Sprankle

Sprankle Mausoleum is late XIXth century neo-Gothic. They really don't build them like this anymore. It has five crocketted spires, ususally associated with churches. It has a plankway to the door. It has some deterioration. The original roofing is gone, and has been replaced by asphalt (tar) shingles.

Sprankle sounds like a beer baron, but no, close. Rudolph Sprankle *1817, 1898†, and his son James Rudolph Sprankle *1843, 1904† were grain merchants, and later millers and bankers. First using the canals, and then the trains, became the biggest shippers of grain to the Atlantic coast. First the path was Cleveland to Chillicothe to Indianapolis. The son's first wife was a Grasselli, whose father owned Grasselli Chemical which made sulphuric acid for Standard Oil. There was great money in that stink. These were millionaires on Cleveland's Millionaires' Row (Euclid Avenue).

And more Sprankles were added to the building. But the 1970s was a period of decay in Cleveland. Woodland Cemetery's buildings were broken in, items removed, bones tossed out, and bums holing up in the buildings. Later the city cemented and blocked the entrances.

Gross Mutter

the dessicated maple leaf was there

Looking back at photos i took, i decided to put these on the net. Some others were visually interesting as landscapes, but without a particular story. I will put some on. They are worth looking at, but little text.

Monroe Cemetery Cleveland i find interesting, more so than most. There are many Germans buried there. In the XIXth century they did not feel prohibited in writing in their native tongue.

Not all were flush in funds, but wanted memorials for their dead. And to-day, in America, the poor are hated in such away that proper company does not allow them, and their concerns, to be spoken of; if one does, one is barraged with taunts of 'socialist' or worse. It is not that 'socialist' is a bad term (or concept) at all, but those throw it impugn repugnant and calamitous implications, connotations, and pure venom.

The one supra was made standard. 'Mutter' was ready in the store, 'Gross' was added. The name was not cut. Maybe the money was not there, and modest was acceptable, and still had dignity. Germans like long words, compound words; but English has 'grandmother' as one, Deutsch hat hier 'Gross Mutter' als zwei. But now, Germans spell it 'Großmutter'. I do not remember seeing double s with 'ß' there.
Gross Mutter was in her 60s. Gertrude was a child. It looks money did not allow an immediate stone for Grandmother, and in the meantime the girl died, and money for two stones was not there. Altmann is a Germanic name, Wachowiak a Polish name, but it is not unusual for a nation have others acculturate into. Sometimes from generations past, so only the spelling suggests a different nation.

Lions of Judah

When people came to America they still knew the ways of the old country and followed their natural cultural. This extended to burial practices. These graves are tight together, and one can not step on the ground proper.

On many of the stones there are enamel photographs (a good number have been broken). The script is English, and Yiddish in Hebraic letters. The stele are all thick.
This section of the cemetery is that of an Orthodox congregation. This stone has two lions of Judah, here that are standing, on some they are resting. The almost universal appearance of the Magen (Star) David is here too. The third element is the tablets of the Law, the Decalogue, Ten Commandments.

different presentation of the same symbols

Workmen's Circle

The globe is the Workmen's Circle emblem. The letters 'A', 'R' stand for Arbeter Ring, the Yiddish for the former. Workmen's Circle was a secular Jewish fraternal for the Yiddish speaking Ashkenazi immigrants and their children. A 'fraternal' is a mutual aid society.

Workmen's Circle was founded in 1900 in New York City. It was part of labor, socialism, and the social justice movements. Since its peak influence, it has dwindled, and has moved toward the political center. It's paper, Forverts (the Forward), was the largest non-English paper in the country, for a time.

In 1920 the Cleveland lodges bought land for a cemetery in Parma, Ohio. The labor Jews were, at that time, living around Kinsman, and Woodland on the east side of Cleveland. Parma is on the [south] west side. The Workmen's Circle graveyard has separate section for other Jewish groups.

Resting under the Slavonic Cross

Ту спочиває наш син • Tu spočivaje naš sin • Here rests our son
Стефан • Stefan

The boy lived into his sixth year *1919, 1924†. He was a Rusyn (several spellings), and a Greek Catholic. His family would have come from, what would have been before the Great War, the far eastern Austrian empire. The nation now is in several lands: Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Serbia, and Ukraine. The Ukrainians consider the language to be a dialect of Ukrainian. They are distinct enough to be considered a separate Slavonic nation. Now, the Poles consider some of them Lemko, and Polish. In Cleveland there is a Lemko Hall that appeared in the film Deerhunter. I mention this, because the boy's family name (Aндрiйовскйи) is transliterated (Andrijowskyj) in a Polish fashion, from the Cyrillic script. In the Latin script, he has a middle initial 'A', that is not in the Cyrillic. It may be for the patronymic (the child's form of the father's Christian name).

On the stone is folk incisions of flowers, and the Slavonic cross. Top bar is the title board, the bottom the foot board. It is tilted, towards the Good Thief, and the Bad Thief; tilted towards Heaven, and Hell.

Mary Magdalene in Sorrow

at cemetery

Many people feel similar emotions, have similar senses of sanctity, concerning graveyards and churches. Some faiths consider both holy ground. It is not to be surprised that similar statuary may be found in both.

at church (St. Colman, Cleveland,O.) Mary Magdalene with skull, and jar of perfume

disturbing ground

Gound is broken, and then the resultant hole is filled. Now some times, the same ground is broken again. People are buried, and occasionally disinterred. The casual observer months later may see the dirt settled, and if not planted with new turf, or something, can only guess if someone's remains are below ground.

a closer view, from a different angle