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.
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*Chapman's wife and daughter are at Calvary, Chapman is at Lake View

Egyptian funereal influence

Napoleon's soldiers, during the Nile campaign, found the Rosetta stone in 1799. They also shot the nose off the sphinx, and brought souvenirs home.The fashion for Egyptian decoration, filtered to France and into English speaking lands. Howard Carter's expedition found Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922. This rekindled the taste for this again. Movie theatres, and funeral parlors enjoyed the style. There was a large black funeral home in Cleveland that had one of its buildings (E. 55th) thusly decorated, that building is currently empty. The mortuarys termed some 'Egyptian slumber rooms'.
This mausoleum (Mayfield cemetery) resembles an Egyptian temple (mastaba), in its shape, columns, door lintel and jambs, and friezes. On either side of the names, there is a trio of lotus. The lotus (sesen) would open up under the sun, and close under darkness. The pediment above has the vulture wings outspread, with two cobras, and the sun disc. The cobra (uraeus) was believed to spit fire, and was associated with the faro, and the sun. The bronze doors should be cedar. Only sphinxes replacing the vases could make this more Hollywood (or Vegas) perfect.
At Lake View, here is the same motif, but with more feathers. This winged sun disc of Thebes, as with many Egyptian symbols changed associations over the millenia of use. So whether one insists it is a symbol of Ra or Horus, or someone else—fine. The block pediment is supported by two Egyptian columns.
Here in a tallish upright stone, with a curved scroll top, is the same motif. On the opposite side are the vulture wings with a scarab (dung beetle). The scarab rolling its ball of shit was analogous to the sun rolling through the sky.Some mausoleums have stained glass windows. [supra Lake View, infra Mayfield] These windows take up Egyptian designs. The recurring vulture wings, spears and a head with a cobra crown, all in art deco. The one below, takes the lotus blossoms, and vulture wings to the earlier art nouveau style.

Riverside Cemetery

Cleveland's Riverside Cemetery (1876) wanted to be the West Side's Lake View. It has some pleasant landscaping, and two beautiful 19th century buildings, and some fine monuments. It has suffered some vandalism, some missing digits on statues.

Part of it was taken for freeways. From the Belarussian section one can look over the highway, and see downtown, and immediately next to the Jennings Freeway is where the Otis Steel Riverside works had been, which Jones-Laughlin bought in 1942, and eventually became a shopping centre.

It is in the most part a lovely park and resting grounds. What i could not stomach was 'Babyland': the graves of children festooned with toys, and enough junk to fill a squadron of Christmas trees. It was gruesome, and kitsch, and sad in a sick way. Don't go down that drive, if you don't have to.

1896-97 Gatehouse and office, outside walls of Massachusetts brownstone

This was on a large block monument. In English, this is just a surname; but this a German name, it translates as 'Devil'. When they were handing out names, who really wanted this one? The plant in the 'U' is a thistle, an emblem of the Scots.
Daykin Lion. I wonder how many kids got a kick out of this one, or were afeared of it? John Daykin was a Yorkshireman, who became a railroader. He was a conductor on Lincoln's funeral train. A canny man, he used his travel to scout for real estate opportunities.
Leonard Schlather was one of the many beer barons buried in this boneyard. He was brewing in Cleveland before the War for Union. His brewery was once the largest in Cleveland. From brewing he went on to make money in salooning, and banking. He sold out to the Cleveland & Sandusky Brewing (which was a merger of 11 brewers in 1897) in 1902, and which lasted into the 1960s. He †1918, just before Prohibition. His brewery building is now owned by a very successful, former microbrewery.

He has the most impressive mausoleum in the park. Here you can see three fine medallions, and stone scroll carving.

There are eight brewers (including: Leisy, Gehring, Hoffman, Mueller, Muth) buried in Riverside. Some were born in Germany. It was another German brewer, from Iowa, who the Republicans, and millionaires ran to beat Tom Johnson in 1910. Hermann Baehr stayed for one two year term. He was secretary-treasurer of Cleveland & Sandusky Brewing, a bank executive, a high ranking mason, and a close friend of Mark Hanna (the Karl Rove of his day). He went on to Los Angeles.

Zinkers

Johan Johnson born in Sweden 1834, died Cleveland 1908
embellished with Swedish crown

this one is either missing a panel, or was created to serve double duty for plantings

The Monumental Bronze Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut cast these grave markers for a generation (1874-1914), with secondary assembly shops. They were zinc, which they advertised as 'white bronze'. Bronze is mostly copper, with tin usually. Brass is copper, and zinc. There is no 'white bronze', it is advertising hokum. Zinc is zinc. They were sold through catalogues and salesmen. Some cemeteries did not allow them. They were cheaper than stone. They were hollow and of several sections, some fused with molten zinc, some bolted. During WWI the factory was refitted for munitions. Panels continued to be made well into the Depression, when the company folded in 1939.

The color became a blue gray after a chemical coating was applied. The markings are as legible as the day they were made. A drawback is that zinc is brittle, and may deteriorate when punctured. A large monument could flow after many years to look as if sagged, or crept. These modest ones do not have that problem.

Here you can see four rosette fasteners in the corners of the central panel

These are in Monroe Street Cemetery, Cleveland. Rain splashed dirt up on the marker.

Here is one for man and wife, with panels front and back. He died in 1901, she in 1906. Again, the rosette bolts are decoratively visible. This could be a plot point in a mystery, or spy novel; one can open up the panel and hide or store an object within.

Mayfield Cemetery

This graveyard is so well maintained it is hard to find anything interesting outside. Grass is kept perfect. I did not take a foot by foot walk, but not one stone was sunken, crooked, broken or eccentric. Mostly germanic names are on the stones.

It is a Jewish cemetery (1887), bordering Lake View Cemetery. It is now in Cleveland Heights (1901). It is reserved for the two oldest Reform congregations of Cleveland, Ohio.

electric brass menorah

They have a community mausoleum that is built like a temple. It has beautiful bronze doors, stained glass, brass rails and details, and gleaming marble. In the rotunda services are conducted.



The building has twin date stones, an anno Domini 1930, and a Jewish date from creation 5690.



Now, most people know congregations are led by rabbis, but a rabbi is a teacher and not a priest. Those in the Aaronic line often have a surname similar to 'Kohen'. Here incised on the stone is the priestly blessing, in the form of the letter 'shin' (ש), the initial letter of El Shaddai (a name of God). The actor, Leonard Nimoy, used this as the Vulcan salute.

Welcome to Monrovia

Ohio City was opposite Cleveland on the Cuyahoga River. The cemetery on Monroe Street was Ohio City's municipal graveyard. Its first burial was 1818, and it was established in 1836/1841. In 1854 Ohio City was merged into Cleveland. Monroe Street Cemetery Would be the only municipal graveyard (there were other private, and church cemeteries) on the West Side until 1900. This grand triple arched sandstone gate (1874) is closed. A very similar one is at the Erie Street Cemetery.

On the night of 30 March 2010, the gatehouse (built 1876), behind it, on the right had its western wall blow out. It has been shored up by a wooden wall, and 2'x4'' buttresses, and that is the way it has stayed. There is not money for such things. People should be paid for work. One would wonder if some 'goth' kids could be hired.

the roof has continued to sag

a pedestrian gate has been welded shut for years

a few iron spindles have been removed to allow a corner entrance

almost a Jacob van Ruisdael scene

There is much to see in different sorts gravestones, and the landscaping had been good at one time. Recently, this large tree had lost a huge portion of itself in a storm. It fell on top of stones, and has been sawed in chunks. A short mausoleum has not been maintained, some of it has collapsed, it has blocked up, and a sheet of wood placed over some of that, there is weeds growing on top, and no distinguishing marks visible.

Over the years, weather, storms, erosion, acid-rain, freeze-thaw cycles, burrowing animals, bad care and vandalism has allowed it to fall in appearance. It still has some beauty and pleasantness about it.

St. Joseph's Cemetery, Cleveland

St. Joseph's Cemetery is slightly older than St. John's. It is on the corner of East 79 and Woodland. The southern property lines abut railroad.
Immediately east of St. John's Cemetery is St. Joseph's. The Woodland neighborhood has fallen on hard times. Rich people do not drive by often. Not many with substantial, or any funds choose to be buried, or have their relatives deposited here. Although, a recent bishop of Erie Pennsylvania is there in a family plot. He had been a child at St. Rose and St. James parishes.

In one of these cemeteries, a fellow i once worked with found God. He was a big, strong, angry man with sensual tastes. He abused himself and others. He was capable in his trade, and a fairly bright man, and a talkative man. [He invented the word 'cohoosion'.] After a night of excessive 'partying' he awoke to find himself in a Catholic Cemetery on Woodland. This awakening changed his life. He decided to abandon his former lifestyle, as much as he could, and became religious. He admits to many failings, and he wants others to confess theirs too.
There is fashion in grave markers. Certain styles and decorations, and lettering come to the fore and then fade. One was a cylindrical stone sitting on a cradle. Some people thought of this resembling a bolster pillow, and refer to it as a 'bolster stone'. Other people who work and maintain graveyards, call them rollers. The bolster above became a roller.
There are three* mausoleums on the property, two are of religious sisters' orders. The Sisters of Notre Dame, supra, and the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, infra. These cemeteries on Woodland suffered vandalism, and the mausoleums were invaded by vandals, and grave robbers. These buildings have been sealed, two with stone blocks, and the Notre Dame Sisters with a marker stone listing those inside the vault (†1899-1919), and those on the hillside (†1878-1918). The diocesan cemeteries brag that they, "maintain all burial sites in perpetuity".
There is a couple of locust trees growing on the roof. The locust is a very fast colonising tree, with a deep initial and crossed roots that really anchor the plant. It is described, as an evasive species, an opportunistic plant, a weed. They grow quickly, and have gone to leaf when used as fence posts, they burn well and hot. Beneath the cross, there are leafy vines surrounding a stone with a sculpted relief of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. At the continued growth rate, it will cover up that decorative art.
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*I saw three to-day, i look at an old map, and it reads a fourth smaller one to the left of the Notre Dame sisters. If it was there once, it is not now.