died young. The older one at 11 months; the younger, just past 4 years.

Hugo Radtke 1872-1904
Edna Radtke 1895-1900

Father and daughter ?

This one has panels on both sides. A dove on one side with script, the opposite side a sheaf of what--common religious symbols. It is sill a modest marker.

This last monument is a good deal larger. One side the anchor of faith, and the other the harvested wheat. Wilhelmine was a very popular German name in the XIXth century. On this zinker, there are two Wilhelmine Teskes, one *1840, on *1843. Just looking here, does not easily suggest an answer to me, cousins?

Mutter und Vater

Mother and Father and a rolling stone

three on top at Monroe street;

pair of Pelz at Erie Street Cemetery

In Cleveland, there had been many people German born. German is a nationality, not a state; for depending on the time there were several German states. In the United States, the most common ethnic heritage is German. Now, for some people these German immigrants arrived in America long enough ago, that there is little self-identification with that past to-day. But, at one time it was the most taught and spoken non-English language in the United States. There were neighborhoods in many cities, and also farming communities which were mono-lingual teutonic. Pennsylvania Dutch was a misunderstanding of 'Deutsch', what the Germans call German.

at Riverside

The Germans came from eastern France, from Austria, several states (Bavaria, Baden, Württemberg, Hanover, Hesse and others) that were incorporated into Prussian Germany, and elsewhere. On some stones these birth lands are listed.

A mile south of Monroe Street Cemetery is Riverside Cemetery. It was opened some years after the War for the Union. The west side robber barons were buried there. At that point, the clientele at Monroe skewed poorer. Riverside has many impressive monuments.

The inscription, supra, is in Riverside. This couple was born in the, then, independent Hessen-Darmstadt, he from Bingen-am-Rhein. Caroline Norton wrote a poem, "Bingen on the Rhein", published in 1847. It was set to music, a few times. It was rewritten a few times. One short rewrite is the 'Legend of the Rebel Soldier', where the hero dies in a "dreary Yankee prison". It was a rewrite of an Irish version, to the tune of "Rolling Home to Dear Old Ireland".

In a dreary British prison where an Irish rebel lay,
By his side a priest was standing ere his soul should pass away,
And he faintly murmured "Father" as he clasped him by the hand,
"Tell me this before I die: shall my soul pass through Ireland?

The original Norton ballade had seven stanzas of eight lines, each one ending "...Bingen on the Rhein".

A SOLDIER of the Legion lay dying in Algiers,
There was a lack of woman's nursing, there was dearth of woman's tears;
But a comrade stood beside him, while his lifeblood ebbed away,
And bent with pitying glances, to hear what he might say.
The dying soldier faltered, and he took that comrade's hand,
And he said, "I nevermore shall see my own, my native land:
Take a message, and a token, to some distant friends of mine,
For I was born at Bingen, -- at Bingen on the Rhine. ...

in Monroe Street Cemetery

Some stones say 'Mutter' (Mother) und 'Vater' (Father). Here there are two pair. A double pedestal with bolster stones, and a twin pair (one knocked off). They were laid out almost as pillows upon beds. The first pair is of Muellers, (Miller in English, very common Surname in both languages). Other common markings on these stones are the abbreviations 'geb.' and 'gest.' for geboren (born) and gestorben for died. They also say 'ruhe sanft' (rest gently).
After 1918 (WWI) the German inscriptions become rare. In this pair at Monroe Street, die Mutter war im Jahre 1960 geboren und gestorben im Jahre 1916; the Father was born in 1844 and died in 1928.

Busy corner

Stone for Morgan Waters [the 'g' was inserted]. His house was the parish's home in its early years. He died in 1875, his wife, Catharine Brooks, died in the parish's first year, 1848.

St. Patrick's is an old parish in terms of the Cleveland diocese. It is only a few months younger than the diocese. Cleveland had one church, St. Mary's on-the-Flats. Some farmers in Rockport Township asked the just created first bishop of Cleveland, Louis Amadeus Rappe, for a parish. The parish had its first Mass on St. Patrick's Day 1848 [it was a Sunday that year] inside Morgan Waters' home. About once a month a priest would come to Waters' home. In 1854 the first church was dedicated on land donated by a parish family. In 1897-98 the new church was built. The old church was torn down, and the parish graveyard expanded to those grounds.

The church's congregation was evicted 30 May 2009. The parish is appealing its closure to Rome. Richard Lennon, the bishop, wants it merged with Ascension, and Annunciation, at Ascension's campus. St. Patrick's began with about 40 families, in 2009 they had about 1,100 families. On Sunday, the 30th of May 2010, the parish had its last Mass in that graveyard which had been the site of the first church building.

As time passes some events do happen. Cleveland expanded across the Cuyahoga, annexing one village, and neighborhood after another. West Park formed in 1900 from the township. St. Patrick's received a resident pastor in 1910. Horse wagons were replaced by motor cars, and street cars. West Park became a part of Cleveland in 1923. The church was expanded in the early 1950s.

St. Patrick West Park Cleveland, Ohio at Rocky River Drive & Puritas Avenue

The intersection became that of two two busy city streets. The cemetery is just a sidewalk's width from the street, and a short chain link fence is the border there. On July 20th a driver ran through the fence dislodging, and damaging some grave stones. Since the, a section of the low fence has been replaced; and the stones gathered together. Perhaps, in November they will be set in place (and duplicates? of some damaged ones).

stones gathered together

Relict

Here are two sandstone stelae tablets of soot covered sandstone. This layer of industrial grime has flaked off of many of the markers and monuments at Cleveland's Erie Street Cemetery. The one on the right is illegible. On top there is a carving of an urn, and a weeping willow. These two are the most common ornaments of the first half of the XIXth century America.

The stone on the left has an urn and, perhaps laurel leaves. The laurel is a symbol of victory, or accomplishment for completing a course. It reads:

In memory of
FANNY,
Relict of the late
Jewel Prime,
who died June 20,
1832
aged 31 years
2 months
& 9 days.

The only word that may be unfamiliar is 'relict'. It is Latin for surviving. Here it means widow. In some legal documents there was the habit of repeating the same concept in different words, and you could read "widow and relict". English has more words than any other language, and is continually assimilating words. Nearly a thousand years ago english legal documents would have the saxon term, the norman french term, and the latin term. This is not redundancy, so much as accuracy, universality and rhetorical flourish.

To-day, relict is not used on grave markers. It still means survivor. In biology, it refers to a species, or local population that is current, when the rest of the kind are extinct. In geology, it is a feature that remains after the others of its kind are gone.

Erie's Indians

George Caitlin. Joc-O-Sot (The Walking Bear), a Sauk Chief from the Upper Missouri. 1844.

left boulder is of Chief Thunderwater, stone on right and broken slab is for Joc-o-sot

Joc-O-Sot *1810, 1844† was born in Iowa. He fought and was wounded in the Black Hawk War 1832. He went east to Cleveland and became a hunting guide. He joined a traveling actor's, Dan Marble, troupe. In England he became sick, and returned to America and died. His original stone was broken in vandalism. A new gravestone was added in 1907. His grave may have been long empty, a victim of resurrection men (corpse thieves that sold to the medical trade).

Visitors left tokens (stones, coins and a post card) on top of his marker. Now, that the redman is gone it safe to show him some respect and fondness.

Next to his grave is that of another Indian, Oghema Niagara, Chief Thunderwater *1865, 1950†. He was born near Lewiston New York. He toured in Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show beginning with the centennial. After 1900 he lived in Cleveland, and ran a business selling cleaning products, and herbal 'medicines'. He promoted Indian rights, and was considered a 'militant' by the Canadian government.

In 1917 he helped revive the Iroquois Confederacy. He became the 'official' Indian of Cleveland. Oghema Niagara was involved in saving Erie Street Cemetery from developers. Once a year he led ceremonies at Joc-O-Sot's grave site. He is now buried adjacent.

Erie Street Cemetery

1921 the archway is black from soot

2011 some years ago, the stone was cleaned

preventive landscaping ignored here too

They removed most of the aggregated grime from Erie Street's arch, but maintenance, as in Monroe Street's arch is not current. Little trees will grow in the chinks between the stones, and each advance of the roots weakens the structure. Construction is work, so is maintenance. Labor has its value. Meteorology and biology erode geology, certainly man made structures are not immune.

central arch had two metal plaques, they have been scrapped

This is the oldest surviving burial grounds in Cleveland. An earlier city graveyard, Ontario Street (and Prospect) was a block from Public Square. Some of those burials were moved to Erie Street. The former graveyard was used for building.

Erie Street opened up in 1826/7 while the Ohio Canal was reaching toward Lake Erie. The first boat left Akron 3 July 1827, and reached Cleveland the next day. The entire canal was completed in 1832. Cleveland was still a village, and far from being a town. The census needs 5,000 to become a town. In 1840 that was achieved with 6,000.

Some of Cleveland's first residents are there now, or had been. Two Indian chiefs, and a newsboy suicide were burials of note. The grand arch came in 1870. Erie Street was one of the many streets to have its name changed in 1905. It is now East Ninth Street. The stone archway was not going to be changed, but would it have stayed?

Into the twentieth century Cleveland became a very large city. Money was not being made in a mostly sold out cemetery. Several designs were made on Erie Street Cemetery. Public opinion stopped this on each occasion, in the mean time many burials were removed elsewhere (some prominent internments went to Lake View; many to the new and 200 blocks distant Highland which has some 18x the acreage of Erie Street). The once full cemetery was being vacated. From 1937 to 1940 ceremonies, and a stone wall building project raised favorable attention towards the cemetery. In time between then, and now, a lot of vandalism and neglect has hit the cemetery (could one expect it to have been immune to the rest of the city's and country's situation).

a century of polluted weather has washed away the print of the paper boy's legend

Alfred Williams, He was a newsboy without father mother or home who was buried by his newsboy comrades. So read his stone before acid rain began melting the stone. He was eleven years old in 1900, when he took poison to end his life.

The unionists and progressives, in those years, were trying to pass child labor restrictions, later a constitutional amendment was proposed in 1924. Twenty-eight states have passed it. Ohio with 13 other states passed it in 1933 at the beginning of the New Deal, no state has passed it since 1937. The first state to pass it was Arkansas in 1924. No other former confederate state ever passed it, the tradition in the right to work remains strong, even a century and more after they lost the war.

view inside the cemetery looking west and seeing the light stanchions of the new base ball park

Snail on granite

Before this summer past began, a new monument was erected for the first Cleveland policeman killed on duty, John Michael Kick, at Monroe Street Cemetery. He was pursuing burglars in 1875 and was shot dead.



He had been a veteran of the War for the Union. A new granite pillar was installed in a colorful ceremony. Some time later a garden snail came.

What does a gravestone tell us?

A headstone can give a short biography, computer searches can fill out almost instantaneous details. The stone as a military emblem similar to an Egyptian winged disc, but with a shield. A kid and an officer who lived between the wars. Walking by this stone, one notices the dates 1918 and 1941. The first is when WWI ended, the second was when WWII began for the US. He lived almost entirely in peace time. We see he was a (Second) Lieutenant in the Army Air Corps. 1941? Pearl Harbor? No.

Now few stones will tell something beyond the name and dates of its corpse. The stones function as filing folders, minimally labelled so as to be found if or when searched for. Military service information is often an exception. There is a desire for the dead one, or his family to tell of his service to the country.

This fellow was a University of Michigan Forester, Class of 1940. Inside the west entrance of the Dana building on campus is a plaque listing him as dying in service. He was a pilot who died in a mid-air collision at Coalinga, California on 25 March 1941.

He was from Rocky River. He was buried in Cleveland's Calvary.

Cleveland's Calvary

the autumn colors were more vibrant in 2009

Calvary is Latin for skull. The hill outside Jerusalem, where Jesus Christ was crucified was called the place of the Skull. Legend has Adam buried there. Jesus' tomb is there surrounded by the Church of the Sepulcher. It is a understandable name for a Christian Cemetery. Cavalry are horse soldiers. It takes a while for a new English, or French speaker to differentiate the two.

Calvary Cemetery at 10,000 Miles Avenue in Cleveland is by far the largest in surface area and in burials in the county—three hundred acres, and 300,000 burials. It opened late in the 19th century.

A lot of people's closest and dearest relatives are buried there. There are relatively few 'famous' people: a couple of Slovenes: Frankie Yankovic the polka king, Frank Lausche, mayor, governor and senator. Judge Frank Battisti, who desegregated the public schools in Cleveland, which began the last decline of Cleveland, before national Republican politics, is buried there. The Polish Olympic athlete 'Stella Walsh' is there. Stella was murdered in a parking lot, in senseless street crime. There was a brief extended notoriety from the autopsy, she was born with anomalous genitals. A few other athletes are there too: Johnny Kilbane, the featherweight; Bill 'Wamby' Wambsganss, second baseman who made an unassisted triple play in the 1920 World Series, and had been Ray Chapman's* double play partner; outfielder Ed Delahanty who went over the Niagara Falls, after being kicked off a train in 1903. Since most hours there is no people there, and it is a big parcel of land in an urban area, there is a good deal of animal life that can be found. This part of the cemetery has pavers as gravestones that allow for riding mowers. Lausche has one such.

big enough to have a railroad bridge and tunnel

Saint Hyacinth's Catholic War Veterans' Post 496 Memorial

Cleveland's Catholics have suffered a brutal reduction of parishes, and episcopal looting. St. Hyacinth's was one such parish. Their Catholic War Veterans' Post 496 took several months of negotiations to have the memorial placed in the cemetery. Also another fight saved St. Margaret of Hungary's multi-statued memorial from being dismembered and sold. Negotiations brought the memorials to Calvary. Recently, a political relations embarrassment [in which two war memorial tablets (they were painted wood, and had no sales value) were left behind at St. Catharine's to be part of its demolition] was attempted to be solved by a similar manœuvre facilitated by a television reporter trying to save the diocese's official face. He succeeded partially, but at least one diocesan employee engaged in ridiculous nastiness to the point of malevolence.
__________________
*Chapman's wife and daughter are at Calvary, Chapman is at Lake View