Graveyard tourism

I hear you, OP. These are fascinating places.

Dumbarton Oaks in DC is beautiful.

There is a cemetery in Savanah, GA that captures the eerie essence of the old south and the area in general. I forget the name, but they have tours.

A haunting city of the dead in Buenos Aires.

Sorry, Savannah.

Cemeteries are some of the most beautiful gardens in the world, horticulture students even visit them on field trips.

I guess even perverted people need a vacation huh?

R1, are you thinking of Bonaventure Cemetery? A few scenes from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil are set there, and the famous bird girl statue is the book's cover.

It's one of the most beautiful cemeteries I've ever seen. The Spanish moss, the old live oaks, the gothic statues. It's eerily reminiscent of another time and place. Thanks for mentioning it, I had forgotten what a beautiful experience it was to visit Bonaventure.

R2, Recoleta is a place I've always wanted to visit (Evita Peron is buried there). I really want to go to Buenos Aires someday.

The Bird Girl statue has been moved to the Telfair Museum as too many people were trampling on the gravesite for photos.

I don't think it's morbid at all. There's some beautiful artwork in cemeteries and I've often visited them.

I went to Marlene Dietrich's in Berlin. Strangely, it's in an out of the way place and her stone is hardly noticeable.

[quote] Sometimes it's the closest you can get to celebrities.

This is one of the saddest statements I've ever heard

I fucked a cute young arab boy in Père Lachaise. Sex and death in one location.

R10 here. Sorry. Forgot to post my healthy and attractive self in a photo.

R6, yes, exactly. You described it perfectly.

Pere Lachaise is worth it just to see the tombs of Wilde and Morrison.

Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Watertown, MA.

Love touring cemeteries. Among my favorites:

Highgate in London Zentralfriedhof in Vienna Calvary Cemetery in Queens, NY. Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond Virginia

I love cemeteries too.

Some of them are truly artworks, but even those that are simple still have a haunting aura of peace about them. And the meditation on death that they foster really puts things in perspective. That's why I find them relaxing the way few places other places are.

Photo I took at Bonaventure

On a warm fall afternoon with a cool breeze blowing off the Savannah River, it's a truly transcendent place

I lucked into the Stockbridge, MA cemetery which was close to the Norman Rockwell Museum my mom took us to. I knew to look for the Sedgwick Pie, thanks to reading Jean Stein's book, and I wasn't disappointed.

When I visit southern California I like to visit the Hollywood Forever cemetery and see who I can find at Forest Lawn Glendale. Sometimes there'll be a casual 'celebrity grave tour' to connect with.

Nice link and mention, R15. Can't wait to see the rest of the contributions here.

Thanks for your pic, r18. There's something about Spanish moss that adds to the atmosphere. Lovely description.

I wanted to move to Savannah several years ago. It's a unique city with a weirdly attractive vibe. Ghastly summers though.

Why is it morbid? Cemeteries are for the living not the dead, and are one of the few places in the US that people behave with some dignity most of the time.

There are some gorgeous cemeteries in Chicago and around it. I went to one in an older suburb, Elgin, and it was stunning--Bluff City Cemetery:

I remember morrisons grave being cordoned off which was disappointing.. People were throwing booze bottles, cigarettes, and panties over the tape and barricades..

What we forget in this death-phobic, life at any cost, culture of the last 50 years is that cemeteries used to be a place not only for reflection but for celebrations of life. I remember Sunday picnics and concerts held in cemeeries as no big deal. We should return to those days. Maybe it will actually force today's narcissists to give a second thought to their deceased loved ones once in a while.

Love cemeteries.

My mother frequently visited her parents grave in a gorgeous New England cemetery when we were kids. We even caught polly wogs in a pond there and she would bring lunch. It was a beautifully landscaped place.

Never been uncomfortable in a cemetery.

Add me to the Cemetery Lovers List. Montparnasse in Paris is fabulous (SBeckett is there), Mt. Auburn and Forest Hills in the Boston area are so green and peaceful (perfect for picnics if you stay off the main roads), agreed on the eerie beauty of Bonaventure, and here in the Bay Area we have Colma, a whole city devoted to cemeteries -- high society, Chinese, Italian, Eastern European, there's even a pet cemetery -- where the population of the dead *far* outnumbers the living.

A native of New Orleans told me never to go into one of the city's above-ground cemeteries alone (thieves, etc.). I did anyway but always kept other people in sight.

Albany rural cemetery is amazing . Some of those crypts are mini mansions !

Has anyone ever been to Ferncliff Cemetery in West Chester, NY? Joan Crawford, Judy Garland, Harold Arlen, Oscar Hammerstein II, Aaliyah, Cab Calloway and many more celebrities are buried there.

I love visiting cemeteries too. But sometimes when you're the only visitor, at dusk, in a sketchy area, the noise of the wind in the bare trees, the swirl of dead leaves, and sudden movements of unseen creatures can creep one out. I remember fleeing the far corner of Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta on just such a day.

Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland is stunning, an exception to the notion that cemeteries occupy the worst land.

I'm a native San Franciscan, but not well-travelled, so my familiarity with cemeteries is pretty much limited to Colma and the peninsula.

Golden Gate is huge-my dad, sister, great aunt and a childhood friend are all there. But we're scattered all over, so a "cemetery day" meant trips to Olivet, the Italian cemetery and my favorite, Holy Cross. The old section of Holy Cross really is beautiful. I'd take my Gran once a month, it pretty much took an entire Sunday. Then we'd grab cup tamales in newsprint at Johnsons in the Parkside (g).

My brother brought back excellent photos of Jim Morrison's plot at the Pere Lachaise, he did hear complaints from the locals about the mad fans that caused so many troubles. Weren't there several attempts to get him exhumed and sent back to the States? Poor Jim, no peace, even in death.

The NJ Cemetery where Whitney Houston is buried is mentioned on many horticulture sites.

It is also where the List family is buried...

Chicago's Graceland Cemetery is also an arboretum. It is an historic and well-maintained cemetery with the final resting places of many famous Chicagoans.

R28, I visited Ferncliff about 20 years ago. In addition to Judy Garland and Mr. And Mrs. Al Steele, it had Basil Rathbone, Ed Sullivan, and many other celebrities.

I'd love to visit again sometime. It's fascinating and well worth a visit.

When I was growing up, in Battle Creek, Mi., my grandparents house was across the street from Oak Hill cemetery. In the cemetery, amongst other notables, Ellen G. White, one of the founders of the 7th Day Adventists, is buried. Every Saturday after services, a bus load or two of Adventist would show up to visit the grave. They parked across from the bathroom window, so you always had to make sure the blinds were drawn so the Adventists didn't see you peeing. (The house I'm referring to is the barely visible bit of white in the extreme right of the photo.

Interestingly, the visible house in the picture was part of the underground railroad - I played in it as a child and we kids loved the hidden room. Which, as children, was just our size. Later, as an adult I realized how much it would have sucked to be crammed in there with other people. (It was a false back in a closet with a niche about 4 feet long and 2 feet deep.)

Sojourner Truth is also in this cemetery, as well as both Kellogg (cereal) brothers, CW Post (cereal), and Junior Walker (but not the All-Stars)

A girl with two graves: The past haunts a city that evicted its dead

They found her buried under a garage earlier this year, her small body perfectly preserved in an airless, metal casket.

She wore a white christening dress with hand-stitched lace that would have dragged along the ground when she walked. Her blond hair had been laced with sprigs of lavender and a rosary of eucalyptus seeds lay on her chest.

She is believed to have died around 1870, when pinewood coffins sold for $2. Her elaborate glass and cast-iron vessel would have cost 10 times that much.

But neither the girl’s name nor details of her demise were anywhere to be found.

Her coffin was unearthed when construction workers broke through the concrete floor of a home under renovation in San Francisco’s Richmond district. The grim discovery this spring riveted the city, sparking an outpouring of posthumous grief and an intensive effort to identify her. How was it possible, people wondered, that a 3-year old who was so lovingly interred could be so thoroughly forgotten?

“We need to know this little girl’s name,” said Steven Sederwall, a retired Los Angeles police detective who is among those who have been moved by her sudden celebrity. “Someone needs to say this girl’s name again.”

Finding that out, however, has proved harder than anyone could imagine.

::

Edinburgh has some interesting cemeteries. Greyfriar cemetery even does a nighttime ghost tour.

My Mom and both of her parents are buried at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego.

Looking for anyone in particular?

Monumental Cemetary in Milan. You can spend days here and not see it all.

I would second Oakland in Atlanta and Graceland in Chicago: both are beautiful, and are very welcoming to tourists. (Oakland had fliers for a 5K and some concerts posted when I was there, and they were also setting up for a wedding, so its administrators are obviously adopting the Victorian idea of treating a cemetery as, essentially, a park.) Graceland has a real who's-who of artists and architects with Chicago ties----both in terms of who is buried there (Burnham, Root, Bruce Graham, Bruce Goff, Mies, Louis Sullivan, Walter Netsch, Roger Ebert, William Le Barron Jenney, Moholy-Nagy, Ruth Page, along with the namesakes of half the streets in Chicago), and in terms of who designed the major mausoleums (the Getty tomb by Sullivan is as perfect a structure as exists, I think). I think in general, most of the really good ones seem to have acknowledged that people are going to be coming in out of curiosity, or because they are fans of the art and architecture. As a counterexample, I also visited the outside of the necropolis in Cairo, but didn't go in: in that case, it seemed much more like "slum tourism," especially because many people live in the mausoleums. But I love visiting the cemeteries whose owners(? administrators?) seem to acknowledge are attractive to visitors for various reasons.

Favorites:

Highgate in London

Protestant Cemetery in Rome

Hollywood Forever cemetery in Hollywood

Try Laurel Hill in Philadelphia. Some of the mausoleums had Tiffany windows but they were being stolen. According to one article-

"Stoneangels: Let me ask you about Tiffany stained glass in the mausoleums. Do you know if there is any?

Ross Mitchell: There were! There were seven Tiffany stained glass windows and in the 1970s an article came out identifying where all the Tiffany stained glass windows were across the country in cemeteries. Within a number of years, they were all stolen. But apparently Tiffany keeps very detailed records and photos of all of their products. We are in the process of contacting them to get copies of those images that I will post on the Stolen Art Network. Who knows? Maybe we’ll get them back and maybe not."

OP and everyone else, you guys are creepy.

I'm the same too OP. I love the graveyards in Salem Massachusetts.

My Mother never graduated high school, a fact she only revealed when her youngest was over 40, but she always encourage her children to get as much education as we could.

We grew up in a small, historic New England city. We'd go yearly to tour the oldest home in town, which survived the burning of the city by Benedict Arnold. And we yearly toured the local Revolutionary War fort, and the 19th century Seaport.

Included somewhere within all that, is that she'd take us to Ye Olde Burying Ground. We'd admire the ornate artwork on some of the markers, and note the people who had to be immigrants because they were born before the Pilgrims arrived in 1620. Mom would point out with some sadness and awe all the markers for children and she'd explain all the reasons for childhood death. Sometimes we'd find a woman who died on the same date as the child and she'd explain his dangerious it could be to give birth. She'd note the infrequency of markers for men, and explained that many of them died at sea, and the "widow's walk" on the top of many old homes was obstensably for the wives to use to look to see if their husband's ship was arriving back to port.

So, it was a history lesson for all of us. Oddly enough, my Mom had been traumatized as a four year-old when he father died, and as a result, never attended funerals.

R44, how coincidentia! I was just up in the Howard Street Burying Ground in Salem yesterday. It's the sad sack of Salem's cemeteries and doesn't get the upkeep it deserves. Salem's main cemeteries get a lot of visitors starting about now, and running through Halloween

Salem had a huge fire in1914 that destroyed much of the town and most of their cemetery records, so they don't know who is buried in their own cemeteries.

R38, I was surprised to find that all my aunts abd uncles were entered in Find-a-Grave by strangers. The graves were in Cape Cod, MA; Florida; and Pennsylvania. Also my niece in CT.

There was a request in Find-a-Grave from some guy on the West Coast for a photo of his ancester's grave in the Howard Street Burying Ground cemetery in Salem, MA. He couldn't visit the grave himself. Sometimes a grave marker will contain geanologicai info that is not available anywhere else. Anyway, I found the grave and posted the pics online, which the guy appreciated.

Giles Corey was the first witch executed in Salem, at age 81. He was probably just a cantankerous old man. He refused to confess to witchcraft, so the authorities tied him down, put a plank on top of him, and then started placing stones on the planks to crush him, in an effort to elicit a confession. He lasted a couple days before dying. His last recorded words were "MORE WEIGHT".

It is believed that he was killed on the Howard St. Burial Ground property and his ghost haunts the site to this day. I haven't seen him - yet! The city of Salem has a plaque for him at another nearby cemetery. They apparently want to promote this other cemetery for tourism and have the tourists leave the other cemeteries alone.

The picture is of the Howard Street Burying Ground at Holloween, 2015.

This photo was taken on July 4 a few years ago. These are all WWI gravestones. I have a cousin buried within this cemetery section.

I agree re Pere Lachaise - I have been there twice, before it got too crowded with tourists - had it almost all to myself on a damp October day in the early 70s. Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, all those great writers and composers like Bizet, Balzac etc.

r11, London's Brompton Cemetry - a vast Victorian necropolis, was (mabye still is?) a cruising spot in the 1970s. I was shocked when a friend told me what was going on there. I had to visit it myself some time later, and scored among the tombs. The cruising area was mainly down the left hand side where there was a long shaded walkway. Yes, it was that pre-Aids era .....

This is the "Lost at Sea" monument in the oldest cemetery in Marblehead, MA.

On September 19, 1846, the Marblehead fleet was fishing the Grand Banks of Newfoundland when it was caught in a hurricane. Sixty-five perished and at least eleven vessels were lost. It left 43 widows and 155 fatherless children, and it was a small town!

The Marblehead fishing industry never recovered. The Marblehead Charitable Seamen Society, founded in 1831, collected funds for the familes and for a monument. In 1848, the "Fishermen's Monument" was dedicated. It lists the names of deceased members lost on shore and at sea.

Ferncliff sounds a must-visit. Another great one in London is St Johns, in Hampstead North London. They have a theatrical section where a lot of British theatre folk are buried. Kay Kendall has a lovely stylish headstone just across from Anton Walbrook. Gladys Cooper and others are also nearby. Its a perfect place to spend eternity or to visit.

I should have mentioned in R52 that the Old Burial Hill burying grounds was a Whites-only cemetery with two exceptions. One exception was a Black woman, "Agnas Negro", who was buried just to the right of the picture. She apparently was a slave who helped raise a large White family of motherness children, and was buried with that family.

Here's another picture of Old Burial Hill. My 6th great grandparents are buried in the picture somewhere. They died shortly before the Revolutionary War.

This is Woodlawn Cemetery in Everett, MA. At the center is the grave for Robert Lash, Jr., who's father was a member of the Son's of Liberty, and was a participant in the Boston Tea Party. The family were friends of Paul Revere, who was a frequent guest in their home.

If you're ever in Venice, Isola di San Michele is beautiful and worth a visit. You will find the poet Ezra Pound and composer Igor Stravinsky here.

Hordes of tourists spoil things now. When I was at Pere Lachaise in '72 and '74, we could go right up to and touch the tombs of Wilde, Jim Morrison's statue etc - and also on that trip we had Mont St Michel in Normandy practically to ourselves, and one could walk on the stones at Stonehenge in England. Now they are all behind barriers to keep people from damaging them.

And Mont St Michel would be a nightmare now, its totally over-run with day trippers and tourists.

[quote] Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland is stunning, an exception to the notion that cemeteries occupy the worst land.

Beat me to it! Lakeview Cemetery is beautiful! I LOVE to just walk around and look at some of the incredible grave markers and mausoleums.

Rural areas of Ohio have some cool, spooky old cemeteries with traditional symbols--hourglasses, skulls, fingers pointing upwards or downwardss, etc.---carved into them.

I always wanted to visit the St. Louis Cemeteries---particularly St. Louis #1---in New Orleans.

I've always wanted to visit the St. Louis Cemeteries in New Orleans. They're just so............goth?

Sorry about that! ^ Have a glitchy computer! ^

Ferncliff is definitely a must-visit, R53!

Not morbid at all, IMO. I've made it a point to visit Westminster Abbey; Canterbury Cathedral (St. Thomas Becket); Highgate (Marx); the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence ("the burial place of some of the most illustrious Italians, such as Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, Foscolo, Gentile and Rossini"); Churchill's grave at Bladon; Shakespeare's tomb in Stratford; the crypt of Wren in St. Paul's; Napoleon's magnificent sepulcher in Les Invalides; Lourdes; Assisi; Rouen (St. Joan); and more.

I regard all these visits, whether for poets or potentates, saints or sinners, as pilgrimages.

Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn is famous. On its web site, they list the dozens of movies and TV shows (particularly and frequently Law & Order) that have filmed there. It's huge and beautiful, like an arboretum. I particularly liked the Oak trees there, they were huge and ancient. They actually have bus tour groups that drive through!

A cool thing about them is that the have their entire population recorded in a public-accessible database. I did find two errors related to my family. One grandpa was dug-up and moved, and they list him in both plots. And I have an aunt who is listed, but her son, on the same grave marker, is not in their database - however, the database is a great help if you are researching your roots.

The Jewish Cemetery in Prague.

Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge is another arboretum/cemetery. I happened upon a flock of these guys when I was there in April. They actually do "gobble" like their reputation has it.

IIRC, Mt. Auburn's web site includes info on how to schedule a wedding there, if you are so inclined. That seems to be a bit much for me, but to each his own!

Someone upthread touched in this, but I thought I'd add to it: At one time, people would often make a day of it when they visited a cemetery. They'd pack a picnic basket and blanket and all that they needed, and they'd spend a day at their loved one's grave.

I can't recall when this was do popular. I suspect it was from the Civil War period and afterward, I'm not sure, though.

This link is worth a read.

My third great-grandparents were buried in Williamsburg Cemetery in Brooklyn. At one point about 1855, the cemetery decided to sell itself to developers, and the bodies had to be moved! Of course, once they started, they found a lot more bodies than they knew were there. Today, it's all residential, and most people probably don't even know it was once a graveyard.

I found a 1857 newspaper NY Supreme Court notice naming about 30 of my family members as defendants. It doesn't say what the case was, but I thought, what possible reason might someone sue every member of a family, unless the matter dealt with their common ancestor? And it was the right date, so, I figure it was a case to force the family to agree to move the bodies out of Williamsburg..

They did move the bodies to Green-Wood, and then they moved them again within Green-Wood after they bought a large plot there. Apparently it was much more common in the past to move people around after their initial burial, than it is today.

I didn't take this photo, but I find it so moving I wanted to post it. Apparently, it's famous enough that it's been copied a few times in different cemeteries.

r66, the use of cemeteries as parks began with the opening of Mount Auburn and subsequent "rural cemeteries" such as Albany Rural. After the Civil War, large public parks began to take the place of cemeteries for picnics, strolling, etc., but the custom prevailed until at least WWI in many areas. Some people objected to the recreational use of cemeteries and many of the rural cemeteries did have ticketed admission and detailed rules for visitors (no cigars, no profanity, not riding horses faster that a slow trot, etc.). Violators could be kicked out and lot owners could forfeit their admission passes permenantly. Which isn't to say the cemeteries discouraged visits, either. Many had specially marked "tour" roads for visitors to enjoy the scenery and published guidebooks so visitors could locate "noteworthy" monuments. It was considered a good way to show off the grounds to potential plot buyers, too

OP here. A couple more of my favorites:

Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, NY. It's located in an Olmstead Park. Very lovely. President Millard Fillmore and Rick James(!) are buried there.

I second Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia. Philadelphia has some wonderful cemeteries in Society Hill. My favorite is Old Pine Street Church burial ground. I visited the cemetery one Halloween morning and stopped in to look around. They had just spruced up the cemetery and put little plaques on the graves of notable Philadelphians to tell their story. There was a man who worked for the church walking among with a metal detector and we got to chatting. Sure enough, as soon as we started talking, he found a 1789 coin right next to a grave that must have been sitting there for centuries. Very cool. There are many Revolutionary War soldiers buried there, as well as over 100 Hessians. They are still finding artifacts from Revolutionary days in the cemetery.

Gettysburg Cemetery is also a must-see.

The saddest and yet, most intriguing burial sight I have ever seen was coming across old Mormon/pioneer graves out in the middle of nowhere.

Old headstones flittered about abandoned ghost towns out west are very interesting too.

My brother enjoys his Infrequent visits to Normandy, France. He's read a lot about WWII, so certain things catch his eye, such as the American Cemetery there. He took the attached picture of it.

He recently went to an aeronautic demonstration someplace in Dixie. He texted a few of us to say that there was some short old geezer at a nearby table in the diner with his familly. His clothing denoted WWII service. My Bro wondered if he could ask the short old geezer about his WWII war experiences, or would it be rude to impose on them?

I texted back that the old geezer would love to be asked. It would feel like he was being asked to the prom. He'd feel like a rock star, and it would be all he talks about for the next week.

So my bro asked and it happens that the old geezer was thrilled to be asked. He ran a machine gun facing backwards on a certain class of aircraft. The job required a man of small stature, and the old, formerly young, geezer was a perfect fit. He went on and on and was thrilled to have been asked, by a stranger, no less; and my brother enjoyed the talk as well. .

People like to feel relevant.

I spent some time in Australia with a friend who loved cemeteries. Saw some gravestones with interesting causes of death, like 'killed by Aboriginals'. Also saw that every tiny podunk town or fork in the road had a monument to all the boys they had lost to WW1 & 2.

Just watch out for those weeping angels.

Holy Cross Cemetery in Malden, MA is massive, beautiful and contains historical figures and some celebrities.

Goldfield Pioneer Cemetery, in the historic gold mining town of Goldfield, Nevada, United States. A bonafide Old West graveyard. Perfect place for stargazing, due to the high elevation, the clear dry air and lack of man-made light. It's properly haunted, of course. Two friends of mine spent an evening there and claim that a man rose up out of a grave.

r75's cemetery is where John Cazale is buried, as well as poor Carol Stuart

[quote] My brother enjoys his Infrequent visits to Normandy, France. He's read a lot about WWII, so certain things catch his eye, such as the American Cemetery there. He took the attached picture of it.

I've been there too. It's right above Omaha Beach.

It is extremely moving.

When you walk among the graves, it's impossible to ignore the fact that they were almost all kids.

Rows and rows of them.

It's very sad.

Here is a memorial Inscription to "two friends", who "unfortunately Drown'd" together in 1808.

In Memory of

two friends that were

unfortunately Drown'd,

in Marblehead harbor;

Sept. 17, 1808;

Mr. JOHN PEDRICK 4th

Aged 21 years & 13 days,

Mr. SAMUEL HITER Jr.

Aged 20 years & 4 months,.

The only sons of

Capt. JOHN & Mrs. SARAH PEDRICK,

Capt. SAMUEL & MRS. HANNAH HITER.

Lovely and pleasant in their lives,

and in their deaths not devided

Note: Death date and place verified in Massachusetts Vital Records to 1850S

I posted this before so please excuse me if you're read in before. I like how Thomas describes his late wife as his friend.

I came upon this grave in my home town. Betsey Atkens died in 1828, 3 months after her marriage to Thomas Dissmore. He memorialized her as follows:

Sacred to the Memory of

Mrs. Betsey Dissmore,

Consort of

Mr. Thomas Dissmore,

who died Dec. 31, 1828;

aged 25 years 5 mos & 17 days

Betsey; my friend, my love, my bride,

Endeared by ties of grace & nuptials, died

Too soon hath left me here to mourn,

Sad thought! thou my spouse should ner' return

Eternal scenes around thee roll,

Yet joys supreme, ecstatic, fill thy soul,

Death for a season doth divide

In solemn silence, living friend from me my bride,

Say not too soon, for Jesus smil'd,

Say not return He call'd come home my child,

Mourn not for me my race is run;

On death's cold bank I linger'd; Oh how I long

Rejoice with me, rejoice to tell,

Entered the grave in peace, so all farewell.

Recoleta was something else. We went in August, dead of winter late afternoon, looking for Evita's tomb. Place was deserted; we were certain that a pack of hell hounds woukd come bounding around each corner as we made our way through the city of mausoleums.

I take Find a Grave photos, both as requests and large volume "mow rowing" as well. Some sections seem grim even on a sunny day, though rarely have I felt ... unwanted, shall we say.

I have relatives in three lots at Woodlawn in the Bronx. Beautiful grounds, but my family there had sad stories.

Lafayette no. 1 in New Orleans is worth a visit. I don't typically like guided tours, but I took one there and it was really beautiful, eerie, and fascinating.

Amazing photo, R78.

Any comments about Arlington? I've never been. There was a scandal a few years back were the caretakers had become criminally careless with human remains and were mixing them up, throwing them away, or just throwing them over the wall, so-to-speak.

The thing I find so moving about the old cemeteries in my area, New England, is how some markers were clearly created with the most deeply felt love and grief; and yet, it doesn't take long at all for the loved ones to be completely forgotten. Even the ones marked "Gone but not forgotten". Especially after 100 years, forget about it. And yet, 100 years is a blink of an eye. It's well within a three generation period where the three parties were all alive at the same point at one time.

Before the Internet, my Dad asked me to find out if his mother had a marker placed on her grave. He gave me the cemetery name and city. I don't know why he couldn't do it himself. She died 40 years earlier. Maybe it was still just too close to the heart, and he also knew I was tenacious.

I called (using a telephone, which was a common communication device in the 20th century, for you Millennials.) The cemetery said there was no marker. My Dad thanked new, and told me not to tell his sister, because it would upset her. That was funny because I hadn't spoken with his sister in a decade (not deliberately, I just never saw her). And after 40 years, really?

They're all gone now. I've become an amateur genealogist. I hate it when I can't find my ancestor's burial spots. I found I could have a small marker for Dad's parents set in place for $600, so I decided to do it.

My other grandpa Otto also has no marker. I related this before and hope you don't mind the repeat. He died in 1927. His cemetery office informed me that I owed something like $5000 in back-fees for lawn car! They also warned me that if I paid, and fat chance of that, that I would thereafter be responsible for yearly fees in perpetuity. They did offer to discount it considerably, but still no chance of that.

They also had more rigorous rules about marker placement (a Catholic Cemetery, it figures) which meant a small marker would be well over a thousand dollars, perhaps much more, and I'd have to pay the late fees, too. That was just too much for me to pay. Also, I'd have to lie and claim Grandpa had no other living descendants, or I'd have to get them all to agree to the monument, and I couldn't be bothered with that. So, Otto has no marker, until I hit the Lottery.

I have an informal list of instructions that I keep with my will. I want my executor to give my housekeeper a two-year equivalent bonus, as she's been working for me for 15 years and it's still not a lot of money (to be, though it would be to her), for example. I also want them to keep my Ancestry.com account funded for some time so that my family tree is available for others to copy, if they care to benefit from my research. Surprisingly, that happens quite often.

I also specifically asked that my marker's engraving to state my parents' and both sets of grandparents' by name. I once found a cousin because his immediate family had a practice of including a brief lineage on all their markers. And I just wanted to be specifically asserted to be part of my family. I already own the plot next to my parents.

I am keenly aware, however, that the living do whatever they damn well please, regardless of the deceased wishes. Que sera sera. At least I won't be there to object.

My brother hates the idea of death and never had a will until recently, at age 55, despite being divorced and now with two adult children. He says that when his time is up, he intends to crawl off into the woods like is done by elephants or whatever other animal does that. I think that would be a zoning violation, but that's not my call.

My sister has assigned him a spot in the plot I own next to my parents, though she never even asked me for my permission. I think the plot can accommodate six. I don't care, he's welcome to it, but it's just nice to be asked.

R56, great post!

You can visit Houdini's grave on Halloween. This is where the elite of NYC from an earlier period are buried.

I once visited the WWII cemetery in Bayeax, France. it's an amazing place. The British gov't allowed the families of the deceased to provide headstone inscriptions (66 characters max). You can see this in the photo.

The headstones for the Brits was one design and since the Brits landed at Normandy with soldiers from other European countries, there are headstones in a different style. German soldiers are also given space.

Across the street from the graves is a memorial and in Latin across its front reads, "We, once conquered by William, have now set free the Conqueror’s native land." So, a quick fyi, Normandy is where William, Duke of Normandy lived before he sailed across the Channel and conqueored England in 1066 and became the first Norman king of England, ending Anglo-Saxon rule.

I loved this place... I found it more intimate and sad and moving than other D-Day cemeteries.

Elmwood Cemetery in Memphis is worth a visit if you're ever in the area. You can see it from the Interstate. Very sketchy area to get to it, but it's cool.

[quote] R89: This is where the elite of NYC from an earlier period are buried.

I have about 20 immediate family members buried in Green-Wood, plus dozens more who are more distantly related. I have no doubt that many elites are buried there, but there are also the less wealthy there, too. I wouldn't describe my immediate family as "elite".

Green-Wood has its "guests", or "clients", maybe "stakeholders", whatever, but they are all listed in a searchable database on their web site. It's not completely accurate, but it's better than most cemeteries offer.

When I called Calvary in Queens about my great great grandmother, the first thing they did was try to browbeat me into paying several thousand dollars of "accrued" fees. I explained that all of her descendants were Protestant (as was her husband) so we weren't eligible to be buried there. They did sell me the lot information for a pretty penny: Grandma, two infants whom I never knew existed, and an old lady whose name means nothing to me at all, possibly an aunt of hers.

R85 - surprised your dad didn't put in a basic marker for his own mother? My great grandparents at Woodlawn are marked (she by my dad 40 years later); I've thought of marking the other three people there, two of whom are a couple with no descendants.

R93, yes! it was Calvary in Queens that wanted to charge me, too, though they did offer to discount it. It makes no sense to pay more in fees than it costs today to pay for perpetual care, btw. But then there were all sorts of fees that put me off, like a foundation fee, some kind of paperwork fee, and they didn't allow the affordable stones that lie flat on the ground. They required something upright, which would be more expensive. The costs were completely ridiculous. In addition, I visited the grave last year. I found that after Grandpa Otto was buried, they put the Long Island expressway very close by. It was so noisy you couldn't even make a phone call from the grave site.

I think we never had the money for markers back then. And I don't think my folks have any interest in visiting grave sites. Grandpa Otto left a widow with three children. Grandma even sent the kids to some pseudo-orphanage because she couldn't afford them for a period of time. She did get a musician's union death benefit of $600, though, but they were poor.

My great-grandparents are buried in Ontario and I was delighted to discover the habit there is to put the wife's maiden name on the stone in this fashion:

"Susan Jones wife of Henry Smith", for example.

Great for those of us doing genealogy!

I've tracked most of my relatives' burial places, in the US, Canada and some in Ireland.

Not all of them have stones, most likely because they could not afford grave markers.

Should I ever win the lottery, I intend to remedy that.

In the meantime, I have specific directions as to how to locate the graves.

I am considering a GPS locator next.

It is becoming more and more common to retrieve the GPS coordinates of a grave. Makes it much easier for any others to locate the grave, particularly in some of the very large Catholic cemeteries around Chicago.

Check out the findagrave.com record for Al Capone (although this is not his original burial site) and note the GPS location. Plug those coordinates into google maps and the result points to the location on the map of the cemetery.

I once mentioned this to someone in one of the offices at the cemetery and they told me that, when asked, they will not provide the location of Capone's grave.

Because he is "notorious".

Problem is that at Find a Grave folks enter her as Susan Jones instead of Susan Jones Smith. New England has that style, too.

My father's family is in a cemetery in an area that has no meaning for our family; my great grandfather bought a lot because of sudden need when his sons died the same year. I almost wouldn't mind being buried in Woodlawn as I can prove I'm a descendant of the lot owner. My folks bought space for my brother and me with them, but it's not a place I'd want to necessarily.

There's an infamous cemetery in NYC called I believe Mokem Shalom (?) that was allowed to fall in ruin with plenty of upkeep money. Googling the story, and pictures, makes for depressing reading. Passing the back fence on the A train one can sense the poor spirits looking out like prisoners.

In the Boston area, the homeless like to hang out in the oldest cemeteries. The ones that are closed to new burials and so old that families don't visit. The only visitors are the random tourist as discussed here. That's fine with me, but in the pauper's cemetery, around the corner from the methadone clinic, they broke open the tombs and were sleeping inside them. And that just ain't right. They city eventually re-sealed the tombs.

Otherwise, you have to beware stepping in person poop. And I worry about my things being boosted while I'm not looking, but I probably don't need to worry about that too much. They just need a quiet place to go where they aren't hassled.

R96, the find-a-grave folks are entering the name incorrectly if they enter Susan (Jones) Smith as just Susan Jones, but that does happen.

My great Uncle was a Gay guy who used to go to those "big fairy balls" in NYC in the early 20th century. He eventually married, no kids. The layout of his marker was so convoluted that he and his wife's last names swapped when entered into FaG. It was like a coup, figuring that all out. That old queen got all the familial history, too, so it eventually got trashed, and/or is in the hands of his wife's family, who probably don't care.

FaG has a real problem accounting for people with multiple marriages Miss A marries Mr. B; then as a widow, marries Mr, C. She is recorded as Mrs. C with the maiden name of A. There is no way to find her as Mrs. B. That's a problem because often, you don't know of the last marriage to Mr. C until later, if ever.

FaG also has another problem with that awful acronym!

FaG = Mormon.

I love visiting graveyards, the older the better. I also enjoy old, abandoned buildings.

I usually go at night after a heavy rainfall. The soil is usually easily dug and you can dig someone up in no time at all .

The German system is so strange. You lease the space and then they dig you up and lease the plot to someone else if the rent goes unpaid when its time to renew (I recently read that they've already dug up the actor who played Sgt. Schultz on Hogan's Heroes).

There's a cemetery I walk through in Frankfurt where they fasten the notices right to the markers. Last time I was there an eviction notice was on a grave where the stone said the guy was a former mayor of Frankfurt.

In my family tomb, there are about 30 bodies. The only way they could fit more than 9 bodies is to (upon subsequent entombment) gather up an earlier deceased's remains and consolidate them in a smaller container called an ossuary.

I hear it takes a year for a body to decompose. But how awful it must have been if the most recent death was only a month earlier, and they had to reopen the tomb with a new body, just when the previous was at its most repulsive? I hope that wasn't something the family did.

So, the German system sounds similar, except that people are actually buried, rather than placed in a tomb.

My understanding is the German system is used in parts of Latin America as well.

R2, I spent entire afternoons walking through Recoleta last summer when I was in the city for six weeks. Was yelled at for sticking my phone into abandoned crypts to take photos. Got many great shots out of there.

Can I ask a question, guys? Tell me, are there organized grave-visiting tours? Companies that will take you on tours of the most interesting graveyards in a region and show you around?

Because there are tours for other sorts of hobbies, like birdwatching tours that take customers to swamps and deserts and other obscure places that are only of interest to birders. If not, maybe there's a market that isn't being served.

Oh great, so I could be evicted from my own grave in Germany. After they dig me up, what do they want me to do? Go shopping?

The German system is in jeopardy because corpses aren't rotting like they used to:

Yes, R105. Edinburgh has a midnight tour of Greyfriars Cemetary and I've been on tours in New Orleans and some of the older church cemeteries and crypts in London.

Lake View in Cleveland is beautiful. Oakland in Atlanta is kind of a dump, Congressional in DC has a sizable number of gay graves and the camp pleasure of J Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson ( a few graves apart) are just down a bit from Leonard Matlovich--Congressional has been rescued by dog walkers. Spring Grove in Cincinnati is very nice.

The German article doesn't mention if they use embalming. I assume they don't, as that would explain the lack of decomposition.

If you tour the Tombs ($5) under Old North Chruch in Boston, there is one with a brick that's displaced, i.e., missing, and you can look into a two hundred year old grave. The body I saw still had her hair, bones, and her clothes, too. Why would the Germans be superior to Americans in their rate of rotting?

President Lincoln was embalmed for his train trip across the North.

Many years later, I'm thinking it was like 50 years later, there was concern that he might have been stolen from his tomb. They checked. They reopened his tomb and the observers said he looks like he had only just been laid to rest. I think they weren't being literal, though.

If you should ever visit Marblehead Massachusetts, and you should, make sure to check out Old Burial Hill Cemetery. It is exactly the type of Federal era burial ground OP describes with sad and fascinating gravestones, and gorgeous views of the harbor.

Graceland in Chicago is beautiful, and they've done a great job restoring it since the first time I was there in the 1970's. (Did you know they once had a serious dead chicken problem? Apparently it's a big deal in Voodoo to sacrifice a chicken and throw it over a cemetery fence. It was happening a lot before Uptown started gentrifying).

Anyway, right by Graceland is Jewish Graceland, and it's in horrible condition even though many of the people buried there were just as wealthy and prominent as their christian counterparts next door. That seems to be a common situation with Jewish Cemeteries, at least in Chicago. Anyone know why? Is it just not a big deal culturally?

This is the "sailor's monument" in Old Burial Hill in Marblehead, MA. In this area to the right is the grave for a slave, Agnis Negro.

It's because the Jews moved away.

I think Graceland gets government money and they even give tours whereas other cemeteries like Roseland are in a more precarious state. Let's face it, people do not care for cemeteries the way they used to and the abandonment of cities and towns means that the problem is even worse than you'd expect.

R95- Al Capone is buried in Mt. Carmel, a Catholic Italian cemetery. It's right across the street from Queen of Heaven, another Catholic cemetery. My friend an I were at Queen of Heaven for a funeral and decided to go looking for Als grave. It's right off the main entrance and we stopped to get a picture- the ground is really beaten down around it because of idiots like us. Right after we took our pic and got back in the car, a car pulled up behind us and the occupants did the exact same thing! It's neat to drive around there and look for the old mobsters graves. Sam Giancana, Frank Nitti, Tony Lombardo.

Yes to Pere Lachaise. Graves were very accessible when I visited. Beside Wilde and Morrison I was moved to discover the sites for Jean Paul Sartre and Simone DeBeauvoir. The Ground keepers kept Flowers on Ms. DeBeauvoirs grave.

A few miles due east of Mt. Carmel is Forest Home-Waldheim Cemetery, home to the graves of Emma Goldman, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (Communist Party USA), the Haymarket martyrs. anarchist Boris Yelensky, Trotsky's secretary Raya Dunayevskaya, plus a bunch of other socialists and communists.

In the heart of old Frankfurt is a 12th century Jewish Cemetery, it is one of the most hauntingly beautiful places I have ever visited. Currently it is located next to the Jewish Museum - Since the 12th Century this was a city primarily populated by Germans of Jewish faith. Temples, Schuls, grocer's etc. (In fact it was Jewsih Engineers that brought the first electrical grids to Germany - basically illuminated the country, just as it was the very first Department stores were also created by a family of Jewish Merchants).

This Cemetary was destroyed at the time of Krystalnacht - most of the red clay headstones were dug up and shattered. Stones around the perimeter of this tree filled 1/2 acre remain largely in tact. It seems the Allies and war interfered with the plan to destroy the hallowed ground.

Today the area is surrounded by 12 foot concrete perimeter, entrance is through 2 narrow, locked gates. Inside the haunghtingly sacred and quiet landscape are piles of pieces of red clay headstones. OUtside the perimeter wall is imbedded with 3x2 metal boxes engraved with the names of every Jewish citizen deported - name, years of birth - death and place of murder. The entire Otto Frank Family is amongst the names, Anne Margo. ... Hate, Anti Semitism, Racism, Intolerance and Nationalism are certain Death to Democracy's. That is why Trump must be smashed like the POS Demagogue he is.

[quote] A few miles due east of Mt. Carmel is Forest Home-Waldheim Cemetery, home to the graves of Emma Goldman, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (Communist Party USA), the Haymarket martyrs. anarchist Boris Yelensky, Trotsky's secretary Raya Dunayevskaya, plus a bunch of other socialists and communists.

This is true.

But the people at the office are not very helpful when you are trying to find a grave and I've seen other people remark on the same on genealogy message boards.

I understand that they do not usually want to spend time with genealogists, but when you ask for directions to a specific grave, as long as the person you are interested in is buried in that cemetery, the office personnel should make some attempt to be helpful.

It's almost as if they don't want anyone visiting the graves.

When visiting London for the first time we went to Highgate Cemetary. My father left a plastic poppy for Karl Marx.

Has anyone ever been to Finn's Point National Cemetery? It waswhere An drew Cunanan killed the caretaker on his way to Florida.