There’s a term in religious circles that describes some Christians of a reserved and stiff nature as being part of the “frozen chosen”.

During the winter, this figure of speech can become a literal expression when it comes to digging graves in Northern states where temperatures hit below zero and harden the snow-covered ground.

Before the invention of the backhoe, there was only one way to dig a grave and that was with a shovel. It could take quite a lot of backbone and energy to accomplish even in warmer conditions. But when the ground froze, it could be nearly impossible.

Often, families simply waited until spring to bury their loved ones. The dead would be placed in what was called a receiving vault, where they might wait a few weeks to a few months for burial.

Atlanta’s Westview Cemetery has a large receiving vault built in 1888 but it was mostly used for storing the deceased when inclement weather made burial impossible. This was usually due to cold weather or prolonged rain, not snow. When the Spanish Flu epidemic swept the city in 1918 to 1919, the vault was full with victims of the illness.

When Westview’s Abbey Mausoleum was completed in the 1940s, the receiving vault was sealed because the new building had plenty of room to store the deceased awaiting burial.

The practice of holding a casket during cold conditions is still common today for many cemeteries and funeral homes, if they have the facilities to handle it. A cemetery can place them temporarily in a mausoleum while a funeral home can store the dead if it has refrigeration on site. In general, most funeral homes don’t make a practice of keeping the deceased in refrigeration longer than two weeks.

Spring burial is taken for granted in states like North Dakota, according to a 2011 Associated Press article. Dale Niewoehner, president of North Dakota’s Board of Funeral Service, said hundreds of burials are suspended each year at some cemeteries there after the snow comes. To him, delayed burials are a “necessary evil” in North Dakota. “It’s just how it is here,” he commented.

Wes Burkart, owner and funeral director at Thompson-Larson Funeral Home in Minot, N.D. said his funeral home has as many as 70 delayed spring burials each year. He admits the delay can potentially prolong the grieving process.

“Having a family go through a second service and having them waiting and waiting can be very difficult,” Burkart said. “I hate to use the term `unfinished business’ but that’s what it is.”

North Dakota funeral directors say a law requiring them to have winter burials would be impractical if not impossible for the hundreds of small rural cemeteries scattered across the sparsely populated state. Just plowing the country road to get to the cemetery can be an arduous task.

But in states like Minnesota and Wisconsin, state law requires them to dig graves amid the harsh winters.

Thankfully, technology makes it less back breaking to dig through the top layers of frozen soil. At a cemetery in Henning, Minn., gravedigging brothers Matt and Andrew Goeden use jackhammers powered by an air compressor to break through the frozen soil, which can often go as far as four feet deep.

“We do about a foot of frost an hour with the jackhammer, but the more frost there is, the longer it takes. Four feet doesn’t take four hours, it takes more like six hours,” Matt Goeden explained in a 2014 CNN segment.

Sometimes they use a little non-mechanical help in the form of a heater. “Light a couple bags of Kingsford charcoal, put a couple pieces of plywood over the top and come back the next day. Make a little oven out of it and that’ll knock the rest of the frost out of it,” Matt said.

Backhoes also do the lion’s share of winter grave digging. At Highland Memorial Park Cemetery in New Berlin, Wis., E. Glenn Porter III’s crews take a different tack. They fit the bucket of a backhoe with a pair of “frost teeth” — curved metal arms several feet long with carbide tips that, combined with the power and leverage of the backhoe, are strong enough to break the frozen ground.

“The width of the teeth is exactly the width of our grave, so I can set up once and then just dig along the long dimension of a grave until I get below the frost,” Porter said. “I also cut across the short direction twice, just so that I get smaller pieces … to break out.”

One of the more recent innovations in winter grave digging is the ground thawer. They resemble oil barrels cut in half lengthwise, then fitted with smokestacks and a hole for a torch. You place the barrel open-end down over the grave site, insert a propane-powered torch and pump heat into the dome. When you return 24 to 30 hours later, you can then scoop out the now-soft dirt with a backhoe.

A more sophisticated version is made by ThawDawg and sold through Ground Specialties, Inc. based in Milaca, Minn. It, too, operates via propane tanks. ThawDawg’s website states these units can fit in the back of a truck and be set up/taken down by one person. I could not find a cost online for them.

Finally, ground thawing blankets are also becoming popular with cemetery grave diggers. You can lay it on top of the ground, plug it into an electrical source or gas generator then let it do the work. This type of ground thawing blanket is also used in the construction industry.

In Creston, Iowa, Graceland Cemetery’s superintendent Bruce Hodge is a fan of them, having used the barrel thawers in the past. “You get the wind blowing with that LP burner and it’d blow it out,” said Hodge. “I just decided there had to be a better way.”

To make the dirt soft enough to dig, the blanket usually has to remain on one plot for 12 to 18 hours, depending on how deep the frost is. It can thaw approximately 10 inches deep every four or five hours, if conditions are favorable.

RapidTHAW sells a 4.5 foot by 15-foot ground thawing 110-volt outdoor electric blanket for $685.00. Larger ones can sell for over $1,000 depending on the size. Cemetery crews are finding these blankets to be a less cumbersome and more fuel efficient option.

So whether you choose a jackhammer, “frost teeth” or an outdoor electric blanket, grave digging through hard winter soil isn’t quite as difficult for the “frozen chosen” as it used to be.

Last week, I started a two-part series about the historic funeral procession of President Abraham Lincoln, starting with the funeral at the White House and his funeral train’s procession (and stops) in Maryland, New Jersey and New York. Today, I’ll cover the rest of the journey through Ohio, Indiana and Illinois to his final resting place in Oak Ridge Cemetery.

Ohio

Early on Friday, April 28, the Lincoln Special rumbled into the Euclid Street Station in Cleveland. Unlike previous stops, Lincoln’s coffin was not conveyed to a courthouse or auditorium for viewing but to an outdoor pagoda in Cleveland’s public park in Monument Square built just for the event.

Lincoln biographer Carl Sandburg explained, “At Cleveland, the Committee…decided no available building would accommodate the crowds, where the Committee on Arrangements had a pagoda put up in the city park, with open sides through which two columns could pass the coffin.”

Despite constant rain, over 100,000 mourners passed by Lincoln’s coffin in a period of about 15 hours. Late that evening, the Lincoln Special departed for Columbus (a 135-mile journey). Along the way, at every depot large bonfires were lit to light the way. Thousands gathered in the rain, hoping to catch sight of the passing funeral train.

Lincoln’s train arrived in Columbus on Saturday morning, April 29. A 17-foot long hearse carried his coffin to the State Capitol building. All along the way, thousands of mourners lined the streets, with houses and businesses draped in black.

At the West Gate of the Statehouse, an arch loomed over the large gate posts. At the arch’s center were the words: “Ohio Mourns”. Statehouse columns were wrapped in black cloth. Above the columns on the cornice a sign hung with a quote from Lincoln’s last inaugural address: “With malice to none. With charity for all.”

Once there, eight members of the Veteran Guard carried the coffin into the rotunda on their shoulders. The Columbus catafalque differed from the others in that it lacked elaborate columns and canopies, but was a simple low moss and flower-covered dais.

According to the website “Touring Ohio”, the dais was covered with lilacs. While it was an attractive site, the flowers also served as a much-needed olfactory buffer. The site states, “Although Lincoln’s body had been embalmed before leaving Washington D.C., the process was not yet perfected and his body had already begun to deteriorate badly giving off a putrid odor that had to be masked by the floral arrangements.”

Two sets of lines formed on High Street, one stretching north to Long Street and another south to Rich Street. About 8,000 people an hour walked past the casket. During the afternoon on the east side of the Capitol Building, state and local dignitaries, and military generals spoke about Lincoln’s contributions. Major General George Hooker, who would later lead the Springfield procession, was the featured speaker.

At 6 p.m., the Capitol doors were closed. A bugle sounded the assembly and the soldiers reformed for the final escort back to Union Station following the same route in reverse. A few hours later, the train departed Columbus and headed for Indianapolis (187 miles away).

Indiana

After arriving in Indianapolis at 7 a.m. on Sunday, April 30, Lincoln’s coffin was carried to the Indiana State House in a hearse topped by a silver-gilt eagle. Because the rain was so heavy, the planned procession was canceled and the day was devoted to viewing.

The first mourners were 5,000 children, all members of various Sunday schools. Bringing up the rear were hundreds of African-Americans, clutching copies of the Emancipation Proclamation. By the time those final mourners had paid their respects, an estimated 100,000 people had visited Lincoln’s casket.

During the night, the Lincoln Special departed for Chicago. In Michigan City, Ill., on the morning of Monday, May 1, the funeral train stopped at 8:25 A.M. under a 35-foot memorial arch over the tracks. That’s when something totally unplanned happened.

Officials in charge of the funeral train decided to open the coffin to display the remains, breaking the rule that said the coffin would be opened only in the cities holding official funerals. Residents were allowed to enter to pay their last respects.

The justification for this impromptu funeral was that Lincoln’s train was forced to wait an hour in Michigan City for the arrival (by special train) of a committee of officials from Chicago that were to escort it into the city.

This week on February 12 we celebrated the birthday of our 16th President, Abraham Lincoln. There are a few reasons Lincoln is a favorite of mine beyond his historic accomplishments. He was the first U.S. President to be embalmed, a story I shared in another post.

But Lincoln’s also the only President whose funeral became a 14-day, multi-state affair that covered over 1,600 miles, went through more than 160 communities, and involved about 30 million mourners. This year marks its 150th Anniversary and efforts are in the works to re-create the trip, despite the fact funds have been somewhat lacking to finance it.

Today in Part I, I’ll cover the first half of Lincoln’s funeral procession through Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York.

Funeral at the White House and Rotunda Viewing

After four days of preparation, Lincoln’s White House funeral was held on April 19 in the East Room with about 600 in attendance. From the time the body had been made ready for burial until the last services in the house, it was watched by a guard of honor, the members of which were one major general, one brigadier general, two field officers, and four line officers of the Army and four of the Navy.

The procession from the White House to the Capitol Rotunda covered about three miles and took over two hours. The Twenty-Second United States Colored Infantry (organized in Pennsylvania) landed from Petersburg and belatedly marched up to a position on the avenue, played a dirge and headed the procession to the Capitol.

Over 100,000 people lined the streets. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper reported: “Every window, housetop, balcony and every inch of the sidewalks on either side was densely crowded with a mournful throng to pay homage to departed worth. Despite the enormous crowd the silence was profound. It seemed akin to the death it commemorated.”

The next day, about 40,000 mourners passed by Lincoln’s open casket in the Capitol Rotunda. Union officer William Gamble supervised the honor guard and described the scene, including an elderly mourner who bent the rules a bit:

While I was standing at the head of the coffin preventing people from touching it, one old lady over 60 years old watched me closely, and quick as thought darted down her head and kissed the President in spite of me. I could not find it in my heart to say a word to her, but let her pass on as if I did not see it. You can form no idea of the scenes I saw.

The catafalque (a raised structure on which the body of a deceased person lies) that supported Lincoln’s casket in the Capitol Rotunda continues to be used for all who have lain in state there. Most recently, it was used in 2013 after the death of U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg, whose body lie in repose in the Senate chamber after his funeral in Secaucus, N.J.

Lincoln’s funeral procession, with a few deletions, traces the same route he took from Springfield, Ill. to the White House in 1861 when he became President. Over the course of that journey, Lincoln’s casket would be removed from the train several times for public memorial services and viewings. As you can imagine, embalming was a must in order to forestall decomposition.

Lincoln’s funeral car was not constructed just for the occasion. In early 1865, the United States Military Railroad delivered the 1865 equivalent of Air Force One to President Lincoln, a private railroad car. Yet Lincoln never used the railroad car, named The United States, while he was alive. After his death, it was modified to serve as his funeral train and called “The Lincoln Special.”

Also on board were the disinterred remains of Lincoln’s son, Willie, who died at the age of 11 in 1862 at the White House. Per the family’s wishes, he would be buried with his father in Springfield, Ill. Lincoln’s wife remained in mourning at the White House, but son Robert Lincoln rode the train as far as Baltimore before returning to Washington.

Baltimore, Md. and Harrisburg, Pa.

Lincoln’s funeral train traveled first to Baltimore on April 21. His coffin was borne to the Merchant’s Exchange Building and opened for public view for only about an hour and a half. The train then departed for Harrisburg, Pa., a 58-mile trip. The coffin was then carried by hearse to the state House of Representatives, placed in a catafalque, and opened for public viewing.

Philadelphia, Pa.

The train departed Harrisburg for the 106-mile journey to Philadelphia where it arrived at the Broad Street Station. A hearse took Lincoln’s coffin through Philadelphia’s streets teeming with mourners to Independence Hall. There the coffin was placed in the East Wing where the Declaration of Independence had been signed. Viewing that evening was by invitation only.

On the morning of April 23, long lines started forming. At its greatest, the double line was three miles long and wound from the Delaware River to the Schuylkill River. An estimated 300,000 people passed by Lincoln’s open coffin and the wait was up to five hours. The crowds were so immense that police had trouble maintaining order. Some people had their clothing ripped, others fainted and one reportedly broke her arm.

Despite Thomas Holmes’ thorough embalming, Lincoln’s body did suffer a little from the repeated exposure. According to Bradley R. Hoch, “As soon as the entrances closed and the public was out of the Assembly Room…embalmer Brown cleaned Lincoln’s face of the dust that had accumulated during 33 hours in Philadelphia.”

New York City, N.Y.

On April 24, Lincoln’s funeral train left Philadelphia headed for New York, an 86-mile trip. While in New Jersey, the train arrived at the Jersey City station and Lincoln’s coffin was taken by ferry across the Hudson River. It was then borne to City Hall where it was carried up the circular staircase under the rotunda. After the coffin was placed in a black velvet dais, the public was admitted. At one point, it was reported that more than 500,000 people waited in line to view the President.

An account from the New York Times mentioned Lincoln’s appearance: “It will not be possible, despite the effection of the embalming, to continue much longer the exhibition, as the constant shaking of the body aided by the exposure to the air, and the increasing of dust, has already undone much of the…workmanship, and it is doubtful if it will be decreed wise to tempt dissolution much further.”

The procession of Lincoln’s hearse from City Hall to the train station was a grand affair. An estimated 75,000 marched in the huge procession through New York’s streets. Windows along the route are said to have rented for up to $100 a person. When the procession neared Union Square, it passed Theodore Roosevelt’s grandfather’s home where the six-year-old future president was viewing the procession from a second-story window.

Albany and Buffalo

On April 26, the next stop on Lincoln’s funeral procession was New York’s capitol, Albany. Planned to be simpler than the others but no less respectful, the procession included only three companies of National Guardsmen, three companies of firemen bearing torches, state officials, members of the Legislature, and city authorities. When the hearse arrived at the Capitol, the remains were taken to the Assembly Room.

W. Emerson Reck wrote: “As many as 70 viewers a minute (total nearing 50,000) passed by the coffin between 1:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. A mass of human beings, estimated at 60,000, crowded along the streets for more than a mile when the procession escorting the remains from the Capitol to the New York Central station.”

Arriving in Buffalo on April 27, Lincoln’s coffin was transported to St. James Hall in a hearse drawn by six white horses dressed in black. About 100,000 people passed by the coffin during the day.

Mourners included the 13th U.S. President Millard Fillmore and future President Grover Cleveland. There was no formal funeral procession in Buffalo since they had staged a complete mock funeral on April 19 not knowing then it would be a stop on the train’s itinerary.

Next week in Part II, I’ll tackle the rest of Lincoln’s journey back home to Springfield, Ill. and his final interment there.

Want to join me on a “hop”?

Much of the time, I end up at a particular cemetery because I’m on the hunt for a specific grave and someone has requested a photo of it via Find a Grave. But often, I don’t have any specific purpose in mind when I choose a cemetery to explore. It’s just for the joy of looking around.

This week is a good example. For some time, I’ve been trying to find a time to go on a hop with Bobbie Tkačik , who is chairman of the cemetery committee of the Gwinnett Historical Society. I met her when I gave a talk at one of their meetings last year. On Wednesday, we finally got together and headed for Shadowlawn Cemetery in Lawrenceville.

Shadowlawn is actually made up of two sections. Old Shadowlawn is (as the name indicates) the older section, with graves dating back to the mid 1800s. There’s still some space for future burials but not much.

East Shadowlawn Memorial is the newer, more modern area. They have a sales office if you want to purchase a plot. There’s also a mausoleum and chapel. The two cemetery sections are separated by a small, muddy pond and a narrow drive.

We decided to do our wandering in Old Shadowlawn. Like me, Bobbie is more interested in the older markers and monuments because they have a lot more creative influences and tell a story.

But when we parked the car and came upon an area with a high wooden fenced square, it was anything but traditional. It’s not often you see Arabic in an old Southern cemetery.

The gate was locked so we couldn’t get a good look inside. And as I’ve said before, I am NOT a fence hopper. But we did peek through the slats. A small above ground grave of recent vintage is the only grave we saw.

According to the sign, it belongs to the Dawoodi Bohra Qabrastaan-Hasani Baugh. Wikipedia says Dawoodi Bohra is a subset of Shia Islam and has roots in Yemen. I couldn’t find anything about this particular group online. My guess is that they purchased land from the cemetery for their own private area to bury their members.

It’s one of those times where the present collides with a solidly entrenched past. Not that long ago, the population of Gwinnett County (where the cemetery is located) used to be almost entirely white. In 2013, statistics indicated it’s now 59 percent white, 26 percent black, with the remaining split up between many other nationalities.

Up the hill in the much older section, one of the first monuments I saw was this small angel. Believe it or not, she’s quite common but not always in the same form. In most cases, it’s for a child’s grave. This one resembles another angel I took a picture of at a cemetery about 30 minutes from this one.

I saw another grave for a child not far away, a distinctive shell grave. I find them all over the South. You can read my post about them from last year. This one was different than most I’ve seen because it looks more like a child than an infant reposing in the shell. In cemetery symbolism, the shell is usually a sign of eternal life.

Another child’s grave caught my eye for the unique style. Her long white legs are a contrast to her dress and upper body. I’m thinking that because the skirt overshadows her legs, they are more protected from the aging process.

As you can imagine, I found plenty of Confederate veteran graves. But the one that stood out (physically and historically) was the only crypt in the cemetery. Captain William Jasper Born and his second wife, Barbara, are buried inside. It’s not ornate like many I’ve seen, a bit rustic. But you can learn quite a bit about Capt. Born and his family just by reading the door.

According to Stephanie Lincecum, who writes a blog called Southern Graves, William Jasper Born was a member of Company D, 9th GA Battalion Light Artillery (aka “Born’s Artillery”). He was a son of John and Lucinda Born.

Barbara Bates was William’s second wife. He was married before the war, then married Barbara about 1865. He married again after her death. According to the 1870 Census, Capt. Born operated a hotel. It’s fascinating to think that someone buried so close to me was there when Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, ending the Civil War.

One thing I always notice at cemeteries are the different styles of iron fencing around various plots. Wealthy families in the old days could afford some handsome iron work. I found two nice examples of it at Shadowlawn. Both were done by The Stewart Iron Works of Cincinnati.

The Stewart Iron Works was started about 150 years ago and amazingly, is still going strong today. You can find their work in cemeteries around the country and I come across it quite often. Their history is worth mentioning.

During World War I, Stewart formed the United States Motor Truck Company and produced trucks for the U. S. Army. Following the war, Stewart returned to fence products and sold them in the Sears and Roebuck Co. catalog. In the 1930s, a Stewart Jail Cell Division produced jail cells for most of the high security penitentiaries in the country. Places like Alcatraz, Leavenworth, Marion and Sing Sing were all Stewart customers.

During World War II, Stewart shifted to wartime production and provided portable landing equipment for the U.S. Air Force. Today, they produce a wide variety of items, from parking deck fencing to sculptures to fountains.

On the hillside between Old Shadowlawn next to the pond is what was the African-American section of the cemetery. I’ve gotten adept at figuring this out from a few visual clues. Some of the markers are simple white ones with the funeral home’s name carved into the top.

I can also see that there aren’t that many truly old markers because often the families could not afford to provide one or they were made of wood, which quickly fell apart and disappeared. Odds are there are many more people buried here than the number of visible markers would indicate.

Two of them got my attention because of their inscriptions. Dee Phillips and J.P. Phillips were both members of something called the Mt. Nebo Chamber 3108 of Lawrenceville. I have only run across this kind of organization one other time and it was a different chamber based in Toledo, Ohio that an African-American woman had been a member of. She is buried in Fairburn City Cemetery.

Not far from Dee, who died at the age of 30 from Scarlet Fever as a soldier in World War I, is the grave of J.P. Phillips. I could not find him in the U.S. Census anywhere but he was likely related to Dee. Perhaps he was Dee’s father. J.P.’s marker not only mentions the Mount Nebo Chamber but very faintly bears some kind of seal.

I hope to eventually get some more information on this mysterious Mt. Nebo Chamber 3108. Mt. Nebo was is an elevated ridge in Jordan, which is mentioned in the Bible as the place where Moses was given a view of the Promised Land. So there may be a religious/church connection.

Finally, in contrast to the older graves that are the norm in this part of Shadowlawn, I found one from 2005. It was a marker for Deborah S. Oakes. The pink ribbon on it indicates she probably died of breast cancer. But it’s what is written below that ribbon that catches you off guard.

Death by Chocolate

I can tell you, that’s not something you see at a lot of cemeteries. But I think Deborah must have been a pretty sassy and special woman to ask for that to be carved on her gravestone. It would have been a pleasure to know her, I am certain.

That does it for this hop. As usual, I saw some interesting markers and found a few mysteries to solve. Hopefully, I can solve the Mt. Nebo Chamber mystery soon.

I hope you enjoyed it and learned something along the way.