Oh, hello neighbor. So nice to see
you again. You didn’t think I was gonna come through that door singing a song did you?
Oh, well, sorry to disappoint. Maybe I can make it up to you though by regaling you with more Strange
and Unusual Tales from Hollywood Graveyard. Yeah?
Good! Well have a seat, get
comfortable…. Let’s make the most of this spooky night, and see what kind of
bizarre tales we can unearth in the cemeteries of the world. Won’t you please join me? Let’s see now, where did I put that dusty old book? Ah, here it is. Right… where to begin? Oh
I know. In part one of our Strange and Unusual tales, we began with stories of individuals who
were not granted the final wish of so many a loved one, to “Rest in Peace.” Let’s begin today by
exploring some more stories of disturbed slumber.
There are few bigger names in the history
of entertainment than that of Elvis Presley, so let’s kick off our explorations today at
Graceland in Memphis Tennessee, the home of Elvis when he was alive, and after he died. But
this wasn’t the king’s original resting place. No, after Elvis’s untimely death in 1977 at just 42,
he was originally entombed in the mausoleum at Forest Hill Cemetery, just a few miles north of
here, and not far from where his mother Gladys had been laid to rest. But days later, three men were
arrested in an attempt to steal Elvis’s body. They reportedly had planned to use dynamite to blast
into the mausoleum. In the wake of the attempt, the family was able to secure the permission
they had originally sought - to allow Elvis to be buried on the grounds of Graceland. So, one month
later, both Elvis and his mother were exhumed, and reburied at Graceland. On the grounds
you’ll also find the original marker that had stood on his mother’s grave at Forest
Hill Cemetery, and you’ll also find the graves of his family, including his
parents, daughter, and grandson.
Michael Todd was a theater and film producer,
known for his 1956 production of Around the World in 80 Days, which won an Academy Award for
best picture. He’s also known for his marriage to actress Elizabeth Taylor. Todd’s life was cut
short in 1958 when he died in a plane crash. He was initially laid to rest here at Waldheim
Cemetery in the Chicago area. But years later, Todd’s remains were desecrated by graverobbers.
The thieves dug him up and broke into his casket, looking for a valuable diamond
ring, which, according to legend, he had been buried with. The bag containing
Todd’s remains was found under a nearby tree, and was later reburied in a secret location. Fans of southern rock well know the name Lynyrd Skynyrd, and I’d wager just about everyone
out there has heard their song “Sweet Home Alabama.” But there’s a tinge of sadness that
comes along with the listening to their music, particularly “Free Bird,” recalling that several
members of the band died in a plane crash in 1977. Vocalist Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines,
and backing vocalist Cassie Gaines, died in the crash, and were buried here at Jacksonville
Memory Gardens in Florida. But decades later, vandals broke into the tombs of Van Zant and
Gaines. In the early morning hours of June 29, 2000, the unearthed casket of Ronnie Van Zant was
discovered on the grounds, and nearby a plastic bag containing Steve Gaines’s urn was also found.
Because of this, Steve’s remains were relocated to a secret location, and Ronnie was reburied
at Riverside Memorial Park in Jacksonville, first near his parents, then years later, in 2022,
Ronnie was moved once again to his third grave, at this scenic location near the lake. It’s not just famous entertainers whose afterlives can be a bit rocky. Even presidents can experience
post-mortem upheaval, like Abraham Lincoln. The man who held the United States together during the
Civil War, and freed the slaves, was assassinated on April 15, 1865. But it wouldn’t be until
1901 that Lincoln was finally, permanently, laid to rest, and over those many years,
Lincoln’s coffin would be moved 17 times, and opened 5 times. After the president’s death, Mary
Lincoln decided that Abe would be laid to rest at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois. His
coffin was placed in this receiving vault from May to December of 1865 while construction began
on his permanent monument. He was then moved to another temporary vault, until 1871. Then he was
moved into the partially completed tomb. In 1876 thieves attempted to steal the body of Lincoln,
but only managed to partially lift it. In the years that followed, Lincoln would be moved
to various secret locations a number of times, in response to threats. A few times during these
upheavals, his coffin was opened just to ensure he was still in there. In 1887 he was placed
in a newly built vault, encased in concrete, and for a time it seemed that was final. It
wasn’t. By 1900 the tomb and monument were in need of some repair. So Abraham Lincoln was exhumed,
and temporarily reburied in a vault dug into the hillside behind the monument. In 1901 he was
exhumed once again, and placed in the new tomb, permanently this time, in a steel cage and
embedded in concrete, 10 feet below this spot. Before his final entombment, his coffin was
opened one last time to make sure he was still in there. Lincoln, who was the first president to
be embalmed, was still perfectly recognizable, more than 30 years after his death. Did you see our short film, “The Tomb of Nosferatu”? Well, there’s a disturbing story
behind one of those graves. FW Murnau was the pioneering German director who made the landmark
vampire horror film, Nosferatu in 1922. Murnau died in a car accident in California in 1931, at
just 42. He was laid to rest back in his native Germany, here at the Sudwestkirchof Stansdorf
cemetery outside of Berlin. One morning in July 2015, the caretaker was making his rounds, when he
noticed the crypt of Murnau had been opened. Upon investigating, he discovered that Murnau’s casket
had also been pried open, and most disturbingly, the head of FW Murnau was missing. It had been
stolen. On the floor of the crypt were traces of candlewax, as if some ritual had been performed
in the removal of the skull. As of filming, the skull of FW Murnau has yet to be recovered. Speaking of vampires, America had something of its own vampire panic in 19th Century New
England. Tuberculosis claimed the lives of many in that era, and a lack of understanding of the
disease mixed with the superstition of the era, led some to blame supernatural forces. Mercy Brown
was among those who died from the disease in 1892, at just 19. But after her death, townsfolk began
claiming to see her wandering the cemetery, and her brother Edwin, who recently had contracted
tuberculosis, claimed Mercy was sitting on his chest, suffocating him. It was decided that Mercy
would be exhumed to investigate her body. Upon opening her coffin, observers noted she exhibited
few signs of decomposition, looking very much still alive. And while this was because her body
had been stored in freezer-like conditions before interment, those present concluded she must
be a vampire. So, they cut out her heart and burned it. The ashes were then mixed into a tonic
and served to her brother Edwin to drink, to try to heal him. The tonic obviously did nothing, and
Edwin died a short time later. Mercy’s desecrated corpse was then re-buried here. Chapter 2 – dedicated to individuals whose final resting places number 2… or more. These
folks are literally resting in pieces.
Let’s start right here in Los Angeles,
at Forest Lawn in the Hollywood Hills. Michael Hutchence was an Australian musician,
the frontman of the popular 80s new-wave band, INXS. They had a string of hits, like “Devil
Inside,” “Never Tear Us Apart,” and “Need You Tonight.” Michael took his own life by hanging
at age 37. After his death he was cremated, his ashes divided into thirds. One portion of his
ashes was interred here by his mother at Forest Lawn. Another third was scattered in Australia
by his father, and another third went to his partner Paula, which she slept with in a cushion
next to her. There is a second grave to Michael Hutchence in his homeland of Australia, but this
is a cenotaph as there are no remains here.
Classical music is a very serious, sophisticated
and high-brow artform. No room for silliness here… unless you’re Victor Borge. No one did the
hilarious juxtaposition of Classical Music and stand-up comedy better than The Great Dane,
The Clown Prince of Denmark, Victor Borge. With his strong connections to both the United States,
and his native Denmark, after his death at age 91 Victor Borge had his ashes separated between the
two sites. He has one grave here in Connecticut, at Putnam Cemetery, which features the
iconic Danish statue of the Little Mermaid, and another grave in Copenhagen, at the Western
Jewish Cemetery, alongside his parents.
Evelyn Keyes was an actress best-remembered for
her roles as Suellen O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, Susan in The Prowler, and Babs in A Thousand
and One Nights. After her death at age 91 Evelyn was cremated. A portion of her ashes went
to relatives, and another portion was buried here at Waco Baptist Church Cemetery in Georgia.
But before her death, Evelyn made another request. At the Museum of the Gulf Coast is a
shrine to Evelyn Keyes. Inside is a replica of the genie lamp from her film A Thousand and One
Nights. Per her request, another small portion of her ashes was placed inside this lamp. I
wonder… If you rub the lamp, do you suppose the ghost of Evelyn Keyes will appear? Let’s hop the pond and voyage to London, England, and University College of London. This unusual
tale concerns one Mr. Jeremy Bentham, a noted English philosopher, jurist, and social reformer,
who had connections to this University. After his death in 1832, Bentham donated his body to the
University for dissection and public display. On campus is a cabinet with Jeremy Bentham’s
name on it. I wonder what’s inside. Why, it’s Jeremy Bentham himself… that is, what he called
his Auto-icon. This is Jeremy Bentham’s skeleton, dressed in his best attire, seated on his favorite
chair, and padded out with hay. The head is wax, though. His real head used to be here, but it kept
getting stolen by students as a prank, so it was removed and locked away elsewhere on campus. In
2020, Bentham’s auto icon was put into a new glass display in the UCL’s Student Center. For our next unusual tale we team up with fellow YouTuber and friend of Hollywood Graveyard
from Ireland, Serenity Sue. This is St. Peter’s Cathedral in Drogheda. Here we remember
St. Oliver Plunkett, Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of Ireland. The anti-Catholicism
laws of the 1600’s forced him into hiding, and to perform mass in secret. He was eventually
arrested and imprisoned behind this actual door. Oliver Plunkett was convicted of high treason for
“promoting the Roman faith,” and later hanged, drawn, and quartered. He would be the last
Catholic martyr to die in England. After his death his remains were initially buried at St
Giles in the Fields church, before being relocated to a monastery in Germany. Later his head was
removed and brought to Rome, and eventually made its way here to Drogheda, where you can
see the head of Oliver Plunkett here in this towering shrine at Saint Peter’s. Nearby in this
same church is a reliquary with more of Plunkett’s bones. The rest of his body is divided between
monasteries in England and Germany.
What is posthumous execution? Well, it’s exactly
what it sounds like. It’s executing someone after they’re already dead – obviously, a mostly
symbolic gesture. The great English statesman Oliver Cromwell would be one of the more notable
recipients of a posthumous execution. After his death in 1658 from sepsis caused by a urinary
infection, he was buried with great ceremony at Westminster Abbey. Two years later the political
winds in England shifted, and the monarchy was restored, making Cromwell persona non grata.
His body was exhumed from Westminster Abbey, along with two others, and hanged from gallows
for several hours before being beheaded in a posthumous execution for their roles in
the overthrow of King Charles I. Cromwell’s head was then placed on a spike on the roof of
Westminster Abbey, his body buried elsewhere. The head remained atop Westminster Abbey for decades
before apparently being blown off during a storm. The head then passed through the hands of series
of private collectors, before finally being buried at Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge in 1960. Posthumous execution… boy, that is bizarre. Oh what this? It’s chocolate. I
have a terrible sweet tooth. And if you do too, this next one’s for you. One can work up quite an appetite while gravehunting, especially when that appetite is
triggered by the very graves you’re visiting, like when I visited the grave of Ghirardelli in
San Francisco. Or if you’re visiting the tastiest sounding cemetery in the world, Hershey Cemetery,
which if you’ve never been you might imagine looks something like this… Here you might start craving
a Hershey bar at the grave of Milton Hershey, founder and namesake of Hershey’s. Or my
kryptonite, a Resse’s peanut butter cup, at the grave of the man who created them, HB
Reese. After a much-needed trip to the dentist, perhaps you find yourself visiting Mount
Calvary in Salt Lake City. While there, say hello to William Turnier. Engraved right into
his tombstone is an Oreo cookie. Why? Because while working for Nabisco, William Turnier
gave the Oreo cookie its famous design.
Have you ever wondered where flavors go when
they die? Neither have I. But Ben and Jerry’s knows. On the grounds of the Ben & Jerry’s
headquarters in Vermont, is a flavor graveyard, where flavors of their famous ice cream
that were discontinued have been laid to rest… with tombstones and all. Are there any
flavors among these that you are mourning? Life isn’t only about the sweet, though… we
must enjoy the savory too. Like tacos. Do you love tacos? Yes? Well, do you love tacos enough
to make it your epitaph? Los Angeles food critic Jonathan Gold did, writing “Tacos Forever” on his
tombstone here at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.
If not tacos, maybe hot dogs are more
your flavor. And here in America, few names conjure up images of the classic
American hot dog more than Oscar Mayer. The man whose name has become synonymous with wieners,
founded his company here in Chicago in 1883, and now rests at this site at Rosehill Cemetery.
The success of that name recognition is owed in no small part to a catchy tune, and distinctive
marketing vehicle, The Weinermobile, which adorns this grave in Calumet Park Cemetery in Indiana.
Here rests a man known as Little Oscar. George Molchan was the spokesperson for Oscar Meyer for
nearly 4 decades, travelling the country in the Weinermobile to promote Oscar Mayer products. At
his funeral, the Weinermobile was parked nearby, and mourners broke into a rendition of “I
wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener.”
Have you ever eaten something that was so
good, you asked if you could get the recipe, and the response was “over my dead body”?
Well, these next masters of their culinary craft took that literally, by putting their
favorite recipes right on their tombstones.
In Brooklyn’s historic Green-Wood cemetery,
you’ll find Naomi Miller-Dawson’s grave, and her recipe for spritz cookies… a kind of buttery sugar
cookie, particularly popular around Christmastime, and notable for their decorative shapes.
Christmas cookies have the added ingredient of nostalgia baked into them, and so it’s
no surprise to find another Christmas cookie recipe on a tombstone. At Cascade Protestant
Cemetery in Iowa, Maxine Menster’s family shared one of her Christmas traditions with
the world, etching their favorite recipe for her Christmas cookies onto her tombstone.
In Utah’s Logan Cemetery, we find another person who loved to bring her family together through
good food. Wanting something on her stone that was meaningful to her, Kathryn Andrews decided to have
her famous fudge recipe engraved into her stone, to share it with the world. And she would be
delighted to know that thanks to the internet and social media, people from all over the
world have indeed tried her fudge. In recent years it’s become a popular trend on social
media to make and share tombstone recipes.
Mmm, boy, this is some really good tombstone
fudge. While I continue to enjoy this, why don’t you enjoy some more of those unique
and unusual tombstones, monuments, and epitaphs… Those who know me know I love stained glass…
but this is the first time I’ve ever seen a tombstone made of stained glass.
Sometimes a good laugh can be cathartic in the face of death, and
I think Janet Girolamo knew that… If you guessed this was a Utah grave,
you’re wrong. Santa Monica actually. If you find yourself wandering Green Mount
Cemetery in Baltimore, you might just stumble onto a tombstone with a Ouija board carved into
it. That’s because the man who invented it in 1890 rests under it: Elija Bond. The board is touted as
a means of communication with the spirit world. So while we’re here, let’s pull out our planchette
and pose a question. Mr. Bond, is it pronounced Wee-Jee or Wee-Juh? Well that’s no help at all.
In Brooklyn’s historic Green-Wood cemetery is this curious site. It is known as the Grave of
Secrets, so named because it features a slot into which visitors can slip their darkest,
deepest secrets, written on sheets of paper. What was my secret? I’ll take that one to the
grave. Hang on, I hear something coming from the grave of secrets. It sounds like music… Leslie Nielsen was a master of comedy, remembered for films like the Naked Gun
series, and Airplane! He continued to make us laugh right up until the end. But Leslie
ensured the laughs wouldn’t die with him, leaving us one last joke here on his grave. It’s
quite common to see the letters RIP on a grave marker… “Rest in Peace,” right? Well, usually.
But Mr. Nielsen’s epitaph, “Let ‘er rip,” means something entirely different. Throughout his later
life he was known for his love of a good fart joke. He even carried a little fart machine around
with him wherever he went, so he could let one rip whenever it was most comedically expedient.
“It’s just a prop. We used it Airplane, and I had so much fun with it that
I just carry it around with me.”
This unique urn in the Abbey of the Psalms at
Hollywood Forever Cemetery belongs to actor John Paragon. If you grew up watching Pee-Wee’s
Playhouse in the 80s and 90s, you’ll recognize this urn as an exact replica of the genie box of
Jambi the Genie, who would grant Pee-Wee one wish per day. After John passed away in 2021 he was
cremated, his ashes held for a time by Elvira, until they were placed in this urn. So when you
come to pay your respects to John, make a wish… perhaps Jambi will make it come true.
“Wish? Did somebody say wish?” Nude statuary is surprisingly commonplace
in cemeteries around the world, particularly in Europe, and the Forest Lawns in
California. Here is one in Macedon Cemetery in Australia that stands out among the rest. This
beautiful sculpture is called “Asleep.” Laurence Matheson had been a patron of the artist, Peter
Shipperheyn during his life. After he passed, Laurence’s wife commissioned Peter to
carve this sculpture to adorn his grave.
This monument at Mt. Carmel in the Chicago
area features a beautiful sculpture of the Di Salvo family. But that’s not what makes
this unique. This unusual grave marker, with considerable effort, actually rotates on
its base. It’s known as the spinning grave. Resting in St. Peter’s Churchyard in Heysham
England is Sarah Hannah Jones. All we know about her is what her epitaph states: that
she was a poet, philosopher, and failure. “I want something like that on my tombstone.” If you grew up in the 80s, you might just call yourself a fan of Pac-Man. But I’d
wager that Michael “Pac-Man” Luther was a bigger fan than you. The superfan
loved Pac-Man so much, his grave is a re-creation of a classic Pac-Man arcade game.
At Lone Fir Cemetery in Oregon is this curious marker. This unrecorded and unidentified burial
was discovered while digging another grave. A family had purchased three adjacent graves in
this lot, only to discover that one of them was already occupied. Rather than disturb the grave,
the new owners moved one plot south, and since the cemetery was unable to identify the remains here,
they installed a marker for this Random Person. Powerful words from a gay Vietnam Veteran. The gay community has almost never seen itself reflected in public monuments, particularly
funerary monuments. So, in 2002, an artist named Patricia Cronin created America’s first
funerary monument to same-sex marriage, titled Memorial to a Marriage. The sculpture features
the artist and her now wife, and was created in a time when same-sex marriage was still illegal in
the United States. Originally carved in marble, this more robust bronze version now marks the
future graves of Cronin and her wife, here at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York. What may be unusual for one culture, may be perfectly normal, even sacred for
another. For some Native American tribes, from the great plains, all the way to Alaska,
there is the unique tradition of building a small house over the grave of the departed. Known
as a grave house or spirit house, they serve as a temporary home for the spirit of the departed.
The structures are typically allowed to decay naturally, as the house is only temporary, until
the spirit can move on in their journey into the afterlife. Legendary actor Will Sampson, famous
for his role in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, was a member of the Muscogee Nation, and his
grave here in Oklahoma features a spirit house. In a similar spirit as these
Native American spirit houses, are dollhouse graves, usually built by parents in mourning for a child who has died.
One such example can be found here in Oakwood Cemetery in Lanett Alabama. Little Nadine Earles
wanted a dollhouse for Christmas. But the young girl fell ill and died just before Christmas.
Her grief-stricken parents fulfilled her wish, in the form if this dollhouse over her grave,
in which she will live forever. Peek through the window and you’ll catch a glimpse of the grave
of Little Nadine Earles, her grave attended by her doll collection and other toys. In Arlington Indiana, we pay a visit to the rural Arlington East Hill Cemetery, to find another of
these most melancholy of monuments, the dollhouse grave of Lova Cline. The young girl was born with
a crippling neurological illness. During her short life, she loved the dollhouse her father had built
for her. After her death at age 6, her father had the dollhouse placed next to her grave, so she
could see it always, as well as her toys therein.
Just 30 minutes away, in Connersville City
Cemetery, is a similar sight. The story of little Vivian May Allison echoes that of Nadine
Earles. Her parents had been building a dollhouse for her for Christmas, but young Vivian fell
ill and died before they could give it to her. She was just 5. In their grief, they had the
dollhouse placed over her grave, filled with her favorite toys. Vivian’s parents took care
of the dollhouse grave until their deaths, after which it gradually fell into disrepair.
Volunteers and citizens of Connersville stepped in and repaired and refurbished the dollhouse in the
1990s, and help maintain it to this day.
We spend a lot of time in graveyards, cemeteries,
mausoleums, and cathedrals. Do you ever get sick of it? Me neither. But just for
kicks, let’s find some graves outside of our normal haunting grounds. In Devon England there is a grave, not in a graveyard, but in an intersection
on the side of the road. This is the grave of Kitty Jay. Much like the grass that blankets
it, a lot of folklore has grown out of Jay’s grave. But the crux of the story is that a woman
named Ann Jay, or Betty Kay, committed suicide by hanging in the late 18th century. Because
suicide was considered a sin, she was denied a Christian burial in the consecrated churchyards,
so she was buried instead here at a crossroads. Travelers who drive along this road at night
have claimed to see a ghostly figure in their headlights as they pass by Jay’s Grave. In the mountains outside of Sagada in the Philippines is a curious site: coffins hanging
from cliffs. In this unique millennia-old tradition, the dead here are placed inside
wooden coffins, but instead of being buried, they are nailed into walls inside caves or high
on cliff facades. This is done to get them closer to their ancestral spirits high above. This is the London Palladium in England. Over the decades some of the biggest names in
entertainment have performed on this stage. And one of the big names who became closely associated
with this stage, now rests under it. Bruce Forsyth was an entertainer and presenter whose career
spanned some 70 years. He’s remembered as host of Sunday Night at the Palladium, and a number
of game shows. After his death he was cremated, his ashes entombed underneath the stage here
at the London Palladium, eternally resting enveloped in the sounds of music, laughter, and
dancing… exactly where he would want to be.
In volume 1 of our strange and unusual tales we
shared with you stories of individuals who’d had portions of their cremated remains launched into
space. Well, there are more stories of individuals whose remains did not remain Earth-bound.
Clyde Tombaugh was an American astronomer, known for discovering Pluto in 1930. After his
death in 1997 at age 90, a portion of his ashes was placed in this cannister, aboard NASA’s New
Horizons Spacecraft and launched into space in 2006. In 2015, New Horizons, with Tombaugh’s
ashes aboard, executed a close flyby of the very planet (now dwarf planet) that he discovered,
Pluto. Since then, New Horizons has continued to travel into deep space at a rate of about 300
million miles per year, and is currently more than 5 Billion miles from Earth, making Clyde
Tombaugh’s the most remote grave in the galaxy, and the human that has travelled further
than any other in history, alive or dead.
In volume 1 of our strange and unusual tales we
also introduced you to the Neptune Memorial Reef, the world’s first underwater cemetery – a
man-made reef and columbarium beneath the waters of the Atlantic. We also mentioned how
famed chef Julia Child had chosen the Neptune Memorial Reef as her final destination. Well now,
thanks to our friends at Eco-Photo Explorers, we can show you Julia Child’s underwater grave.
Julia Child was a cooking instructor, author, and television personality who rose to fame with
her cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and subsequent television show, The French Chef.
Julia Child died from kidney failure at age 91. She was cremated, her ashes mixed with cement and
molded into this starfish before being laid to rest here on the reef, 40 feet below the surface
of the ocean. Julia loved cooking with fish, and will spend eternity swimming with them.
“Welcome to the French Chef, I’m Julia Child. Today we’re going to do
fish soup and bouillabaisse.”
Julia now herself a key ingredient in this
bouillabaisse of underwater life and death.
We’ve voyaged into outer space, and dived down
into the deep blue sea… but there’s one remote locale we’ve yet to reach: Antarctica. If you
can believe it, there are a number of graves on this icy continent. The first known individual
to be buried in a grave here on Antarctica was a scientist by the name of Nicolai Hanson.
In 1899, while part of an expedition here, Nicolai became ill with an intestinal
disorder, and requested that should he die, he be buried there in Antarctica. And so he
was. The frozen ground made for difficult grave digging, so dynamite was used to blast
the hole into which Nicolai was interred.
‘Till death do us part. Not so fast… these next
folks might have something to say about that.
We begin our exploration of undying love at
the Old Cemetery in the city of Roermond, in the Netherlands. This cemetery was established
in the late 18th Century with clear religious divides. High walls separate sections for
Catholics, Protestants, and Jews. Colonel Jacobus Warnerus Constantinus van Gorkum was a Protestant;
his wife, Josephina Carlina Petronela Hubertina van Aefferden was a Catholic – a pairing that
would have been quite the scandal in that era. Colonel van Gorkum died in 1880 and was buried on
the Protestant side of the wall. But his wife knew that when she died, she could not be buried next
to him, as she was Catholic. Before her death, Josephina came up with an ingenious and endearing
solution. She had Jacobus buried right next to the wall on the Protestant side. When she died
8 years later, she was buried directly across the wall from her husband on the Catholic side.
Their headstones were made to tower over the wall, a pair of hands reaching out of the headstones
and clasped together forever across the wall, linking these two graves into one. It’s become
known as the Grave with the Little Hands… proof once more that love can conquer all. This Dutch couple wasn’t the only one religion tried to separate after death. We travel
now to the Royal Chapel of Dreux in France, the traditional burial place of prominent members
of the House of Orleans. It was built in 1816, and is notable for the recumbent effigies of
those resting therein. Most curious among them is the story of this couple: Prince Ferdinand
Phillippe, Duke of Orleans, and his wife, Duchess Helene Luise von Mecklenburg-Schwerin. After
the Duke died in a carriage accident at age 31, he was laid to rest here in the Dreux Chapel.
Sixteen years later, his wife Helene died. But she, a Protestant, was denied entombment
here in the chapel alongside her husband, as it was consecrated for Catholics only.
To accommodate her, she was entombed in a room with a separate entrance, adjacent to
the chapel. Her effigy can be seen through a small window separating the two rooms. The
sculptors carved eternal longing into the stone, the Duchess’s head turned toward her husband as
her hand reaches out for him through the window that separates the two rooms. Her hand – piercing
this arbitrary divide – extends into the chapel in which she was denied burial because of her
faith, agonizingly close to touching the hand of her beloved, but forever out of reach. “Three in one Casket.” That was the headline for the obituary of the Keller Family. Maria Keller
suffered from mental illness, and was briefly hospitalized for the illness. A short time after
her release, she shot and killed her husband Emil, and their infant daughter Anna. She then took
her own life. In the face of this tragedy, it was decided that the small family would
be buried together… literally. All three were placed in the same casket, and buried
embraced in each other’s arms here at Fort Hill Cemetery in New York. The stone reads
in German, “Emil, Maria, and Anna Keller, Rest Here in Peace. By the hand of the mother
their fate was decided.” And recently a marker to their other daughter, Verena, who had died a
few years earlier, was placed here.
Jonathan Reed was eternally devoted to his
wife, Mary. After her death in 1893 at age 58, she was laid to rest in this tomb built for her
by her husband. Unable to let her go, perhaps convinced she was still alive, Jonathan filled the
tiny space within the tomb with items from their life together: paintings, books, bric-a-brac,
a rocking chair, a furnace for warmth, even their pet bird. It soon became transformed
into a veritable living room, into which Jonathan himself moved. He lived for the next decade or
so right here in the tomb with his deceased wife, going home at night only to sleep, because he was
not allowed to stay the night. Here he would eat all his meals, carry on conversations with his
wife, and even host guests who came to visit him here at The Evergreens Cemetery in New York. One
afternoon in 1905, Jonathan was found motionless on the floor of the tomb, having suffered a
stroke. He was taken to the hospital, then a sanitarium, where he died a short time later. He
was then finally entombed in this afterlife home he had created for his wife and himself. What’s the longest you’ve ever held a loved one in an embrace? However long, I guarantee you
this next couple has you beat. We’re in Mantova, or Mantua as we know it in English, a city that
served as part of the backdrop of Romeo and Juliet. In 2007 something of a stone-age Romeo
and Juliet was unearthed outside this city: a pair of human skeletons, a young male
and female, locked in a loving embrace for the past 6,000 years, their gazes fixed on one
another. They are known as the Lovers of Valdaro, and their skeletons are now on permanent
display at the Ducal Palace of Mantua.
If the aforementioned stories of love transcending
death warmed your hearts, this next one might give you chills, despite taking place in sunny Key
West, Florida. This story concerns one Carl Tanzler, aka Dr. Von Cosel… a German immigrant
who perhaps fancied himself something of a Dr. Frankenstein. He was working as a radiology
technician when he fell in love with a young tuberculosis patient – a Cuban-American girl named
Elena Hoyos. Despite not being an actual doctor, Tanzler tried all sorts of means to cure her,
from X-Rays to a variety of medicines. During this time, he professed his lover for her,
and doted upon her with gifts of clothing and jewelry. But he could not save her, and Elena
died in 1931 at the age of 22. Carl Tanzler commissioned the construction of Elena’s tomb at
Key West Cemetery, where he would visit her nearly every night. But two years later, people observed
that Carl suddenly stopped visiting the tomb. Had he died? Had he moved on? No, the answer is quite
a bit darker than that. Believing Elena’s spirit had called to him to take her from the tomb,
Carl crept through the cemetery one evening, and removed Elena’s corpse, taking it back to
his home in a toy wagon. There, in his makeshift laboratory, he attempted to restore Elena to life.
Decay had already set in, so he used glass eyes, mortician’s wax, wires, and plaster of Paris to
attempt to restore her… not to mention copious amounts of perfume to mask the odor. Carl lived
with his doll – the corpse of Elena – for the next 7 years, continuing his experiments to
bring her back to life so they could fly away together in a plane he was building. He would
serenade her with organ music, buy her clothing, even dance with her. But his behavior roused
suspicion, and Carl was eventually confronted by Elena’s sister who discovered the horror. Carl
was arrested, and Elena was re-buried at Key West Cemetery in an undisclosed location, so he could
not find her and disturb her again. Fragments of her original tombstone can be seen at the Martello
Museum in Key West. And for the rest of his life, Carl made due with a death mask and effigy
of Elena that he had made, which was found by his side when he died years later. Are you afraid of death? Does the thought of a long dirt nap
send shivers down your spine? Or perhaps you’ve awoken in a cold sweat from a nightmare of being buried alive, of
a premature entombment. Well, you’re not alone, and these fears have a name: thanatophobia, and
taphophobia. Let’s explore these fears together. Edgar Allan Poe once wrote, “The boundaries which
divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where
the other begins?” Before the advent of modern science and medicine, there was the terrifying
possibility that someone would be declared dead who wasn’t actually dead. And some religious and
societal norms often required burial within a very short time of the declaration of death, before the
onset of decay. This led to the very real fear of being buried alive, of being in a deep comatose
state, only to awake in the impenetrable and suffocating dark of a claustrophobic tomb. This
fear was especially palpable in the Victorian era, when during the industrial revolution, deathlike
illnesses spread in increasingly dense city populations. This fear was aptly illustrated in
Edgar Allan Poe’s story, The Premature Burial.
If you suffer from Taphophobia, fear not,
for Albert Fearnaught has the solution. In response to the very real fear of being
buried alive, safety coffins were devised, a popular version of which had a string attached
to the hand of the buried, that would ring a bell on the surface if moved. In 1882 Albert Fearnaught
applied for a patent for a similar safety measure, in which a string was attached to the arm of the
entombed, that if moved, would release a spring mechanism that would raise a flag on the surface,
and open an air vent. I don’t see a flag or air vent here at Mr. Fearnaught’s grave in Crown
Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis, so we can assume he didn’t meet such a terrifying fate. One of the most curious case-studies in taphophobia is that of Dr. Timothy Clark
Smith. Deathly afraid of being buried alive, Timothy devised a very special grave for
himself here at Evergreen Cemetery in Vermont, in the event of his death. He would have a rope
attached to his wrist which reached to the surface and ring a bell, and signal for help in case he
woke up in the grave. But most distinctively, his coffin – specifically, his face -- was placed
directly beneath a 6-foot-deep cement tube that led to a window on the surface. This would allow
him to see to the surface if he woke up in the grave, and visitors to peek down to see if he was
somehow still alive. The tunnel has since become overgrown with grass, so no more facetime with
Dr. Smith. But next time you visit a cemetery, listen for the sound of a ringing bell,
or take a peek through the odd window… someone might still be alive down there. Little Merritt Beardsley was afraid of the dark. When he died in 1865 from an illness at just 8
years old, his last wish was to have a window in his grave, so he wouldn’t be left in the dark. His
father fulfilled that wish, building a window into his tomb, here in Oxford New York. Oh hello! Looks
like in addition to sunlight, he has some company in the form of a couple of mice… So not only does
Little Merritt Beardsley never have to be afraid of the dark, he never has to be alone either. If you were to be buried alive and didn’t happen to have a window like young Merritt, you’d
quickly realize that there in the impenetrable dark, this chamber has no windows, and no
doors. Which offers you this chilling challenge: to find a way out! Well, if you’re Agnes Poulson,
buried at Hutchinson Eastside Cemetery in Kansas, you may just have the solution. Behind Agnes’s
tombstone, is what appears to be an escape hatch, just in case she needed to find
her way out after being buried. Few people who’ve been buried alive have lived
to tell the tale. We travel now to Lurgan, Northern Ireland, and Shankill Cemetery. Herein
we find a grave with a most curious inscription: Margorie McCall, lived once, buried twice. What
sort of nightmarish scenario prompted such an epitaph? As the story goes, in 1705 Margorie
fell ill with fever, and soon succumbed to her illness… or at least, appeared to have. After
a brief wake, Margorie was buried in Shankhill Graveyard. That evening, before the dirt had
settled, grave-robbers paid her a visit. They were after the valuable gold ring she was wearing
when interred. They dug up and opened the coffin, and began attempting to pry the ring
from her finger. But from her illness, her fingers had swollen and they were unable to
remove the ring. So they resorted to attempting to cut off her finger to pry the ring loose. As soon
as the blade pierced Margorie’s flesh, she revived from her comatose state, sat bolt upright and let
out a horrific scream, like the wail of a banshee in the dead of night. The grave-robbers ran in
terror from the site, and a short time later, the groggy but still very much alive Margorie
stumbled her way home. Back at her home, her husband John and children were mourning, when
there came a rapping at the door. John exclaimed, “if your mother were still alive, I’d swear
that was her knock.” Sure enough, when John opened the door, there she stood before them. Margorie made it out alive, but according to this next urban legend, Julia Legare was not so
lucky. We’re in Edisto Island in South Carolina, and the quiet graveyard of the Presbyterian
Church. There’s a reason this family mausoleum has no door. Julia Legare was just 22 when she
was struck with a death-like illness in 1852. Her family held vigil for days, but she succumbed to
her illness and her body was placed in this family mausoleum. The story that follows is likely the
kind of myth that makes for a great ghost story, but isn’t rooted in much fact. Regardless
of veracity, it’s one of those old American paranormal tales that has cemented itself in our
folklore. The legend states that years after her entombment here, the tomb was opened once again
for its next occupant, likely her son Hugh, who died two years later. To their horror,
the family found crumpled next to the door, a pile of bones in Julia’s burial dress. She had
been entombed alive, and her attempts to escape had been blocked by the heavy stone door of the
tomb. Julia was then re-buried alongside her son. But from then on, the door of the tomb would not
remain shut. Any attempt to close it would only find it open again later on. The spirit of Julia
Legare, they say, would not allow the door to be shut, never again wanting to feel trapped the
way she had been. And so the door was permanently removed, and the mausoleum remains open, for the
spirit of Julia to be free.
Many of us try and stay close to
our dead in thought and spirit, but here in Chapter 8, we try and get a little
closer, piercing the veil of earth or concrete that typically separates us from our dead. Florence Irene Ford was just 10 years old when she died from yellow fever. The little girl
had been terribly afraid of storms when she was alive. When her grief-stricken mother laid her to
rest here in Natchez City Cemetery in Mississippi, she had a casket constructed with a glass window
close to her head, and a stairwell leading down into her grave, so that when a storm came, she
could descend and comfort little Florence through the window, during the storm. In the 1950s, the
glass window was covered with a concrete wall to prevent vandalism. To this day, gifts are left
for the little girl. “Weep not, for in beauty transcendent your daughter doth shine.” Julia Petta is known as the Italian Bride. The young woman died in childbirth in 1921 at
the age of 29. She was buried in her wedding dress here at Mount Carmel Cemetery in Chicago.
Years after Julia’s death, her mother began having dreams of her daughter telling her she was
still alive. The dreams soon became nightmares, and her mother secured permission to have her
daughter exhumed. Julia’s coffin had decayed, but when it was opened, onlookers marveled at
the state of Julia Petta. Though entombed for six years, she appeared almost just as she had on
the day of her funeral, with almost no signs of decay. A photo was taken of Julia before she was
re-buried, which now adorns her monument.
Let’s hop a plane now to the home of Hollywood
Graveyard’s composer, Maestro Giuseppe Vasapolli. Among the curious sights you’ll see around Europe
that are unheard of in the states, are catacombs with human remains on display. One of the most
famous catacombs in the world is right here in Palermo, on the island of Sicily in Italy. Welcome
to the catacombs of the Cappuccini monks. As early as the 1500s, monks began to lay their own to rest
in catacombs beneath the monastery, part of an ancient cave structure. In doing so they found
that many of them became naturally mummified, almost perfectly preserved. Believing it to be
an act of God, instead of burying the remains, they began to place them on display, propped up in
niches in the corridor walls. Monks continued the mummification of their own over the centuries,
expanding the practice with drying tables, vinegar washings, and even more modern techniques
of embalming. From the 17th to the 19th centuries, the site became a popular museum of death, and
prominent citizens of Palermo were eventually granted access to the catacombs and the
mummification process for themselves, after their deaths. It became something of a
status symbol to be preserved for eternity and put on display in the Cappuccini Catacombs.
Mummies are dressed in their Sunday best, or the wears of their professional trade. And if
you can get past the horror of what you’re seeing, it’s a fascinating snapshot of
life as it was centuries ago, presented by the people who literally lived it.
The very last corpse admitted to the catacombs, is also the most famous. On December 6, 1920,
young Rosalia Lombardo died from pneumonia. She was not yet two. Her grief-stricken father asked
an embalmer to preserve her remains. She was so well preserved, that decades later, the little
girl looked still alive, as though she were only sleeping. This photo, for example, was taken
more than 60 years after her death, in 1982. She has become known as the “Sleeping Beauty.”
Adding to little Rosalia’s semblance of life, is a strange phenomenon that makes her eyes appear
to open and close slightly throughout the day – an illusion caused by the fact that her eyes are
not fully shut, with light, shadow, temperature, and humidity fluctuations throughout the day
facilitating the eerie effect.
Another of the most famous catacombs in the
world can be found in Paris, France. Down, down, down we go, deep under the city of Paris,
down endless stairways and along endless corridors carved into the rock, corridors barely taller
than you are, the air cooling with every step, reaching 90 feet below the surface. “Halt! This is
death’s empire,” aka my home turf. Fair warning, the catacombs are not for the faint of heart. The
Catacombs of Paris are an ossuary that hold the remains of some 6 million individuals. By the late
1700s, cemeteries in the city of Paris began to overflow, causing health and safety concerns. The
solution was to move the bones from all of central Paris’s cemeteries to an abandoned underground
quarry, dating back to the 15th century. Little by little these former limestone quarries began to
fill up with the bones from all the cemeteries of central Paris. Initially the bones were stacked
haphazardly, but in 1810 the Inspector General of the quarries decided to develop the area for
a museum-like atmosphere, and stack the bones in geometric and neat patterns, creating bone walls
and formations called hagues. The catacombs were then opened to the public, and have been a popular
destination for the curious thrill seeker ever since. But keep track of where you’re going,
and where you’ve been, lest you hit a dead end, and add your own to the bones entombed herein. Don’t worry, I found my way out… at least I think I did. Anyway, the stories in this last
chapter run the gamut from head-scratching to heart-warming. It is a cavalcade of the
cadaverous, a spectrum of the spooky, a panoply of the paranormal, an odyssey of oddities…
let’s just call it: a menagerie of the macabre.
In 1928 a man was found dead along the side of the
road in Sabina, Ohio. He had no identification on him, no way of determining who he was. The
man was given the name “Eugene” by police, and taken to Littleton Funeral Home, where he was
embalmed. Eugene’s remains were made accessible to public viewing, resting on a couch in a small
shed outside the funeral home, in hopes that someone would be able to identify him. His remains
remained on display for decades, with no one able to identify him. He became known as Eugene the
Sabina Mummy, and over the years its estimated that over a million people came to see him. But
poor Eugene, in addition to becoming something of a sideshow attraction, was the subject of
adolescent pranks, his body even being stolen and set on a university park bench, so in 1964 it
was decided that he may never be identified, and it was best to finally lay him to rest, here in
Sabina Cemetery, some 36 years after his death.
It’s common to have one’s ashes scattered after
being cremated. But the mode of scattering… well that can vary significantly. If you’re Hunter
S. Thompson, author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, for example, your mode of scattering
came with a bang, literally. At his private funeral in 2005, Hunter’s ashes were fired from a
cannon atop this tower, accompanied by fireworks, to the tune of “Spirit in the Sky.” In recent years, the more environmentally conscious among us have moved toward the
burgeoning green burial movement, returning to the earth in the most natural ways possible.
Luke Perry was a major television star in the 90s, playing Dylan McKay on Beverly Hills, 90210. And his films include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and his final film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Luke left us far too soon, passing away from a stroke in 2019 at age 52. Luke owned a farm
here in Vanleer Tennessee. It was here that he was laid to rest, buried in an eco-friendly
mushroom suit. Embedded in the fibers of the suit are mushroom spores, which slowly break down
the body while filtering toxins. The process helps provide nutrients to the soil, and avoid
contamination to plant life, and allowing the body to return to the earth in the cycle of life. In the Old Burying Ground in Beaufort, North Carolina, is a distinctive wooden tombstone which
reads “Little Girl Buried in a Rum Keg.” The story of this grave takes us back to the 1700s, when an
English family named Sloo settled in the colonies. Their young daughter grew up in the colonies,
but very much desired to see their homeland of England. The mother expressed her concern about
the dangerous voyage, but the father promised he would bring their little girl back home.
Tragically, the young girl fell ill and died on the journey home from England. Custom in those
days was to have those who die on a ship buried at sea… but Father Sloo couldn’t bear to part with
his little girl, and break his promise to bring her home to North Carolina. So, with no other
way to preserve her body on the long voyage home, he had her placed in a barrel of rum. The mourning
parents then buried her here in the graveyard, still encased in the barrel of rum. To
this day, visitors leave toys and other gifts for the little girl. One of the biggest names in classic English literature is Bronte. Sisters Charlotte, Emily,
and Anne, wrote Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, respectively.
Patriarch Patrick Bronte actually had 6 children. Tragically, all his children, and his wife, would
die young, all before the age of 40. They are all laid to rest here in the family vault at St
Michael and All Angels Churchyard in Haworth, except for Anne, who died and was buried in North
Yorkshire. The Brontes died from a variety of illnesses, including tuberculosis, but all of
them exhibited general poor health throughout their lives, despite being comfortably well
off. The family lived downstream from this graveyard surrounding the church, and it’s
been theorized that their drinking water came from springs which were contaminated
with rainwater that had soaked through the graveyard. Long-term exposure to bacteria may
have rendered them all more susceptible to the illnesses that claimed them so young. Moral
of the story: don’t drink graveyard water. Fans of folklore from the American Frontier well
know the name Jesse James. And the taphophile contingent of that fandom knows that the grave of
Jesse James can be found at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Missouri. But did Jesse James really die by the
hand of Robert Ford in 1882 as legend states? Yes… but don’t tell that to whomever is buried in this
grave in Granbury Texas. According to this legend, Jesse James faked his death and disappeared
off to Texas where he worked for the railroads as “J. Frank Dalton” before dying in 1951
at the age of 103, and was really buried here. Post-mortem examinations of Mr. Dalton
clamed to show a number of bullet wounds and rope-burn scars around his neck… as one might
expect to find on a frontier outlaw.
The next odd tale is typed out in a letter adhered
right to the urn of the story’s subject. In July 1992, cremated remains were found scattered
in the hedge in front of Marylin Monroe’s crypt at Westwood Village Memorial Park. A fan,
perhaps. The yardman discovered the cremains, and swept them up. In doing so, he found the
ID tag within the ashes, identifying them as one Chauncy Hoke, who died in 1989. The ashes
were returned to Chapel of the Pines, where he had been cremated, and now rest in the vault. Here’s a heartwarming story for you animal lovers. It takes us to Edinburgh Scotland, and back
to the 1800s. Greyfriars Bobby was a terrier, owned by a man named John Gray. After his death in
1858, John was laid to rest here in the Greyfriars Kirkyard. The funeral procession to the gravesite
was led by his dog. From that day on, for the next 14 years, the loyal pup stood guard over the
grave of his beloved master. Local residents fed the dog and even built him a shelter, because
he simply refused to leave his master’s grave for any extended period of time. The vigil lasted
until Greyfriars Bobby’s own death in 1872, at which time he too was buried here in the
Churchyard, not far from his master. This headstone was placed in 1981, and in 2021, a
new statue monument was placed adjacent to the grave. And after you visit the dog’s grave, head
around the corner for a toast to Greyfriars Bobby at the pub that bears his name, then watch
the movie Disney made about Bobby.
We approach our final stop on this journey through
the strange and unusual as our train pulls into the station at St. Pancras in London. Just off the
station is the St. Pancras Old Church, one of the oldest in England. The graveyard surrounding the
church is steeped in history, but the most curious sight you’ll see here is a tree. At first glance,
perhaps a fairly unremarkable looking ash tree… until your eyes fall to the ground, and you see
a cluster of hundreds of overlapping tombstones radiating outward from the base of the tree. So
how did this unusual sight come to be? In the 1860s London was expanding its railway lines,
part of which would cut through the eastern portion of the graveyard. A young man named
Thomas Hardy – yes, the same Thomas Hardy who could become a renowned author – was tasked with
overseeing the careful exhumation and relocation of the thousands of graves that would be disturbed
by the rail line. After the task was completed, there remained hundreds of old tombstones, and the
question of what to do with them. The tombstones were eventually placed around the base of this
tree in this striking radial pattern, and the tree now bears the name of Thomas Hardy. Over the
decades, the tree continued to grow, deforming and enveloping the tombstones as it did. But after
more than a century and a half of delighting the curious oddity seeker, tragedy struck. In 2014
the tree was infected with a fungus. For a tree, it was a death sentence. In the following years
the tree slowly decayed, until it finally fell in December 2022. It was a great loss… but the
curious among us are intrigued to see what the future holds for this historic landmark.
Until then, rest in peace The Hardy Tree. Oh… you hear that music? That means our time is at
an end. I thoroughly enjoyed our evening together, and I hope you did too. But don’t worry -- I’ll be
back soon. And I’ll have more strange and unusual tales to share with you from the graveyard… after
I’ve had a chance to dig them up. Thanks for watching, and stay spooky my friends. The people who gave support to make Mister Dark’s Neighborhood, are the people
of this and other YouTube Stations, The Fears-Woebuck Foundation, and generous
contributions from viewers like you. Thank you!
