the Sheppards

Marilyn Reese-Sheppard, her unborn son, and the ashes of her husband are in a Mayfield Hts. mausoleum.

Is there a locale in this country that does not have a famous murder? In the 1930s Cleveland had a serial killer with many similarities with London's 'Jack-the-Ripper', Kingsbury Run, or Torso murderer. Elliot Ness did not have the evidence to arrest the politically connected doctor, who murdered street people. The doctor admitted himself to a mental hospital, in state but well out of town. I would wager that the most interesting is the murder of Marilyn Sheppard, which the political community (both parties) and establishment pinned on her physician husband (peculiarly he was often pointed out to be an osteopath).

She was beaten to death in the early morning of Independence Day 1954, at home in the suburb of Bay Village. Immediately the Cleveland Police, and the editor of the Cleveland Press insisted that her husband, Dr. Sam Sheppard was the killer. The story did not stop. The trial was a national media circus. Soon after the verdict of guilty, Dr. Sheppard's mother shot herself, his father died a few days later. Marilyn's father years later would also use a gun for suicide.

Official Cleveland has always maintained (they made a campaign of it) the doctor's guilt. Much of the country did not think so. The remarkable television show, "The Fugitive" (120 episodes, 1963-1967), was partially based on Doctor Sam, though denied. In 1964 it is ruled that the trial was unfair, and he is freed. In 1966 there is a second trial, and he is not found guilty. When i grew up, most people did not like Dr. Sam Sheppard, and considered him guilty. F. Lee Bailey won the argument 8-1 before the Supreme Court,  Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U.S. 333 (1966), that Sheppard did not receive due process. Many people, here, did not like Bailey.

The tale has more acts. Sam Sheppard marries an in-law of Goebbels, the nazi propagandist. Dr. Sam becomes a professional wrestler, and marries the daughter of his coach and partner.

Years earlier, the family hired a forensic biochemist. Paul Kirk examined blood splatter evidence to prove a man other than Sheppard was the killer. Sheppard was arrested without blood, the killer had to have been bloodied. In 1989 Richard Eberling [click] is found guilty of murdering another woman. The Sheppards' son, Sam Reese Sheppard, found the murderer of his mother. It was Eberling, a serial murderer, thief, interior decorator.

videre:  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sheppard/chronology.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2613sheppard.html

masons and catholics in the same building

 32°

 33°

 St. Anthony of Padua and Lisbon

section with several masonic emblems (male and female), many from the 1950s

 after All Saints and All Souls

These crypts have some Catholic dead entombed. Mayfield area has many Italians, and certainly not all are Catholics, but the tendency is there; and for many ethnic Catholics there are grave visits at the beginning of November. In sections of the mausoleum where there are many masonic emblems on the crypt marble, the decorations are absent. 

O Signore, fa' di me uno strumento della tua pace!

O Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

This packet has a picture of Padre Pio, and the beginning of the Prayer of St. Francis in Italian, and a rosary.

Tiffany in the mausoleum

Knollwood Cemetery Mayfield Heights Ohio is a well landscaped graveyard. It has a very large mausoleum, with white marble. It has a lower, and upper floor. The upper floor, especially, has museum quality stained glass. In most of the alcoves there is artful glass; some decorative in design, and some in figure image. One can see some of these have been grouped, others must have been client selected. A few windows are still clear. The manufactures are not listed on most of the windows, though some are: Willet of Philadelphia, Westminster of New York City, and these christian tri-partite windows (at the end of halls) by Tiffany. All have quotes from the King James Version (KJV) of Scripture.

He is not here, for he is risen, as he said. — Matthew 28.6. 

 The spirit shall return unto God who gave it. — Ecclesiastes 12:7.

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. — Matthew 11:28.

As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. — Psalm 42:1.

Blessed be the Lord, that hath given rest unto his people — 1 Kings 8:56.

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some were abbreviated, here are all five complete:

He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay .

Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest .

As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.

Blessed be the LORD, that hath given rest unto his people Israel, according to all that he promised: there hath not failed one word of all his good promise, which he promised by the hand of Moses his servant.

birds at erie street

I have been checking a bird watchers' page on daily sightings [click].  There are many sparrow sized birds, and if they are active in fidgeting movement, it is not always easy to get a clear glimpse, nor a foto snap. A few of the recent postings concerns a clay colored sparrow at Erie Street Cemetery Cleveland. How big a deal is this amongst local birders, i don't know. 

Well, that cemetery is directly opposite the Cleveland Indians ball park. Now, this is the oldest extant cemetery in the city. Early last century the street which it sits on was re-named, 'East Ninth'. Also, this is one of the streets that has been in the process of resurfacing, this year; as are several nearby streets, and the big innerbelt highway bridge.

Wednesday, i got around to visit again. That night Cleveland was to host a playoff game with Tampa Bay. Also, the gate house to the cemetery was being put up again, after disassembly.

The cemetery is a green island in this part of downtown Cleveland, that has various trees and shrubbery, and regular grass cutting. The care of the gravestones and grounds is uneven. Bums overnight under the greenery, and next to walls. They leave debris. What looked like, to me, a raccoon skeleton is weathering away.

Infra, are a few of the fotos i took. I also took pictures of branches, and patches that had a bird or birds in that spot a second or two before; and what i thought was the subject for the camera to focus upon, was not always what the camera decided upon. Please correct any misidentified birds. I am posting this on the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, who famously spoke to birds.

 gray catbird

 acadian flycatcher

white throated sparrow

little lamb

at Wellington's Greenwood Cemetery

In the late XIXth century many marble lambs were placed on children's graves. Most to-day are indistinguishable lumps, they have eroded smooth. After a time, the lambs went out of fashion. This one, is not of marble, and late in the time frame.

woodland woodchuck

this dusty fellow just popped up in his hole

where think you doth said woodchuck reside?

in a burrow to the left and fore of this building

Quoting Camus

Albert Camus was the great French existentialist, and the most important writer in the modern age in French, and maybe any language. He, himself, was not interested in death memorials. He is very quotable, and people may pick up a sentence of his without knowing it was from him.

O light! This is the cry of all the characters of ancient drama brought face to face with their fate. This last resort was ours, too, and I knew it now. In the middle of winter I at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer.  — Return to Tipasa (1952)

« Au milieu de l'hiver j'ai découvert en moi un invincible été. »

translation found in 1960s English anthologies:
In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

Memorial Day

Memorial Day Association

recent statues in Cleveland's Lake View

Lake View Cemetery Cleveland bills itself as 'Cleveland's Outdoor Museum', and they have a point.  Recently they have added to their monuments.

Some they write up in their bi-yearly newsletter, and sometimes a new statue gets an article in the city's daily. Such as this one, by Rosa Serra for the family of Mark A. Smith. This bronze lion is a Spanish bronze that looks like stone. It is modeled after the character, Mufasa, in the movie Lion King. It still has the cemetery's temporary marker on site.

a more traditional lion photographed 5 August 2011

Sergey Gaidaenko by Ivan Grigoriev

This new statue is accompanied by a poem's line from Robert Browning, “Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?”

family plots

Cordoned off in iron chains, and hollow tassels. Clink, clink, to keep something away?

After the years these stone stanchions are persuaded by gravity. At one time, these were connected too.

Knight of Pythias

The emblem in the center is a crest of the fraternal secret society, the Knights of Pythias. They are modeled, like so many, after the Freemasons.  The F.C. B. stands for "Friendship, Charity, Benevolence".

seeing faces

from a certain angle and distance, a laughing face appears, like a comedy mask

dodgy surnames

stone line up

Czajkowski

Czajkowski, a Polish spelling, pronounced the same as the composer. Peter Ilič, since he was Russian, using Cyrillic has the same name transliterated in Latin script in diverse forms. When reading stones, every so many, the surname matches a famous, but not so common, name.

Private Humboldt

Pvt. Henry A. Humboldt

1893-1918

Co. C 102nd Inf.

George W.

At the time, might the initial have been for  'Washington'?  He is listed as "Son", well we certainly do not know [in this fellow's case], but no one would have put "Idiot Son". O look, there is bird crap on the stone.                                        

Nebraska

                         Earlier i posted an Ontario Pierce. I thought of making a series, but no.

lurking buck

again, i just thought this a good picture

cemetery landscape with water tower

ship stone

The script of the stone is worn, but the top is a two masted sailing ship, and very attractive. I believe the boy was eighteen when he died in 1849. This is in Maple Grove in Vermilion (although a sign there spells it with 2 'l's).

squirrel visitor

open zinker

This is a white zinc grave marker. They were manufactured with various designs, and removable panels. As you see here. They are durable, if not disturbed. If this was new, it would pass as contemporary art. Monroe Street Cemetery Cleveland has had some neglect and vandalism over the years. Really, esthetically it is a very lovely graveyard, but the far end by the rail tracks was filled with small markers, an many have been attacked. Along the side fences, there are stretches of small, and densely marked plots. It is not uncommon, to have the graves of the poorer people in such spots.          

stoned under

In Parma Ohio, Workmen's Circle (Ashkenazic fraternal) has a cemetery, and parts of it have sections for separate Jewish organisations and congregations. The most separate, and smallest, is the Berger. At the time of the photo, this section was accessible though a ripped part of the chain link fence. 

Baby

1901 — 1904

Looking in graveyards at stones generations old, one notices more such stones. At a time when antibiotics, vaccines, and certain medical treatments were not available, infant and child death were far more common in the world. To-day, still when medical care is not available in the world those death rates are still high.

at rest

how this happen?

Brookmere is a smallish cemetery in an antebellum residential neighborhood of Cleveland Ohio. It is slightly more than three miles south by southwest of Public Square (exact down town). It is bordered by houses on small lots, and is on level ground on top of a quickly dropping valley of the Metropark that surrounds the Zoo. It is near a main road, but tucked away to be not seen. Along one fence are several yards filed with plastic children playground toys.

Indians had been here, and then Yankees from New York, and New England, and then a lot of Germans. People do not realise that German ancestry had been (perhaps still is) the most common one in the United States; but between the Kaiser and the Fuehrer, this has been quiet.

If you look carefully, you can see, that the main inscripted section of this monument has been inserted upside down. I have never rubbed an etching of a stone before, this one and one in Cleveland's Woodland Cemetery, i would like too. There is enough script beyond the Lebensdaten, that may be interesting, if it is decipherable. The dates that i could read were all XIXth century. 

I am not the first one to post a foto of this stone. The same stuff is interesting to most people who would be interested, and not just this. Any photographer that is interested in graveyard fotos, and walked this cemetery, would have taken at least one shot of this monument. Any urban fotographer strolling with camera in some other venue, would be attracted to certain "hey, look at this thing". On Cleveland's Public Square, there will be a foto of Tom Johnson, another of Moses Cleaveland, one of Old Stone Church, and probably some shot of the War for the Union monument. I take for this journal page, and a few others. Many of the subjects have been shot with better cameras, and posted on the internets by people before me. I have been discouraged to post some fotos, because i have seen the subjects already posted by others.

Pair of Hearts

When i was growing up, there were in a number of houses rooms decorated with religious pictures. Sometimes it was in the dining room, or the bedroom, or the front room. Some pictures were themed, or paired, and some were solitary. One pair that was common was the Sacred Heart of Jesus*, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. There is a mausoleum in Lorain, in which, the pair is there in stained glass in that solitary room.





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* In Cleveland there were neighboring Polish parishes, by those names. Lennon, the destroying bishop, closed that Sacred Heart, and another in Elyria, and another in Akron.

varmint hole

I took several pictures at several graveyards. Some i have presented with commentary. Some pictures instead of immediately posted, i kept on file. Did i want to post one to-day? Should i put any copy to it at all, the picture reveals itself. Is there any audience? Well, i am queuing up one post a day for the next several days, and then, i don't know if i go back to the well, or go on foto jaunts for new shots, or go on hiatus.