Accidental Death Of James Dean - His Birthplace & Gravesite - Fairmount & Marion, Indiana

hi everybody Steve here in Fairmount Indiana at James Dean's gravesite I think it's around 3:30 4 o'clock in the afternoon the Sun just came out it's been pouring down rain for the last few hours on my trip up here from Kentucky I can't believe that I'm actually here it's really surreal when you visit the final resting places of certain people I'm also gonna visit the James Dean gallery which is about a mile or two south of the cemetery on the same road as a cemetery in downtown Fairmount and just a few blocks further south is the Fairmont historic museum where I'll show you the Statue of garfield' dresses jeans Dean and rebel without a cause I'm also going to visit Dean's birthplace in his mother's grave site they're both in Marion Indiana which is just about 10 minutes north of Fairmount and if you watch all the way to the end I'll share with you a couple of other James Dean historic destinations as well thanks for joining me on another trip to visit the most memorable cemeteries memorials and grave sites I just exited highway 69 heading north from Indianapolis and it took me a little over an hour to get here now I'm heading west and I think Fairmount is just about 5 miles or so straight ahead I just arrived in Fairmont Indiana and this is one of the cutest towns I've ever seen and the cemetery is really close to downtown which I didn't realize he's been pouring down rain the entire afternoon and I'm heading to my hotel and I thought well since the rain stopped for a few minutes I thought well let me go ahead and just see if I can find the cemetery before I had to it over to the hotel because it's also supposed to rain tomorrow I'm really surprised how large the cemetery is to look at large this is for a tiny little town I mean it seems pretty tiny maybe it's not as tiny as it looks I'm just gonna drive all the length of the cemetery in pictures and videos I've seen before it always looks really small look at this unfortunately I'm facing the end of the Sun so sure doesn't the light is not the greatest it's quite a few people here but you know it is Memorial weekend so I think there will be a lot of people here just because of that can didn't really see an entrance except for maybe where that lady was blocking the entrance there so I'll just go in here okay I just pulled in at the northern end of the cemetery you know I believe James Dean's grave is up at this end according to my GPS if it's accurate well I'm glad you know these are dirt roads there's some gravel here so it's not - not too muddy a lot of people here quite a few people here but again it's Memorial Day weekend so that's to be expected well here it is and there are quite a few white stones nearby and I think they probably added these because I only see them right here by James Dean's grave and I bet it's because everyone parks in the grass on top of people's graves looks like there are other people here to visit his grave too definitely left lots of stuff I arrived a few minutes ago and right behind me someone pulled up and they were also coming to to visit and take pictures with James Dean's headstone and it's it is interesting to see how many people have chipped away pieces of the headstone I just don't get that really why not just take a picture or a video and it's nice to see that he's here with family with the Winslows Marcus and our tents and also his father and his father's second wife when and Epple deeds mother is buried in Marion Indiana which is just about 10 minutes north of the cemetery here I think she's buried next to her parents at Grant Memorial Park and I planned to visit her grave site tomorrow and here comes some more cars well I've only been here about 10 minutes and already about a half a dozen fans have come and stopped by to take pictures and to remember and to talk and it's a good thing I wasn't planning to just come here and be my myself in solitude because I don't think that's gonna happen this is a very very popular place to be and actually cold people that have come by have been locals and Eddie I think any leave was her name very sweet woman a huge fan she said she lives just I think 30 minutes away and she's never been here said she never realized you could visit someone's gravesite and I think there's a lot of people like a lot of people just don't know you can or wouldn't even really think about doing it she's been to his festival the festival that they have here each year but she's never been to the gravesite so I think she was pretty happy to be here I just took a picture of them together I'm curious how many of you have been here too James Dean is grave I'm guessing that quite a few of you have I know most YouTube vloggers have been here I've seen so many that's why I wasn't sure if I would even upload this if anyone would even be interested in seeing since seeing it since I'm sure you've seen everyone else's videos but I still wanted to come it's different to go somewhere in person it's one thing to see a destination like this on a video it's quite another to actually be here in person so even if I'm the only one who watches this I still wanted to upload it even if it's just for myself I'm a little surprised to see a golf ball here he did play the guitar so I can see that the pic there and this looks like looks like John Lennon I was thinking that was a Ouija it sort of a Ouija board thing and maybe it is maybe that's not John Lennon but it kind of looks like him it's always interesting to see what people leave at grave sites and look at all the lipstick marks on his headstone I wonder whose grave site receives more kisses Marilyn Monroe's or James Dean's what do you think have any of you kissed either of their headstones I don't know if I ever noticed this before maybe I did and I just forgot but James Dean was born a few years before my mom I think he just because he died so young we all think of him as just ageless and timeless he was frozen in time as a young person and we don't really think of him I mean he would be he would being as 80s now I knew that Fairmount was the hometown of James Dean but I had no idea that it was also the hometown of Jim Davis who created the cartoon character Garfield and also the CBS News reporter Phil Jones and apparently it's also home to the state softball champs the Madison grant lady argyles as I was walking over here to take a picture of this sign I noticed another headstone with the name Winslow this is the third one in the cemetery so I'm wondering if these are these Winslow's are also related to James Dean now just north of the cemetery almost next door is Carter's motors Indiana motorcycles where James Dean reportedly purchased his very first motorcycle you can see the cemetery from here and you can walk to his grave in probably five minutes and next door to Carter's motors is the church he attended and the church is just down the street from the Winslow farm where he grew up and then just right up there on the left-hand side that's the Winslow farm yeah and this is the Winslow farm this is where he lived when he was growing up with his uncle an aunt and now according to Dave at the Museum the James Dean Museum downtown his cousin Marcus still lives here I'm just gonna turn around here I don't want to bother though that's probably him out there or maybe a cousin or something out there mowing the lawn isn't that beautiful it's still so beautiful they really have kept it up really nicely there are many famous photos of James Dean standing here in front of the mailbox in front of the house with the barn behind him in the distance there copyrighted so I'm not gonna show them here you can google them and find them online if you haven't already seen them the sitting here in my car in the driveway of James Dean's former home is very surreal is even more surreal than standing in his gravesite it really does seem like time has just Stood Still this house looks almost exactly like it did in the photos when James Dean was standing here more than 60 years ago now many head back south toward the cemetery and about a mile or so past the cemetery is downtown Fairmount the street that I'm driving on is South 150 east and just at the south end of the cemetery the name of the street changes to North Main Street so I was really surprised to discover that the house he grew up in the church he attended the cemetery where he's buried his gallery on Main Street downtown and the famous landmark downtown buildings where he was photographed are all located on the very same street just within a few miles of each other there's another famous picture of James Dean standing in the cemetery where he's now buried just a few years before he died he's standing in front of the headstone of someone who shares his last name so even James Dean visited cemeteries while I was alive and I'm just guessing that he would probably find it pretty cool that millions of people have visited his gravesite since he died I've seen lots of videos from youtubers who have visited the James Dean gallery Museum and gift shop here but I don't recall any of them mentioning that the cemetery where he's buried is just up the street about a mile or so you can actually walk there from here and since so many youtubers have been here already I'm just gonna go inside and show you some of the highlights just in case you haven't seen those other videos the collection on display here of James Dean memorabilia collectibles and artifacts is very impressive the gallery and museum is free and I think they make their money from donations and a purchase of gifts so I'm gonna make a donation and I wanna buy a t-shirt as I'm walking around I'm listening to some of the coolest music I've heard in years in fact some of these songs I haven't heard since I was a kid back in the early 1960s the songs are being played on an internet radio station called doo-wop cafe.com unfortunately it's copyrighted so I have to remove the background music and replace it with his copyright and royalty-free music from YouTube but it's so cool to be listening to the same music that James Dean was listening to back in the 1950's before he died and here's the miniature statue of Dean from his 1954 New York play the immoralist here's one of those photos that I was talking about earlier with James Dean and his young cousin Marcus in front of the house and this is the original game from the movie rebel without a cause and look at this collection of James Dean buttons and Dean certainly helped make the black leather jacket popular back in the day so I'm only showing you just a few highlights there's so much more here to see so if you come in person make sure and allow lots of time to see everything [Music] so just across the street and up a couple of blocks toward downtown is this James D Memorial Park and the artist who created the sculpture is the same artist who created the exact sculpture that I visited a while back at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles in Hollywood you may remember this this bust that's pretty cool so I guess he's he comes back here as a part of the the annual festival all I had a link at the end of this video if you'd like to see my visit to his bust at Griffith Observatory in Hollywood and also to his crash site Memorial in central California if you haven't already seen that video you've done a nice job by creating this little park with these benches where you can come and sit and reflect and remember James Dean now back on the other side of the street and then about two blocks south from this park is another famous James Dean landmark fans will recognize this iconic Fairmount bank building as location where Dean posed for one of his most famous photos and on this street here just a block east is another James Dean Museum look at the Dean up there 1889 spare montebank so this is the Fairmont historic museum or historical museum and not only do they have the James Dean exhibit here but also this Garfield exhibit this unless we take a look if you happen to be a James Dean can Anna Garfield can they'll definitely want to come here to the Fairmont Historical Museum because both the creator of Garfield and James Dean where the Fairmont need us and you probably can see the Garfield here is dressed like James Dean in rebel without a cause isn't it cool this is JW Patterson house built in 1888 listed November 14 places now I'm gonna head to my hotel in gas city which is located about five to ten miles northeast of downtown Fairmount and then tomorrow I'll head to Dean's birthplace and his mom's grave site in Marion Indiana which is about ten miles northwest of gas city so I was expecting gas city to be a little bit more of a town but it looks more like a strike stop which is fine but since it actually has hotels here [Music] and Fairmont didn't have her tell us release none that were listed online I just thought this would be a little bit bigger but it seems a lot smaller than Fairmount listen Afghan station though the Burger King so you know maybe there's more to the town maybe this is the outskirts of town but this is my hotel super aide look at this now it kind of like in the fields it's pretty cool pretty different it doesn't really look like much but it's pretty now so for those of you who like to travel I'll show you what it looks like inside well this is pretty disappointing this is my third day in Fairmont Indiana and I was hoping that maybe by the third day the Sun would come out but I guess I'm not meant to have any sunshine here in Fairmount when I arrived it was raining yesterday I woke up to a major thunder and lightning storm and rain just pouring down so another really nice room very comfortable in fact I stayed here two nights Harry and here at the super 8 in gas city just right off of the highway 69 very nice very comfortable definitely stay here again in fact I stayed two nights and I would definitely stay longer if I find out the time and if the weather we're better I think it came to around $89 with tax so you know not too bad I mean not great I mean that's still at the very high end of what I've been paying on this trip in the beginning in the western states I was paying 40 50 60 dollars a night plus tax here in the more in the Midwest almost in the east I would say Indianapolis to me that seems almost east and Tennessee much higher prices much higher gas prices much higher hotel prices but on average I think this trip I've probably I'm probably on average spending around $75 a night so maybe a little bit more than I was hoping I thought maybe you know since I was going to the Midwest and you know in very small towns that I'd be paying closer to you know 40 50 dollars a night but it's it's actually been much more everything is more expensive these days I guess and I'll give you a tour like I'd like to do in the hotel this is a really large bathroom with us this is a pretty new hotel here they didn't have their breakfast wasn't as nice as the breakfast at the super 8 in in Central City that was really nice that was the nicest one so far but you know not bad they didn't have the eggs or bacon or sausage but they had everything else so I'm getting ready to head out and I thought I would do a few more hours of sightseeing here but I'm not sure I'm going to be able to see much in this fog but I'm gonna give it a try anyway because there's a few spots so I still haven't visited here but I really wanted to do this morning I was kind of saving again hoping for some Sun even though I prefer the Sun this is kind of pretty and very peaceful it's 6 a.m. on a Memorial Day and the last place I thought I would be is Marion Indiana at the birthplace of James Dean on Memorial Day I spent months and months planning this road trip but I also wanted to be as flexible and spontaneous as possible and as a result of all my zine and zagging and site trips Here I am on Memorial Day morning in Marion Indiana completely unplanned so this is downtown Marion look at this cool old city hall or courthouse or something library I'm not sure what it is but it's pretty name I'm here in Marion Indiana which is just I think about ten miles or so north of Fairmount Indiana where James Dean grew up and where he's now buried this is the site this is the spot where he was born back in 1931 this used to be this house which was actually an apartment building sadly the house was torn down but the site has been claimed I think probably by the city for this monument yeah memorial to where James Dean was born I didn't know anything about Marion Indiana until I arrived up here all these these little towns they're just tiny little country farm towns and they're all really quaint and like Mayberry really like you would expect Maori to to be and they're also rich in history I didn't realize that Jim Davis who created Garfield the Garfield cartoon character was also born here in Marion and also grew up not far away in Fairmount Indiana just like James Dean did I mean how weird is that and then right across the street over here discovered they have a wall murals of all the famous people who have lived here or born here or did something historic here I had no idea that Marion Indiana that had so many famous people from here did any of you know that that's the fun thing about road trips is sometimes you just take a little detour or a little side trip or one thing leads to another before you know you've discovered something you know really cool that you had no idea about so when I've discovered lots of those things on this trip and I'll be sharing with showing those with you over the next few weeks and probably a few months I visited so many places and I'm not really uploading these videos in order as you've probably noticed if you watch this channel on a regular basis while I decided to be flexible on this trip and I didn't know it was here until I visited the James Dean gallery museum yesterday and talked to the owner David and he gave me a map and show me where this was and he told me about this and he's actually the one that had this this monument created for this site now dave was saying that he hadn't been over here in a little while and he hasn't too cleaned off the the granite but it looks very clean to me it looks very nice I wonder if there's anything on the backside oh yeah okay so it is designed and dedicated so I was designed and dedicated by David Loire so he was the owner of the James Dean gallery the association with Main Street Marion with special thanks to Jim and nedra Sutter the Community Foundation of Grant County Grant County conventions and Visitors Bureau and you can pause the video if you want to read this it's just a little bit about his life I'm standing off to the side just because of the reflection so if any of you have ever been to Marion Indiana have you been to this monument James Dean monument to this spot leave a comment down below I'd love to hear from you so long ago and yet it seems like just yesterday doesn't it especially if you're a baby boomer it all goes by way too fast and did you notice my shirt I picked this up at the James Dean gallery museum yesterday and look at this really cool house just right behind the location here yeah look at this really cool old house I'm sure that it was built at the same time as the other house the one that got torn down looks like the same style same architecture same everything [Music] it's too bad whoever tore down the house the apartment building just probably didn't realize the historical significance and people who did probably didn't realize it was being torn down until it was too late [Music] down another historic building that's been it's no longer here but at least they have this really nice site there's the sign here first site memorial mr. Marion Glen Allen okay on this side stood the Seven Gables where James Dean one of the most charismatic and idolized movie actors of all time was born February 8th 1980 1931 directed by Marion quarterback Lana mr. Marion and James Dean even has a star here in front of the sign and in front of the memorial James Dean's mother who died at the young age of 29 is buried in this Cemetery here in Marion not far from the house where James Dean was born and this is a much larger Cemetery as you can see with the cemetery Fermo and the Fairmont Cemetery is actually not that small it's not huge but it's not a tiny cemetery but this seems to be quite a bit bigger this looks like the entrance up here on the right-hand side my car Casper is definitely feeling his age on this road trip I've never heard it makes so many creaking and squeaking noises before okay there's the office that's pretty cool office I don't see then a name to the cemetery though oh there is a map I wonder if it has anybody listed so I just looked at by James Dean's mother Mildred Dean who is buried here in Section F of the cemetery it was nice of the cemetery to provide this map but look how large you see a large the cemetery is yeah she's buried up here in Section F it's a large section and according to find a grave there's no GPS so even though there is no GPS and I'll go ahead and add one when I find her grave site to the find A Grave memorial page it does say I'm his sign that Mildred Marie Wilson Dean is buried 30 yards west of this plaque so that's very helpful because section gap is a very large section so let's go see if I can find her grave it's sprinkling a little bit it's definitely overcast as you can see but it's also sprinkling a little bit wet today because it does have the plaque right there as long as you know what section you're in then it's easy just come 30 yards from the plaque her grave site but if you don't have to happen to see the map of the cemetery and know that she's in Section F you wouldn't be able to find this so I'd be difficult to find it's a very large cemetery it seems especially sad that she died so young I mean that was sad for James but also sad that she never got to see just how famous he became and also sad that he died so young as his career was just getting started and he never got to see he never really got to see either just how famous he became because he became famous after his death the majority of his fame came after his death strange how life works sometimes and he didn't even live to be old as old as his mom who died at 29 he died at 24 he died five years before she did that they both died so young [Music] it's nice location it's kind of lively which i think is for me I like lively cemeteries I mean they're kind of nice where they're peaceful too but I kind of prefer cemeteries where there's a lot of people around a lot of things going on and life continues it just seems more it doesn't seem as sad to me I guess that's why I like visiting cemeteries and I like when there's a lot of people around it just seems nice when cemeteries are just a part of life and not these sad places that are remote where no one goes so I just added a GPS to Mildred Murray Dean's final resting place but before I hop back on the highway and head to my next destination since it's Memorial Day I'm gonna make one more stop at Park Cemetery where James Dean is buried and show you one more gravesite there Richard Wayne would served in Vietnam and died on August 12 1971 he's buried just a few rows away from James Dean and like Dean he also died at the age of 24 famous or not every grave has a story to tell so thank you Richard for your service you may be gone but you haven't been forgotten if you liked today's video you might also enjoy one of the other videos shown here and if you'd like to be alerted when I upload my next video don't forget to subscribe and click the bell icon in case you don't recognize the skyline there it's Indianapolis Indiana and now that I'm leaving Indiana it looks like the Sun has finally decided to come out

Channel: The Graveyard Channel

Views: 54,975

Keywords: james dean grave, james dean birthplace, mildred dean grave, park cemetery fairmount indiana, grant memorial park marion indiana, fairmount indiana gravesites, marion indiana gravesites, grave directions, grave location, famous graves, cemetery tours, cemetery travel, gravesite tours, indiana graves, indiana cemeteries, indiana sightseeing, james dean memorial park, james dean childhood home, james dean gallery, jim davis garfield, super 8 gas city, gas city indiana

Id: N8ozLETOjME

Length: 31min 15sec (1875 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 16 2019