Stealing from the Dead

On December 18, 2013, thieves stole two 250-pound bronze mausoleum doors from Arlington Cemetery in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania (a Philadelphia suburb). The replacement value of the doors is about $30,000. This was their second trip to Arlington – they had stolen more doors the prior weekend, assuming the same thieves. (Links at the end of this article will take you to the news postings and videos regarding the story.)

What would anyone want with heavy bronze doors? Might they need replacements for the antechamber doors in their castle? Would they sell them on the black art market? Hardly. Most likely they would attempt to sell them for scrap. At current rates for bronze scrap ($2.00 per pound), the doors would fetch a thousand dollars (500 lbs. x $2.00 per pound). Bronze, being an alloy of copper and tin, is worth almost as much as copper (click link for current prices), the “gold” of the scrap metal industry.

But there’s a catch – and that is, quite literally, that the thieves or the scrap yard could be caught. Selling scrap is not so easy if the booty is recognizable. So if the thieves thought that it was hard enough to remove the pair of 250-pound doors from the mausoleum, lug them across a snow-covered cemetery, over a fence, and into a waiting vehicle – wait until they try to chop them up. That can’t be easy.

Blocked-up mausoleum entrance

And if they pound or cut them into unrecognizable chunks, they’ll have to cart it all off to a scrapyard and try to pass it off as (relatively) worthless – and not stolen – junk. One trick my father taught me (as he would sometimes sell a truckload of scrap metal to the junkyard) is that if you mix the questionable stuff up with the REALLY worthless stuff, it’s more difficult to detect the former. Not that he stole from cemeteries, of course. When one person tosses an old refrigerator or a roll of copper wire in the trash, there are scrappers who pick it out and sell it to a metal recycling operation (or, as they were called when I was a kid in the 1960s, a “junk yard”). Recycling scrap metals means extra cash for some people. Today, with a poor economy and scrap metal values as high as they are, THEFT of metals to be sold as scrap is rampant.

Grave medals a target for thieves

If a recycling or metal reclamation site gets caught buying stolen merchandise, the people involved may face jail time, fines, and restitution. A recent example  is described in this September 2013 article from the Isanti (Minnesota) County News: “Randall man sentenced for receiving stolen bronzestar markers from graves.” The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) is at the same time trying to put a more positive face on the situation, for the good of the industry, as we see in this excerpt from the article, “Combating Scrap Theft: ScrapDealers Don't Want It and They're Doing Something About It:”

The problem of metal theft is ever present, but it has boomed in recent months.

     The rash of scrap thefts has put recyclers in a difficult position. Many find themselves trying to maintain their incoming supply while guarding against accepting stolen material.

     "Unfortunately, with most scrap metal, there's just no way to tell the difference between legitimate scrap and that which has been stolen -- it all looks the same,” said Chuck Carr, spokesman for the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI). "Recyclers are also confronted with the challenge of protecting their own inventory from theft, both at their facilities and in transit to their customers."

     To meet these challenges, recyclers are engaging in cooperative crime-fighting efforts with other recyclers and law enforcement officials.

     In general, scrap recyclers must address scrap thefts on two fronts: First, they must protect themselves from having their own material stolen.  And second, they must protect themselves from inadvertently buying stolen material over the scale.

     Recyclers are taking steps to identify incoming stolen material and avoid purchasing it. Scrap operators know it's illegal to intentionally purchase stolen material. They also recognize the potential out-of-pocket losses they may suffer by unwittingly buying such material. If the material's rightful owner or local authorities find the stolen goods in a recycler's yard, they can reclaim it without having to reimburse the recycler.

Mausoleum with blocked-up front door (Wilmington, Delaware)

Doorless mausoleum

So how did the thieves get the doors off the mausoleums, anyway? They pried them open (where the two doors meet in the center) and then removed the side hinges from each door. Arlington has now chained the door handles together on its remaining eighteen mausoleums to prevent future theft. Attractive sight, isn’t it? I’ve seen this a lot, in many cemeteries, and just assumed it was done to prevent unauthorized entry. I’ve also seen mausoleums with the doors missing altogether. and many with the window and door openings blocked up. All a result of theft, I imagine.

And what about the families who own the mausoleums? Does a cemetery insure itself against such theft? Do the families who own the mausoleums insure the building? Arlington Cemetery is home to the Museum of Mourning Arts, a wonderful museum of Victorian funerary art. I hope the building has an electronic security system. The cemetery itself is immaculate, a genteel purlieu in a residential neighborhood, fronted by busy Lansdowne Avenue. Its wooded acres are very well-maintained, though such bucolic forested landscaping offers convenient cover for thieves. Hard to believe such a theft could occur here, and no one see the theft in process. If anyone reading this has any information about the doors, please call Upper Darby Police's anonymous tip line at 610-734-3439. 

Even more difficult to believe is that a similar theft occurred earlier at nearby Holy Cross Cemetery in Yeadon, Pa, four miles from Arlington. Three sets of doors were stolen from this Catholic Archdiocese cemetery. It has many more mausoleums to choose from and is a larger cemetery, making it potentially easier to perpetrate such a crime. Holy Cross is one of my favorite cemeteries in which to make photographic art, so the desecration is even closer to home. The image of the Christmas wreath on the mausoleum door that you see at the beginning of this blog was made in Holy Cross a few years ago. I’m wondering if the doors are still there.

Nothing is safe when people are hard up for money, perhaps money to feed a drug habit, as police suspect in the Arlington thefts. The bronze medallions (see photo at left) that mark veterans’ graves in many cemeteries are easy pickings, certainly easier than a mausoleum door. They go missing all the time (see link). Though I never weighed one, I assume each weighs a pound. Fifty of these at $2.00 apiece would fetch one hundred dollars as scrap. You can buy a gram of heroin with that. (My mathematically-inclined readers have already done the math and see that the value of heroin is TWICE that of gold!)

Ed Snyder with "Silent Sentinel" (photo Frank Rausch)

Cemeteries need a silent sentinel to keep theft down these days. This particular bronze sculpture of a Civil War soldier, coincidentally known as the “Silent Sentinel,” used to stand in Philadelphia’s Mount Moriah Cemetery. In the 1970s, it was recovered while thieves were in the act of removing it. It had been knocked off its granite pedestal, chained to a pickup truck and was being dragged out of the cemetery. The theft was thwarted and the statue was placed in storage for safekeeping. The “Silent Sentinel” was restored and kept in a foundry for safekeeping for forty years. Not until 2013 did it see the light of day. It now stands (temporarily) in the office at Philadelphia’s Laurel Hill Cemetery.

References and Further Reading:

Scumbags steal mausoleum doors from Delco cemetery

250 pound bronze mausoleum doors stolen from delaware county cemetery

Bronze doors stolen from Upper Darby cemetery

Bronze grave markers stolen

Thieves snatch grave markers at grand view memorial park

Rescued 'Silent Sentinel' Civil War statue going to Laurel Hill Cemetery

O Christmas Tree

The young woman could have climbed over the fence and out of the cemetery if she had really wanted to. She even told me so.

A few minutes earlier, as she walked down the icy sidewalk outside the cemetery fence, a large man moved slowly toward her from the opposite direction. A few car lengths ahead of her, he darted into the dark street, bending low behind the parked cars while she passed him. It was there behind one of the cars that he found the glove he had dropped that morning.

Picking up the frozen glove, he turned back toward the cemetery entrance and noticed that the woman had gone inside. He followed her. 

Stopping just inside the main gate and aware of her presence, he began to photograph the decorated and electrically-lit Christmas tree in front of the old bier house. She watched him hesitantly. After a moment, she said, “I’d love to go further into the cemetery, but I don’t want to be locked in. The fence looks easy enough to climb, but …” She didn’t have to finish the sentence. Who would want to do that in twenty-degree weather, surrounded by snow and ice at night, with a camera around one’s neck? Well, maybe the person who REALLY wants that perfect shot …!

It was five o’clock and the sign on the gate said the place closed at five. It was dark. Someone would be around soon, I supposed. 

I’m not always capable of my clearest and most sensitive thinking, so I probably should not have followed her into that graveyard - but I did want to photograph the tree. After a few shots, I figured that this might be a threatening situation for her, so I blurted out how pretty the tree was and how my friend’s son was part of the tree-lighting ceremony the previous night and how I came back here to retrieve my glove. Although I wanted to photograph the tree from the area where she was standing, I decided to leave and let her resolve her own dilemma. I wanted to be helpful, so I suggested she leave a note on the gate asking the attendant to shout out for her before he locked up. As I said goodbye and turned to leave, I realized how stupid a suggestion that was. Sure, she’s going to leave a note for a stranger saying, essentially, “I’m here alone in the dark. Come and get me.”

But you know, sometimes, if you really want that shot, you have to throw caution to the wind ... and the cold and ice. Lord knows, I’ve gotten myself locked in cemeteries a number of times, sometimes even on purpose. I don’t know if the woman ventured further in or not. If she did, I bid her tidings of great joy. 

Betsy Ross and Christmas

This is not your average Christmas story. Its about theft and deceit; however, I’ve thrown the Baby Jesus in to add some holiday spirit. You see, he was stolen from the manger in Philadelphia’s Italian Market last year, so now he’s nailed down (ironically premonitory, if you ask me). This year, in a similar act of vandalism (for what could a plastic BJ be worth?), the four-by-six foot thirteen-star American flag, flying from the pole over Betsy Ross’ grave was stolen from Philadelphia’s Mount Moriah Cemetery.(That's my daughter, Olivia, holding a small version of the flag Betsy Ross helped create.)

Baby Jesus missing, then replaced (Italian Market, Philadelphia)

Bare flagpole with ropes flying

 Again, vandalism, for what could a commercially-made flag reproduction be worth? Plenty, as it turns out. Like the plastic Jesus in the manger, it’s all symbolic, you know, and therefore hurts worse. The flag went missing on November 25, 2013. The ropes seemed to have been burned through (photo at right courtesty of Donna Morelli).

Flag flying over Betsy Ross' grave, 9/13

As she was doing her rounds of the cemetery (Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery, Inc. Board member) Donna Morelli found the ropes waving in the wind. She’s on the Board of Directors of the FOMMCI with me, and is in charge of groundskeeping and other environmental issues. She lives nearby and so nothing much escapes her eagle eye. I call her the guardian angel of Mount Moriah. She actually maintains the flag – washes it every so often, cares for it and the area of sacred ground around the pole. She is a taskmistress if there ever was one, wholly engaged in the work of remembrance, preserving the emotional heritage of Mount Moriah Cemetery and those interred.

When the incident was announced on the FOMMCI Facebook group page, it generated quite a stir. Someone commented that the “karma train” is going to run that thief over. Generally, people were very upset. One comment mentioned that Betsy’s remains were dug up for the nation’s bicentennial in 1976 and reburied at the Besty Ross House in Old City Philadelphia (see link). So therefore, the theft wasn’t like the flag was taken from her actual grave. Well, yes it was.

Betsy Ross (January 1, 1752 – January 30, 1836), widely credited as having made the first American flag, was first buried at the Free Quaker burial ground on North 5th Street. Twenty years later, her remains were exhumed and reburied at Mount Moriah Cemetery. In preparation for the United States Bicentennial, the city ordered the remains moved to the courtyard of the Betsy Ross House in 1975; however, workers found no remains under her tombstone. Bones found elsewhere in the Claypoole family plot (she was married to John Claypoole when she died) were deemed to be hers and were re-interred in the current grave visited by tourists at the Betsy Ross House. (For the record, the declaration that this was her actual house is fabricated American history as well.)

For the purists and fact hunters, I direct you to the letter shown below, dated 1968 from Mount Moriah Cemetery to, I assume, the U.S. government agent ("Norman") charged with relocating Betsy's body. Here is an excerpt of the text:

"With regard to the question of the removal of the remains of Betsy Ross I am submitting the following objections on which you can elaborate or delete. ....At this state of decomposure there are no remains of Betsy Ross. To pretend to remove these remains, in my opinion, would be a mockery and a fraud on the public." The writer goes on to end the letter with: "...in short, I could not produce the body."

Letter regarding Betsy Ross' remains

Apparently, Norman (the responsible U.S. government party) chose the option to "delete" this bit of information when presenting the "facts" about Betsy's relocation to the public. However, as my friend Donna Morelli (aka “Haunt Mount Moriah” to her many Facebook friends) says, “This isn't about whether or not Betsy Ross is still buried in Mount Moriah or if she was moved. This is about the fact that we work hard in this cemetery to make it a better place. The flag pole was painted and a flag was raised, raised in representation of our patriotic spirit for Betsy Ross, Mount Moriah and the thousands of veterans who are buried here.”

Betsy Ross' 'headstone" at Betsy Ross House

By governmental decree, the American flag is only allowed to fly twenty-four hours in certain locations. Of these select few sites in America, two of them are women’s graves. One is Betsy’s. So you see, there is much significance to the flag that was stolen from Mount Moriah Cemetery. (The other grave site, by the way, is that of Jennie Wade, the only civilian resident of Gettysburg killed during that epic battle of the American Civil War. During the battle, she was in her sister’s kitchen baking bread for the Union troops. She was struck in the back by a stray bullet.)

But there is even more significance to the stolen flag. It seems that the flag was donated by another FOMMCI Board Member, Danielle Murray, in memory of her USMC parents. Danielle states:

"The flag is not cloth. It represents who we are as a people.... Our history. She designed the 13 stars to be a new constellation that our little nation was at the time. I donated that flag because I played here as a child and almost lost my life here a little over a month ago as an adult. My mom and dad - proud longtime Marines first brought me here when I was young. Betsy's plot was the very first memory I have here. That flag was for Betsy...... And her gift of creating a physical symbol to represent us - a new nation. It was my way of saying thanks to her. So you see .... It's gone. [The flag] … was a gift for everyone..... And for our first female patriot. Whoever did it stole from every person who cares about [Mount Moriah Cemetery].”

Whoever took the flag knew it was there – the thief didn’t just happen upon it. Betsy’s grave is nestled in a heavily wooded area behind the Masonic Circle of Saint John (see map link, Section 51), which is not at all visible from any nearby road. It’s location is not even designated on our official map or website. If by some quirk of nature, the thief or thieves find themselves reading this, please consider giving us a Christmas present – give back the flag. If anyone has any information as to its whereabouts, please contact Donna Morelli at hauntofmm@gmail.com, or through her “Haunt Mount Moriah” Facebook page. All communication will be strictly confidential.

"When we view the flag, we think of liberty, freedom, pride, and Betsy Ross. The American flag flies on the moon, sits atop Mount Everest, is hurtling out in space. The flag is how America signs her name." - http://www.ushistory.org/BETSY/

References and Further Reading:
Make a tax-deductible contribution to the Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery, Inc. to help us in our work of maintaining this historic cemetery! Please click here, and thank you!

Betsy Ross’ Remains Sought
Betsy Ross bio
Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery Facebook page
Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery, Inc. website
Read about Jennie Wade and other Civil War civilian casualties
Betsy Ross House Official website 

I am Dead - Lou Reed (1947-2013)

"I am Dead" - At least that's what I thought this caption said under Lou Reed's portrait on the November 6, 2013 cover of Rolling Stone. I certainly would not have been surprised to find this to be his self-penned epitaph. The magazine was sitting in the display rack last week at my local Whole Foods supermarket (a place I doubt the drug-addled Reed would have ever set foot in, though I did hear rumors that he cleaned himself up in the past few years). When I pulled the magazine out of its holder, I was disappointed to see that what I thought was "I am Dead" were simply the words "Lou Reed" (as you can see in the photo below). That's just the way my mind works, I guess - death everywhere. Also the way Reed worked – he liked to disappoint.

Reed's Transformer album

Reed the rock star died on Oct. 27, 2013. Those unfamiliar with his fifty-years-worth of music (difficult to be unaware of his 1972 hit, Walk on the Wild Side, and his 60s band, the Velvet Underground) may know him best from his song Perfect Day (flip side of the Wild Side single, from his best-known album, Transformer), which has been airing for the past several months on network television as the soundtrack for Sony’s new PlayStation 4. It’s a fabulous pairing of music with video, I must say. Here are some lyrics from the song (and a link to the video):

Read it online

“Oh, it's such a perfect day
I'm glad I spend it with you
Oh, such a perfect day
You just keep me hanging on
You just keep me hanging on”

For most of his career, I hated the music Lou Reed created, but I never stopped giving him a chance. I would buy used copies of his latest CDs and hope for the best - he just kept me hanging on. Sweet Jane, a Velvets song he wrote, has been one of my mainstays on guitar for the past thirty years – just a wonderfully simple chord progression with lyrics about transvestites and oral sex. I went to see Reed once, back in 2003 at the Tower Theatre in Philly. I saw Patti Smith around the same time. They were both popular New York artists in the 70s and both have storied reputations and hit-and-miss musical careers. I had reservations about seeing them – I figured that based on their history and things I’ve read, there was a 50% chance they would suck.

Turned out that Patti Smith was over-the-top brilliant, and Reed, well, he sucked. All I remember is him doing a monotone delivery of Poe’s The Raven while the band stood by or droned on, I don’t remember which. It was less than brilliant. So now he’s gone. But Lou Reed won’t be remembered for anyone else’s lyrics. He‘ll be remembered for his own lyrics, and for the LOOK. Read the following obit and you’ll see what I mean. Of the Velvets and Reed in particular, the Philadelphia Weekly states (in the article, “In Memoriam: Lou Reed”):

They were drop-dead cool, and any indie rock band who’s ever copped the whole skinny black jeans, leather jackets and wrap-around shades look since owes Lou Reed (big time). They remain the absolute template–for better or worse–for a look and sound that’s been assimilated by everyone from David Bowie to Roxy Music, Patti Smith to Sonic Youth, the Jesus and Mary Chain to the Smiths. More recently, the Strokes’ entire shtick was plundered wholesale from Reed’s back catalog.

 

Ed Snyder's daughter Olivia, striking a Lou Reed pose

My four-year-old daughter even emulates Reed (though not consciously)! That look and that sound flew in the face of Top 40 pop music, which in 1972 was dominated by such mega-dreck as Sammy Davis Jr.’s The Candy Man and Robert John’s The Lion Sleeps Tonight. While the majority of the listening public was grooving to these fine ditties, 10,000 people went out and bought that first Velvets album. The seeds of punk rock were sewn that year. Philadelphia Weekly goes on to say, “To paraphrase the infamous old Brian Eno quote, the Velvet’s first album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band.”

Back in the 70s, I along with all other Creem magazine readers, bought Reed’s Coney Island Baby, Sally Can’t Dance, and the big downer album, Berlin, expecting the same brilliance that he showed on Transformer (the album with Wild Side and Perfect Day). While his Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal album is arguably one of the best live rock performances ever recorded, he stumbled big time with Metal Machine Music ... In addition to the four albums of music Reed created with the Velvet Underground, he released twenty-two solo albums of new material in his long career.

 "Just a perfect day
problems all left alone
Weekenders on our own
it's such fun

Just a perfect day
you made me forget myself
I thought I was
someone else, someone good"

Those lyrics remind me of strolling through an old cemetery, forgetting my cares and woes. Reed wrote about death, and how to get there, a lot. Even when he tried to be uplifting, it still sounded like death. Finally, he reaped what he hath sewn. So you’re probably wondering where Lou Reed is buried. No one’s saying. Here's his entry on FindAGrave.com.

References and Final Thoughts:

PS4 ‘Perfect Day’ Commercial Gets New Meaning in Light of Lou Reed’s Tragic Passing
In Memoriam: Lou Reed 
Lou Reed on FindAGrave
Nov. 6, 2013 issue of Rolling Stone  
Embrace and Repel: Lou Reed's Chart History

Let's Paint those Tombstones!

Ok, so I won’t mention the cemetery in which this thought occurred to me, lest people run in there and start painting the tombstones. A few weeks ago I was walking through it and I was drawn to a small swath of blue color on a large, stark white marble headstone. My first though was that someone had splotched it with blue paint! Turned out it was a piece of painter’s tape – you know (or maybe you don’t), the weak masking tape they sell to border moldings when you’re painting the walls in your house. That said, I’m not sure why it was even there, but it got me thinking.

In prior blogs, I wrote about painting cemetery statues with light (How to Paint Tombstones), but then I thought, how about with actual paint?! You know, picture tempera paint, something water-based that will wash off in the rain (think sidewalk chalk drawings a la Mary Poppins). Or maybe something permanent like tinted hydrostatic paint (the kind with which you seal basement walls). How cool would those weather-beaten white marble headstones look if artists were to paint them! You know, highlight the worn detail areas so they could be discerned. (I personally would not do this as I am no artist - my effort would end up looking like the work of a third-grader!)

What might the end result look like? Sort of like what I did with these images in Photoshop. I am picturing colorization of the effect one might achieve with tempera paint, since this is what the piece of masking tape brought to mind – simply painting the raised characters e.g. the names, dates, and epitaph one color, with a contrasting background. The sculpted and engraved symbols can be other colors. Another idea would be to use pastel-like shades so the stones take on the look of those hand-tinted old black and white photographs. Maybe a cemetery can offer a contest, get a bunch of artists together for a day to temporarily paint some headstones (like the sculptors who participate in sand castle-building contests on the beach)!

This is all tongue-in-cheek, of course, I’m not seriously suggesting this at all, but sometimes my brain just puts all these ideas together in well, the way an unsupervised child might make a stew. I mean, what would the families of the dearly departed think? Well, it is another way of memorializing the dead, of keeping them in our memory. Permission would need to be given by the family (descendants), of course. But maybe there are none -  we’re talking about grave markers that are a hundred and more years old. You may not know this unless you hang around in graveyards, but the use of marble for headstones became far less popular toward the end of the 1800s. Taphophiles on the other hand, take this fact for granite (pun intended).

Speaking of granite, paint would adhere to it with greater difficulty than it would to marble, I suppose, since marble is much more porous. After painting, we could apply a preservative chemical over the whole thing like they do with bronze statues to keep them from oxidizing.

Perhaps the stones could be painted with surreal designs or camouflaged as green grass so people would walk into them! Families can commission artists to paint the headstones or other monuments (artists can always use the money: What’s the difference between an artist and a pizza? A pizza can feed a family of four!). They can even leave the design up to the artist, like the way Philadelphians commission artist Izaiah Zagar to create and install mosaics of broken mirrors and ceramic on their homes and businesses. Maybe the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program could have a branch called the Philadelphia Tombstone Arts Program …

Of course all this could possibly lead to only one thing: someone might eventually get carried away and suggest shrink-wrapping the headstones like they do with advertising vehicle wraps. Hey wait a minute - this would not hurt the stone, it would preserve it, and it could be printed with all the same information and designs as the headstone underneath - why not?