Cemeteries in the Rain

I am so wet. Just returned home after shooting cemeteries in the rain on this gloomy Saturday morning. I thought I dressed appropriately. Forty degrees, layers, rain parka. Umbrella to keep the rain off the cameras. 

Why photograph cemeteries in the rain? I noticed some new images my friend Rachel posted on Instagram (@photosofcemeteries) – darkly brooding, slick and wet images of gravestones and monuments. Treacherous sky, the whole nine yards. I was a bit envious! I needed to get out there in some rain and see if I could produce something half as good! The work of other artists can stimulate you to push yourself.

Years ago, I started a public Facebook page called “Cemeteries in the Rain,” (link) and many people post images on it. I like the whole idea, but had kind of gotten out of practice. I mean, it can be a rather grim experience to be out there slogging around in the mud. And sometimes it doesn’t pay off.

"I wanted the rain to come," says Greg Jackson in his novel, The Dimensions of a Cave, "- for the way it closed and narrowed the scope of a world gone too large, dissolving dreams like crusts of dirt that settle on the streets." So when I heard the Saturday weather forecast, I planned to get out there. And so I did, the day before Palm Sunday. Hit the highway at 8 a.m. and hit the first cemetery in the pouring rain at 8:30, Westminster Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd, PA. Turns out my rain parka was not waterproof. Why even make such a thing? Reminds me of the time, years ago, with my first family, I bought a large tent and we went camping in Cape May, NJ, for a week. Three little kids. Third night, and as the 1970s band Atlanta Rhythm Section sang, “It was an all night rain….” Why they would make a tent that is not waterproof will forever puzzle historians. Needless to say, I got camping out of my system at a relatively early age.

I spent an hour at Westminster shooting the slick bronze angels, capturing the reflections, the water pooling on granite, and then drove out to West Philly to shoot in Cathedral Cemetery. I chose these two locations because I thought each would have a number of flat, horizontal monuments that would slick up or collect water that would artistically reflect the surroundings (as Rachel has done). Shooting such things, bent over, umbrella over the camera, exposed my backside to the elements. I began to get wetter. It was also kind of painful jumping in and out of the car, as my left hip has been giving me problems. Having it replaced on April 29. No cartilage left – bone on bone. Not only does great art come from great pain, but mediocre art does as well.

I was also familiar with the layout of these cemeteries, so I mainly drove around to the various spots I thought would look good in the rain. I wanted to shoot the iron angels on the gate to this family plot in Cathedral, but to my surprise, the gate was gone. Stolen, maybe. I had been here a couple years ago and the gate was still there. One of the uniquely interesting details in this graveyard, or, it was. Victorian decorative art now in someone's private collection. Sad. The patina stain in the photo of the crypt cover below suggests a missing bronze cross. Stolen as well, I assume.

I have photographed cemeteries in the snow much more frequently, and you may not be too surprised to learn that I also started a public Facebook page called, you guessed it – “Cemeteries in the Snow” (link). Even though the weather and accumulated snow make this type of shooting quite challenging, I think shooting in the rain is even more so. So total credit to Rachel for creating such wonderful images under these conditions! And thank you for igniting that spark of creativity for me – which is one thing artists provide for each other, right? Also, you can better appreciate any art form, any media, after trying to do it yourself. 

And speaking of water, I knew my shoes would get wet and muddy, but I hadn’t planned on getting soaked through to bare skin, despite three layers of clothing! Even my belt was wet. After about three hours of slogging around these two cemeteries, I headed home. Gave up on the third stop, which was going to be West Laurel Hill Cemetery. Drove back to my neighborhood, parked a block from my house, unloaded the car and stomped down the little street. My neighbor, jumping into his car, probably wondering what in the world I was up to now. This is the fellow who during Covid, knocked on my front door (I wasn’t home) and handed a large shopping bag to my wife, saying, “I’m returning Ed’s skulls.”

Got inside the house, turned up the heat, took off all the layers and hung them to dry. Jeans, socks, even my underwear was wet. Dry clothes, hot coffee, toasted bagel and crème cheese from the little Jewish bakery on Passyunk, Essen. Looking at my images, I got some decent ones. One compositional element I had no control over was the sky. Dark clouds would have been preferable, though for most of the images, all I had was white, a nitid sky. Not terribly interesting. But, this is just another detail to pay attention to in the future. I used to call a dark cloudy sky front-lit by a setting sun an “angel sky,” because I would wait for such conditions to present themselves, then I would run out to a cemetery to photograph white marble angel statues against the black sky. Next time.

And for that next time, I shall dress more appropriately. It’s supposed to rain on Tuesday.  I do have a parka that actually is waterproof. Now I’m sneezing. Great. 

Nisky Hill Cemetery, Bethlehem, PA

On a bitterly cold and windy day in January, I met up with some friends to tour and make photographs in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania’s Nisky Hill Cemetery. Great art comes from great pain. Fifteen degrees with a wind chill right off the Lehigh River that can numb gloved fingers in fifteen minutes. Some snow and ice remained on the ground from a prior time, much as the monstrous and rusting hulks of the Bethlehem Steel blast furnaces sat dormant across the river. These “steel stacks” can easily be seen through the leafless trees at the edge of the cemetery. Looking toward them makes you assume that many of the graves here must have belonged to steel workers.

 

Dormant blast furnaces of Bethlehem Steel lurk across the Lehigh River

Or not. This was more likely an elite cemetery, with the actual immigrant steel workers buried in rude churchyard cemeteries like St. Michael's on the south (opposite) side of the river. Nisky Hill Cemetery appears to be in an affluent neighborhood of Bethlehem (check out this Christmas house across the street).

From what little I’ve been able to ascertain, Nisky Hill Cemetery was founded in 1864 as a Moravian burial ground. The original “Union Cemetery” (having nothing to do with the Grand Army of the Republic) at the eastern end of this large rectangular property, appears to have been annexed to Nisky Hill at some point in time.  The old gates along the front of the cemetery (East Church Street) offer the words “UNION CEMETERY” spelled out on them in wrought iron. I will assume Bethlehem Union Cemetery predates Nisky Hill.

Office at main entrance, Nisky Hill Cemetery

 The main entrance here is a bit odd. The entire cemetery is essentially build into the river bank, and slopes down toward it. Nisky Hill Cemetery is owned by the Bethlehem Area Moravians, Inc., a privately-held corporation which, it seems, has been in the local cemetery business since 1823 (ref.). Why, I’m not sure. I could fill a book with what I don’t know about the Moravians, so I’ll save that research for another time. Suffice it to say that “Bethlehem, Pennsylvania was founded in 1741 by a group of Moravians, members of a church that traces its heritage to pre-Reformation fifteenth-century central Europe”(ref.).

Interesting example of a "pre-need" cemetery monument

While it was a bit uncomfortable being out in the elements on this bright chilly winter’s day, it was actually kind of a cake walk. After some recent visits to abandoned cemeteries where I had to climb over fences and fall out of trees, this visit to Nisky Hill was so easy it seemed like I was getting away with something! While there was snow on the ground, the roads were plowed – in fact, the gates were wide open and we drove right in! Sometimes you take such conveniences for granted. There are in fact many cemeteries I’ve visited in winter where they don’t even plow the snow off the roads or even unlock the gate! Nisky Hill Cemetery is well-maintained and safe. I would guess that the caretaker lives on site in the old office building (there was a swing set behind it).

As we made our way methodically from one mausoleum to the next, I kept thinking about the heating packets for my gloves that I left in the trunk of my car. Oh well, cold fingers are better than the bloody ones ripped up by barbed wire a few weeks ago as a result of my last cemetery exploration! Today, we had a warm running vehicle to which we could adjourn about every fifteen minutes. Pampered.

Zinc ("White Bronze") memorial

As photographers, my friends and I ran off in our separate directions, pursuing our personal visions. Sometimes these interact, sometimes they are at odds with each other. While it can be interesting to see how different people photograph the same scene (like we did with the Civil War cannon above), I rather enjoy totally missing some awesome detail that a friend points out! In the case at Nisky Hill, I would have totally missed a few things, wrapped up in my own world of zinc monuments and snow. My friend Jonathan pointed out the disembodied heads (photos above) and the color photographic mausoleum glass window shown below.

The what? A photographic image about two by three feet, in color, of children in a boat, playing near a small waterfall. Trees crowd the sunny sky, while a hole from a bullet or stone mars the idyllic scene. What exactly is this? It is not stained glass nor painted glass, done in the usual fashion. A photograph printed on glass, then hand-painted? A type of 1860s lantern slide or an early 1900s autochrome? This is a positive image, like a color slide transparency. I am totally curious about this, so if anyone can offer a clue as to how this was done, please comment!

Author at William H. Thomas monument

Perhaps the most unusual monument in the entire cemetery was the one at the main entrance. Before we met up at Nisky Hill, my friends texted me about their impending arrival. This was about fifteen minutes after I arrived. I texted them back, “Meet you at the giant phallus.” I took a selfie before they got there, to help gauge the size - I am six foot two inches tall. Imagine. What would possess someone to install such a thing on one’s grave is beyond me, but apparently William H. Thomas was possessed by exactly that prior to his death in 1928. Maybe he wanted his monument to be higher than the steel stacks across the river? This sixteen-foot high tan (I swear) granite testament to the male ego stands out like a witty analogy amidst the much smaller, normal-sized grave markers that surround it. 

According to Funeralwise.com, “Moravians focus on the simplicity of burial grounds. They believe in uniform, plain grave markers and inscriptions to emphasize the equality of all human beings.” Oddly, the phallus is right next to the office building so no one can ever miss it. "Equality" aside, whoever all there people were, the residents of Nisky Hill and Union Cemetery in Bethlehem, their choice of how to be remembered was personal. These markers and monuments represent their lives, their community, their collective soul. It is a varied collection.

 

Older Moravian grave markers

Although Nisky Hill was originally restricted to Moravian burials, at some point this changed. Older Moravian cemeteries have smallish, low to the ground grave markers, almost like a memorial park or a Quaker burial ground with no high tombstones or monuments. There are a number of Moravian stones in this cemetery, made of white marble – perhaps twenty inches long, fourteen inches wide, and four inches high. However, Nisky Hill/Union Cemetery evolved for the most part into a classic American Victorian-era cemetery, replete with angels, zinc monuments, mausolea, and other decorative details from that era of mourning art.

Vandals Strike in Wilmington Cemetery

Around mid-summer 2014, I was getting my car fixed at the Saab dealer in Wilmington, Delaware. After the sizable extraction of money from my wallet, I grabbed a burger and a Coke from a nearby fast food emporium. What better place to eat lunch than the nearby cemetery (its not just postal workers and cops who do this, you know). So I drove to Riverview Cemetery about half a mile down the road.

"Abiding faith and hope in a glorious reunion"

On entering the north side off Market Street (which is the newer half of the 1872 cemetery), I was a bit distracted by all the headstones that appeared to be knocked over, off their bases. I drove around to find some shade in which to park, and noted many more knocked-over headstones and small obelisks. Odd. I’d been in here many times before and would have definitely noticed this. Was it because the grass was cut so low that I’m seeing this? I’d been here before where the grass had grown kind of tall. Maybe I just never noticed them?

Doorless crypt

I stopped in the shade of some trees near a crypt which had its door removed; interesting stained glass window at the back. I ate my lunch and just got out of the car to photograph the stained glass when I realized a pickup truck was headed down the road toward me – I was blocking the road. There’s usually no activity at Riverview so it didn’t occur to me to pull off the road.

I moved my car to one side and then got out with my camera, to make it very obvious to the driver what I was doing there. Obviously the crypt had at one time lost its door to thieves so I didn't want anyone to think I was casing it out to steal the stained glass. Much thievery has occurred here over the years - you can tell by the blocked up doorways of the larger mausoleums. The truck stopped and the woman driving it looked at me and I said “Hi.” She asked if she could help me and I just told her I stopped to eat my lunch and take some pictures. I assumed she had some authority here so I wanted her to know that I was not up to no good. She probably assumed this, since I was driving a bright blue turbo Saab convertible – not the vehicle of choice for thieves and vandals.

Blocked up mausoleum

I mentioned to her that it appeared that many headstones had been knocked over. She told me this had only happened the previous week (July 15, 2014) – the work of vandals. Seventy monuments and other grave markers in all had been pushed off their bases. Given that horrible situation, I told her that it was great that she stopped me to see what I was up to. I introduced myself as a Board member of the Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery, Inc. in Philadelphia, an organization of which she was well aware. She was the Secretary on the Board of the Friends of Riverview Cemetery.

Cylindrical grave markers displaced from their bases

Security is a major issue when you have limited funds to protect your space. Neither Riverview nor Mount Moriah have intact fencing, gates, or security patrols. Volunteers are left to patrol the grounds when they can. Local police sometimes cruise through, or park for a while. I myself have stopped people at Mount Moriah and asked if I could help them. Usually, they are there for a good reason, but sometimes not. You don’t want to lock the cemetery up and prevent visitors from accessing their loved ones’ graves while you’re keeping out vandals, scofflaws, and ne’er do wells. It is a challenge. After I posted the photograph below (with my blue car in it) on Facebook, someone made the comment, "One day the idiots responsible will go to visit their mother's grave and find it like this. Then they'll know the true cost of their criminality." Couldn't have said it better myself.

We struck up quite a conversation, the two of us there in Riverview, seeing many parallels between the cemeteries and our Friends groups. At some point the woman said, “What are the chances we would run into each other like this?” I replied, “Well, actually the chances are pretty good that two cemetery nerds would be in the same cemetery at the same time.” So I’ll make a few introductions and perhaps the two Friends groups can share some ideas to their mutual benefit. Like they say, everyone you meet knows something that you don’t!

Vandalized headstones at Riverview Cemetery

I had actually written about Riverview Cemetery back in 2012 (click here to read), when I noticed that the place seemed to be having a lot more attention paid to it than I was used to seeing. I’d been coming here since the early 2000s, when I first started having my previous Saabs repaired down the road at Sports Car Service. Weeds used to be waist high, but then new management took over in 2008 and things turned around. The Friends of Riverview Cemetery was actually granted legal ownership of the cemetery and through the hard work of these volunteers, Riverview Cemetery continues to be an active burial site. This is a goal for Mount Moriah Cemetery in Philadelphia/Yeadon – to once again have active burials once the ownership situation is resolved.

Riverview Cemetery chapel

It really is quite a nasty blow to Wilmington's Riverview Cemetery to have had all this damage done; the estimated repair cost is about $20,000, i.e., to reset all the stones and monuments. The owners, the Friends group, barely has enough money to cut the grass. I guess one of the useful things I did learn from this travesty is that so many grave markers, by design, merely sit on a stone base, without actually being attached to it. Perhaps modern headstone carvers should make headstones with steel dowels that fit into the base, to secure the stone. I have seen this with older marble headstones.

Anyone with information about the vandalism at Riverview Cemetery, please call the Wilmington police Confidential Tip Line at (302)576-3990.

References and Further Reading:
Riverview Cemetery website
Vandals damage 70 tombstones at cemetery
70 Headstones Toppled At Wilmington Cemetery

Stained Glass Woman

Learned a few interesting things about stained glass recently when I posted this image on Facebook. My initial caption under the photos was this:

 "Likeness of the Deceased?" - I've always wondered about the stained glass widow in this mausoleum. Does anyone know if it is supposed to be an anonymous face? Looks too realistic to me."

The replies that were posted by various people surprised me. Most importantly was the request to please remove the location information for security purposes. Security to the stained glass window, that is. I promptly removed any identifying  location information from the post. It’s very possible that the window (created in 1909) was made by the Tiffany Studios. And therefore, the window could easily fetch half a million dollars on the art black market. Doubt that? Don’t think people would rip a stained glass window out of a mausoleum and sell it?

According to a (year) 2000 article in the Maine Antique Digest entitled, “Alastair Duncan Gets 27 Months, Must Pay $220,000 Restitution, ”Tiffany expert, author, and dealer Alastair Duncan was sentenced in Manhattan federal court to 27 months in prison for two schemes to deal in Tiffany stained-glass windows stolen from cemeteries and mausoleums in the New York metropolitan area and to export them abroad." Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia (not the location of the window I photographed) had all seven of its Tiffany windows stolen from their respective mausoleums in the 1970s, shortly after a news article appeared mentioning their existence! (The cemetery was in a sad state of disrepair at that time.)

So back to the female likeness in my photograph, which is a bit too realistic and doesn’t really “fit” on the less-detailed body. Several stained glass artisans responded to my post. One person states that “the Tiffany studio, like many others, would sometimes include a family member as the model for a window.” (I assume this to mean a member of the glass artist's family.) So this was accepted practice. A verified example can be seen here.

Interestingly, I also received this comment:

“If the painting staff at Tiffany was anything like those of Beyer Studio [a contemporary stained glass studio, referenced below], the reference for the portrait was that of a co-worker. If you paint the other staff members of the studio you don't have to shell out for a model and the subject can look as if they are helping you when really all they are doing is standing still and complaining about the coffee or the mess in the break room."

I thought that was hysterical! Now, if your only exposure to Tiffany stained glass is the Tiffany lamp, you would never think that their artisans actually painted people’s faces on glass. The Tiffany glass studios were quite diverse, even responsible for creating (with artist Maxfield Parrish), the immense stained glass mural (15 feet high, 49 feet wide!) "The Dream Garden" in 1915 that was installed in the lobby of the Curtis Publishing Building in Philadelphia (Sixth and Walnut Streets). As I didn't have any photos of this masterpiece, I just took a walk at lunch time today and shot the photos you see here (the Curtis Building is a few blocks from where I work).

"The Dream Garden" glass mosaic by Parrish and Tiffany

From the plaque in the lobby:

The mosaic’s images [of an original Maxfield Parrish painting] are rendered in “favrile” glass following a complex hand-firing process developed by Tiffany to produce over 100,000 pieces of glass in 260 color tones. Most of the glass was set in 24 panels in Tiffany’s New York studios. Installing the panels in this location took six months. The finished work was hailed by art critics as “a veritable wonderpiece at the official unveiling in 1916. The amazing variety of opaque, translucent, and transparent glass entirely lighted from the lobby, achieves perspective effects that have never been duplicated.

References and Further Reading:

"Dream Garden" mural by Louis Comfort Tiffany and Maxfield Parrish

For a fascinating look at a contemporary stained glass studio, please visit http://www.beyerstudio.com/

Alastair Duncan Gets 27 Months, Must Pay $220,000 Restitution

Strange Adventures of a Cemetery Superintendent

Rocky Balboa at Laurel Hill Cemetery

Last week I attended a tour at Philadelphia’s Historic Laurel Hill Cemetery called ”Dishing Out the Dirt: The Strange Adventures of a Cemetery Superintendent.”(Laurel Hill is historic for two reasons, by the way: 1) it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1998 and; 2) it is America’s second Victorian garden cemetery, established in 1836 – five years after Mount Auburn Cemetery near Boston, Massachusetts.)

Bill Doran, Laurel Hill’s maintenance superintendent has not been at his job since 1836, but he gives the impression that he has. Bill gave members of the Friends of Laurel Hill Cemetery an hour-and-a-half long guided tour of the cemetery, pointing out some of the strange aspects of the death-care industry that only a Cemetery Superintendent would know. (That's not Bill in the image above, by the way, that's Sly Stallone at Laurel Hill in a scene from the movie, Rocky Balboa (2006), but more on that later. Bill is the better-looking chap in the center of the image below)

Cemetery Superintendent Dill Doran addressing crowd

Let’s first look at what Laurel Hill itself says about Dishing Out the Dirt (from its website) before I get into my own experience:

 “Not everyone is cut out for cemetery work... It can be a strange, emotional and unnerving venture. But, it also has its bizarre and often comical surprises. At a cemetery like Laurel Hill – a provocative historic site that works daily to put the rave back into graveyard – those surprises become ever more frequent. Encounters with the living – human and animal – are often as memorable as encounters with the dying and the dead."

I kind of thought, then hoped, this would be an indoor lecture. It was a hundred degrees on the Saturday afternoon of the presentation, and I was looking forward to sitting in a cool air-conditioned room. However, I was informed upon my arrival that it was a guided tour of the cemetery grounds, led by Bill Doran.

McDowell monument, 1891

About thirty people showed up and actually trudged through the graveyard with Bill for an hour and a half in the blazing heat –diehards! Worth the effort? Absolutely! Bill is riveting with his good-natured Irish brogue and workingman language. His knowledge of the business is vast, and he is quite effective as a public speaker. Obviously proud of his heritage, he was quick to point out that many of the fabulous statues and monuments at Laurel Hill were actually sculpted by Irish artisans, not Italians, as one might expect. Case in point is the enormous granite McDowell monument you see at left. Mr. Doran commented on the cost at the time to build various pieces, as Laurel Hill maintains these records. The McDowell monument, for example, cost $12,000 to make in 1891!

Headstone in tree!

Having access to all the cemetery’s records dating back to 1836 is rather fascinating. Our guide pointed out that lot sketches exist for a one-hundred foot-high pyramid that was planned for construction right near Laurel Hill’s gatehouse on Ridge Avenue! The structure, with underground mausoleums, was never built. Imagine the tourist attraction this would have been! For now, we must settle for subtler novelties, like this grave marker that was found to be embedded inside a tree when the tree fell down!

"Millionaires' Row"

Bill and his maintenance crew dig graves, move graves, and maintain graves. They plan the placement of monuments, shore them up, and maintain the mausoleums – both above ground and underground. I wondered if the rest of the audience was as surprised as I was years ago when I first found out that many cemetery monuments actually mark the spot of an underground mausoleum. These are accessed either through a door in the monument or by digging down to the roof of the underground structure. Bill said some families have their funeral services below ground, in the mausoleum, necessitating family members to scale a ladder down sixteen feet into a hole. Imagine that.

Vacant mausoleum at right

There were a number of interesting stories imparted to us by our host, but my favorite had to be the one about the father who came to the office complaining that his young son (I think maybe eight years old) was frightened by what he saw in a mausoleum on “Millionaire’s Row.” The father had peeked into the decorative holes in the door (as we all do, admit it!) and then invited his son to do the same. I’m guessing he said something like, “See, there’s nothing to be afraid of!” As his son peered into the building, the door opened from the inside and a man came out! The man proceeded to walk up the road. After vehement complaints to the office personnel by the man, the management apologized and told the visitors that homeless people sometimes take refuge in the mausoleums.

There is a vacant mausoleum here, by the way, which is for sale. Odd.  I suppose that if you can’t afford to buy, maybe you can get it on a thirty-year lease …? Picture a “VACANCY” sign on the door...!

Tour of portion of Laurel Hill Cemetery overlooking Schuylkill River

Mausoleums were the subject of a number of Bill’s stories. One bizarre one was how he saw a raccoon jump down an air vent into a mausoleum built into the side of a hill (they need air vents to allow for the escape for gases caused by the decomposition of bodies). Knowing there was no way out, Bill went and got the key, then opened the door to let the raccoon out. On opening the solid granite door, He was shocked to find the structure filled with the skeletons of all the other animals that had jumped in over time! Some had starved to death, probably, but some may have been baked to death. As Bill said, the temperature inside these structures can reach 300 degrees in summer. Subsequent to the raccoon episode, a screen was placed over the mausoleum’s vent to keep animals out. Strange adventures, indeed.

If you’re a bit put off by the stories so far, I am writing about a CEMETERY, after all, which has as its primary focus, death. Sometimes we cemetery fans forget that, in all our exuberance to learn about odd burial practices and photograph the beautiful statuary.  For others, a cemetery might have a more fleeting, yet final meaning for them. Some years ago, a man’s suicide note said “You can find me at Laurel Hill.” Police found his body lying on his family plot where he had shot himself. Another time, one of Bill’s workers found a small lifeless form, wrapped in a blanket behind one of the mausoleums. He poked at it and saw blonde hair. He panicked and went to get Bill. Upon closer examination, the bundled form turned out to be a dead poodle. Someone had cared enough about their dead animal to wrap it up and reverently deposit it inside a cemetery.

Cemeteries will do just about anything these days to generate income. This is especially true at Laurel Hill, which has a very minimal amount of space left in its 78 acres for new burials. You have to give the management credit for being so creative as to negotiate with film companies to use the cemetery as a destination location for making motion pictures. Laurel Hill has been host to a variety of big-budget Hollywood films over the last six years, including Rocky Balboa (2006) and Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) (and yes, cemetery personnel do get to meet the stars!).

Transformer at Laurel Hill Cemetery (ref.)

Rocky's chair at Adrian's grave

Rocky’s wooden folding chair from the movie stands vigil at Adrian’s headstone (near the gatehouse) and some of the cemetery’s asphalt roadways were a gift from Transformers 2 producer Michael Bay. Why? Because all the staged explosions in the film melted the original roadway! The film company told Laurel Hill this in advance and that the options were: protect the roadway with steel sheets or repave the roads afterwards. In keeping with Laurel Hill Cemetery’s drive to improve, it chose the latter.

Revenue generated by movies and tours, along with donations by the Friends of Laurel Hill Cemetery, is used to continually improve and restore this National Historic Landmark. Bill Doran showed us another example of this on our final stop of tour. When little or no trust fund money exists for such large projects as the restoration of this Egyptian style mausoleum, the money needs to come from somewhere. This mid-1800s marble mausoleum was falling apart. Most of the individual pieces of the structure had shifted over the years so that both the outside and the inside were falling apart. One of the surprising finds inside the structure was the absence of wall vaults, into which coffins are typically placed. For all its grandeur, this particular family had an unfinished basement! Built into the hillside, the interior had a simple wooden floor where about sixteen wooden coffins were just stacked on top of each other!

If you have the opportunity to attend any of the Laurel Hill tours, they are fascinating, The cemetery people are great hosts. As is their usual practice after an event such as this, we were presented with an area in which to relax and socialize, completing the tour with complementary wine, beer, and crudités. Thankfully, this relaxing wind-down at the conclusion of Bill’s “Strange Adventures of a Cemetery Superintendent” tour was not held in a 300-degree mausoleum – it was held in the air-conditioned gatehouse.

References and Further Reading:

Source of Transformer image in Laurel Hill Cemetery
See Laurel Hill scenes in the trailer for Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

Photos from Transformers shoot at Laurel Hill

Source of Rocky Balboa image at Laurel Hill Cemetery
Rocky Balboa filming locations

Thanks to Bob Reinhardt, member of the Friends of Laurel Hill Cemetery, for inviting me along as his guest.

Dunmore Cemetery and the Dearly Departed Players

I guess those of us living in the northeastern part of the U.S. get to enjoy a unique aspect of our cemeteries that people in other parts of the country cannot – the rainbow of colors brought on by leaves changing colors in the fall. (I have this ridiculous notion that you can never see Minnesotan cemeteries because the ground is always covered with snow!). If you happen to pair up the fall foliage extravaganza with a truly beautiful cemetery, the result can be breathtaking. I experienced this at the beginning of November at the Dunmore Cemetery in Dunmore, Pennsylvania.

Dunmore is in the northeastern part of PA, an old coal mining region, two miles north of Scranton (made famous on the TV show “The Office”). The reason I was in Scranton was because I was invited to participate as an artist in Scranton’s First Friday Arts Walk. Most cities have them – once a month, galleries change their exhibits, stay open late, and offer free wine and cheese doodles. Sometimes other businesses get involved, hanging artwork, hosting live bands, etc. You see bookstores, restaurants, bars, ever even churches participating. The good people at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Scranton were my hosts for the evening. 

Prior to arriving at the church, I spent a few hours photographing in the Dunmore Cemetery, at the recommendation of the two fine people who were responsible for my being invited − Julie Esty and Wendy Belaski, members of the Dunmore Cemetery’s “Dearly Departed Players” theatrical group. This group offers a stone by stone walk though the history of the residents of the cemetery (sponsored by the Lackawana Historical Society).

Established in 1828, Dunmore Cemetery offers unique and well-preserved ironwork, headstones, statuary, and mausoleums. Across its hilly 35 acres, you'll see a pyramid, a lovely chapel, ornate crypts, even a zinc memorial thrown in for good measure – all blending art with the preservation of memories. Many memorials are quite unique, e.g. the castle-like crypt of the Boies family - with its filigree metalwork inside the entrance. its every bit as extravagant as anything you'd see in Paris' Pere Lachaise Cemetery.

Boies Mausoleum, Dunmore Cemetery

Julie Esty's book

Many cemetery companies strive to be what the Dunmore Cemetery is − a destination spot for all sorts of activity. It is a wonderfully landscaped and meticulously attended to Victorian-era sculpture garden. As I drove through and walked around on this gorgeous fall day, I was taken by the fact that there were so many other people here on a Friday afternoon! There were walkers, drivers, visitors tending to the graves of their loved ones, groundskeepers, and so on. Just a bevy of activity – in fact, more people than I’ve ever seen in any cemetery anywhere! The place is obviously a source of great community pride. Its office was immaculate, the sole worker very cordial and helpful. I noticed they were selling copies of Julie Esty’s book, Stories in Stone – Tales of Life from the Dunmore Cemetery, so I purchased a copy, figuring I would later ask her to autograph it. (You can purchase your own copy here.)

As cemeteries revitalize and try to earn more money to stay in business, a major thrust is to get more live people to spend time in them. Why would that matter? Well, if you can offer novel and interesting attractions to people (such that they’ll pay money to come to the cemetery), you can generate income from:

• ·         Historic tours

• ·         Concerts

• ·         Beer tastings (!)

• ·         Special events such as Halloween parties and presentations

But there’s a subtle yet very important reason to attract people to cemeteries, which Julie and Wendy pointed out to me later that evening − the more people who are around, the less likely vandals and thieves will be to damage and steal. As the founder and artistic director of the Dearly Departed Players, Julie Esty has figured out a way to get people into a cemetery (live people, i.e.). Over the course of two Sundays this past October, her two-hour tours of the Dunmore Cemetery drew eight hundred people! She is quite passionate about what her group does in this very popular form of historic preservation (there is actually no fee for the tour).

Photo by Tim Snyder

Early that evening, my brother Tim met me at St. Lukes, where he helped me with the load in and load out. I was given the front room in the church hall − a beautiful space in which to set up my books, photographs, and greeting cards. Inside the hall itself were a half dozen other artists and exhibitors, and a choir performed in the connected church. These people really know how to throw a party! They had a separate room set up with free coffee, cookies, bottles of water, and so on. 

Wendy Belaski, Ed Snyder, and Julie Esty

The whole affair was well attended and the visitors were great fun to talk to. Such a warm welcome! New friends and old stopped by, teens, people who were familiar with my work on Facebook, members of the Scranton Photography Club. People had suggestions to visit various local cemeteries, some discussed photographic techniques and camera gear, others asked me the stories behind certain images in my book as I autographed copies for them.

Stained glass from Dunmore mausoleum

Julie Esty and Wendy Belaski (who specializes in the art of mausoleum stained glass), arrived in Victorian hoop dresses and bonnets, as they were exhibiting pieces of funeral history, including post-mortem photographs, mourning clothing, and other artifacts. They’re as much into dead things as I am, so we hit it off well. I appreciate all the tips on nearby cemeteries to visit (especially the run down and nearly abandoned ones) and will definitely head back to Scranton soon. All in all, it was a fabulous visit, and I thank everyone for their hospitality!

References and Further Listening and Reading:

Stories in Stone – Tales of Life from the Dunmore Cemetery, by Julie Snell-Esty, 2010

Hear Julie Esty’s podcast interview on the Dunmore Cemetery (hear what goes into planning a historical cemetery tour!)

The Dunmore Cemetery Tour on Facebook
The Dearly Departed Players on Facebook