Monthly Archives: July 2017

Visiting Council Bluffs, Iowa’s Fairview Cemetery: On a Lonely Hillside, Part IV

28 Friday Jul 2017

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Last week was devoted entirely to Fairview Cemetery’s handsome white bronze monuments. Today I finish my series on Fairview by walking among some forgotten grave markers that most visitors don’t even notice.

After you enter the front gates, and if you see a dirt road veering to the left, you’ll notice a back hillside that is much less orderly than the rest of the place. The rather sharp incline of the hillside is probably not easy to mow. The graves are scattered here and there with no real plan. And some markers have clearly seen better days.

Here’s one view of it. You can see the dirt road that goes around it.

A rather bumpy dirt road winds around the back hillside of Fairview. I wouldn’t want to attempt to drive it.

I found this sign indicating there are prairie grasses present. I don’t know if they’re trying to let it grow wild.

You can find prairie grass on the hillside.

Some graves are together in family plots, but many are alone. Several bear the names of Danish, German and Irish immigrants that came to America looking to start a new life. They were carpenters, farmers and railroad workers. Not bankers or lawmakers whose names appeared in local history books.

There’s little rhyme or reason to some of the grave placement. I wonder if some of the markers are actually still over where the burials are.

Anna L. Devore’s monument stands alone near the top of the hill.

Some graves are for children whose parents were immigrants that moved on. I was certain I would find little to nothing about either of the Reitsma children, but Ancestry surprised me.

Sypko Reitsma was born on Feb. 14, 1892 in Leuwarden in Holland to Klaas Cornelis Reitsma and Akke Swierstra Reitsma. The couple married in Rauwerderhem in 1889 and emigrated to America soon after.

The Reitsma children were buried at Fairview but their parents moved away to Portland, Ore.

Little Sypko died at the age of 7 in 1899. His brother, who was unnamed, was born and died in August of the same year. The Reitsmas had other children that did survive. By 1910, they had left Council Bluffs for Oregon where Klaas found work as a carpenter. Akke died in 1925 and Klaas died in 1952. Both are buried at Multnomah Park Cemetery in Portland, Ore.

Anna Catherine Magdalena Stelling’s stone sits by itself under a tree. A German immigrant, she was married to a fellow German immigrant named Fred Stelling. They were married in April 1898. Because the details of her will are on Ancestry, I learned that the sale of her possessions was possibly needed to pay her medical bills. Beyond her sewing machine, she didn’t have much.

Anna Catherine Magdalena Stelling’s marker sits alone under a tree.

Anna Catherine Magdalena Stelling died at the age of 37, just two years after her marriage to Fred “Fritz” Stelling.

The son of John William and Anna Christine Madison Gibler appears to be alone. I couldn’t find a name on the stone but Find a Grave identifies him as Robert Burdette Gibler, who died at the age of 2. I learned that his maternal grandparents, Charles and Sene Madison, are buried beside him in unmarked graves. His parents, who died in the 1940s, are buried at nearby St. Joseph Cemetery with their other son, Harvey, who lived much longer and died at 61.

This little boy appears to be alone but his grandparents are buried beside him.

Hazel Verna Young is alone, her parents burial site unknown. I learned that she was the daughter of L.A. and L.E. Young. She was only 11 when she died. Her obituary states she had heart disease. I could find nothing about her parents beyond their names and address in Council Bluffs.

In need of repair, Hazel Verna Young’s marker rests against its base.

I felt sadness for Harold Hall, who lived only 15 months before he died. A photo on Find a Grave of the marker from 2009 shows it as unbroken. It now lies on the ground in two pieces. There are other Halls buried at Fairview but I don’t know if any of them are his parents.

Harold Hall’s marker was not broken when photographed in 2009.

Two men are buried on the hillside who appear to have come to America in their younger days but on their own. Daniel Ashton, a native of Cheshire, England, ended up in Council Bluffs and died there are the age of 54.

A native of Cheshire, England, little is known about Daniel Ashton.

Wilhelm Budde is also buried alone. There are other Buddes buried in other Iowa cemeteries, but Wilhelm is the only one at Fairview.

I could find out nothing about Wilhelm Budde beyond what is on his broken marker.

By contrast, at the back of Fairview Cemetery is a large monument commemorating someone whose life is well documented.

The Kinsman monument is surrounded by four large cannons, 32-pounder seacoast guns cast at West Point Foundry in 1829. The markings on the muzzle face show the initials of the inspector and the foundry registration number.

Born in Cornwallis, Nova Scotia, Canada, William Henry Kinsman came to Iowa in 1854 and worked as a lawyer in Council Bluffs until the Civil War broke out in April 1861. After enlisting in the Union Army, he was appointed as major of the 23rd Iowa Volunteer Infantry. By 1862, he’d been promoted to colonel and commander of the regiment.

Kinsman’s war comrades were behind the effort to have his remains returned to Council Bluffs. Major General Grenville Dodge presided over the dedication ceremony in 1902.

Col. Kinsman was killed in action near Vicksburg, Miss. during the Vicksburg Campaign while leading his regiment in an assault on Confederate positions along the Black River. The battle, one of a series conducted by General Ulysses S. Grant prior to boxing the Confederate Army in at Vicksburg, was important because it compelled the Confederates to abandon any hope of defeating Grant, forcing them back into the Vicksburg fortifications.

This inscription describes Col. William Kinsman’s role in the Battle of Black River.

At the urging of his war comrades, Col. Kinsman’s body was removed from the battlefield where he was originally buried and re-interred in Council Bluffs. In 1902, the monument was erected over his grave to honor him and all Union soldiers who lost their lives in the war.

Colonel Kinsman’s monument is definitely impressive and a fitting tribute. But I couldn’t help thinking about the many people buried on that lonely hillside with little beyond their markers. Some broken, some all alone. Some with no markers at all.

As I end my series on Fairview Cemetery, I hope that those who visit the Kinsman monument would also spend some time visiting these seemingly forgotten markers on the hillside to honor those buried there. They were someone’s little girl or boy at one time. Someone’s mother, father, brother or sister.

Their lives mattered just as much.

Visiting Council Bluffs, Iowa’s Fairview Cemetery: The Beauty of White Bronze, Part III

21 Friday Jul 2017

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Last week, I talked about some of the many tree-style monuments at Fairview Cemetery. This week, I’m featuring white bronze markers because Fairview has a number of them. I’ve written about white bronze before but let me give you a refresher course.

What is white bronze? Kevin Ladd of Stephen F. Austin University does a very good job at explaining it all but I’ll try. White bronze is actually not bronze, but is made up of mostly zinc, with different amounts of copper and tin. Today, zinc is often used in jewelry as a substitute for nickel. As you can see in the picture below, it has a bluish gray look to it.

A native of Virginia, Solonia Clatterbuck Doty died at the age of 37. Her husband, Isaac, was a Civil War veteran. This is a good example of a smaller white bronze monument.

Made by the Monumental Bronze Co. of Bridgeport, Conn. from 1874 to 1914, these markers were sold with the claim that they would last longer, cost about a third of an equivalent marker carved from stone, and look modern. It was called white bronze as a marketing ploy to make it sound more attractive. You selected exactly what you wanted from a catalog and could place an order with a local sales agent.

A reader who saw last week’s blog contacted me with some interesting information on Monumental Bronze salesmen. Men who sold white bronze in the Seattle, Wash. and Portland, Ore. areas continued to sell stone markers as well. In addition to selling from a catalog, they often purchased a white bronze themselves and had it on a grave at a local cemetery so clients could see one for themselves. So it’s possible Lawrence Kelly (mentioned last week) could have sold white bronze monuments in Council Bluffs.

This is just one example of the many white bronze monuments you could choose from, tailored to meet your exact requirements.

The Monumental Bronze Co. operated offices in Detroit and Des Moines. They were quite popular in the Midwest but I rarely see them in the Southeast. If you look at the base of one, you can sometimes find out exactly where it was produced.

This is on the base of one of Fairview’s white bronze monuments. Western White Bronze Company opened in Des Moines in 1886 and closed in 1908. In 1914, the government took over the plant to manufacture munitions during World War I.

The company mass produced them using molds. Individual sections could be bolted on so custom panels with text or symbols could be added. Customers could change the panels later if other family members died and could be laid to rest at their monument.

White bronze monuments weather very well and often look as good today as they did when they were first installed. They age better than marble, and are equal to the lasting qualities of granite. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I like them so much. The inscriptions don’t wear off.

White bronze markers are actually hollow, and consist of vertical panels held together by screws at the corners. If you tap on it, you can hear the metallic hollow sound. They came in all manner of shapes and sizes from very small to huge monuments. I’ve seen many variations and they always fascinate me.

Josie Lyman was the wife of Joseph Lyman, congressman (1885-1889) and lawyer, who practiced in Council Bluffs. Above her name you can see the lily of the valley, a symbol of rebirth.

So what brought white bronze markers to an end? World War I came and the demand for metal for munitions stopped production. After the war, demand for these monuments faded but Monumental Bronze kept making individual panels for family members who died after the monuments were ordered.

The company made castings for automobiles and radios until it closed in 1939, ending a unique chapter in funerary art. I’m not the only person who wishes they still existed because of their versatility. They really do stand the test of time and are great resources for genealogists.

This page from a Monumental Bronze catalog shows just a handful of the emblems you could choose from. Notice the lyre that’s featured on the Lyman monument.

The most common style of white bronze monument I’ve seen is the one pictured below. It can be small or quite large. I could spend an entire blog post dissecting this one for Anders “Andy” Ellitsgaard. I’ve included the images on its sides.

Anders “Andy” Ellitsgaard’s cause of death remains a bit of a mystery.

A native of Denmark, Anders “Andy” Ellitsgaard arrived in America in 1880 at the age of 20. He married Minnie Jensen, also a Danish immigrant, sometime after her arrival in 1887. She may have been from his village in Denmark. In 1890, she was pregnant with their child.

At first, I thought Andy might have died while in the military.

Andy passed away on June 23, 1890. At first I thought it was probably from wounds sustained in the military because his monument says “He fell while on post of duty, and let the world forget him not.” But I now believe he was in some kind of railroad accident.

“Gone Home” with the crown above it was one of many sayings or phrases one could choose. If Andy had a policy through Banner Lodge No. 56, it might have paid for the monument.

Andy’s monument indicates he was a member of Banner Lodge No. 56, which was a part of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen. It was a railroad fraternal benefit society and trade union from the 1870s into the early 1900s. Banner Lodge No. 56 was based in Stanberry, Mo. and had members in the Council Bluffs area.

I’ve seen many monuments depicting this scene so it must have been quite popular.

Another frequently chosen motif was the ivy-covered log cross. There are even logs at its base. Not surprising since Andy was cut down in his prime.

Andy never got to see his son, also named Anders, who was born just a few months later. Minnie remarried and moved to Colorado with Anders. The white bronze monument for Wilheminne “Minnie” Klopping is similar to Andy’s but a bit fancier. A number of images adorn the sides.

A native of Germany, Minnie Klopping was 44 when she died. You can see that the finial at the top looks to be broken.

Minnie and Frederick were both German immigrants. I’m not sure if they had any children because records are spotty. In 1886, Frederick remarried to Louise Dreier and they had at least six children. Both Frederick and Louise are buried at Fairview beside Minnie.

A woman holding an anchor was one of the motifs one could choose from. It often meant hope or eternal life. Another motif was a woman pointing upward, which is also on this monument.

This is the first time I’ve seen kneeling angels on a white bronze monument.

There’s even an inscription on one side in German that I was able to translate (thanks to Google). It reads: “But I know that my Savior lives and he will resurrect me from the earth.”

A white bronze monument enabled families to choose many different ways to commemorate their loved one. Even in their own language.

This next monument is a similar style but was purchased for a mother and her daughter, who died four years apart.

Anna and her daughter Leuella died four years apart.

A native of Michigan, John Sylvester Flageolle was 24 when he married Anna A. Homer in Council Bluffs on Jan. 13, 1882. She was 18, born and raised in the Dakota Territory. She gave birth to their first child, Leuella, in January 1883. The little girl died only eight months later on Aug. 8, 1883. It’s likely the portion of the monument seen below was created soon after Leuella died.

This plate was created for the baby, Leuella Flageolle, who died in 1883.

James and Anna had two more children, Pearl and William, before Anna died on June 9, 1887. I believe that this was when this inscription was added to honor Anna’s life.

Anna died in 1887, having had two more children with James. This plate was added after her death, commemorating her life and little Leuella’s.

One of the more detailed motifs was chosen for this monument, an angel guiding a ship of some kind with a reclining woman or child on a bed. There’s one other white bronze monument with the same motif at Fairview. I’ve not seen it anywhere else.

An angel appears to be guiding a ship bearing the deceased toward a new horizon.

In 1892, James married Anna’s older widowed sister, Lavinia Homer Rolland. She had two children of her own. They moved to the Dakota Territory and later settled in Colorado. They had five children together. James died in 1944 and Lavinia died in 1941.

Next week, I’ll wrap up my series on Fairview Cemetery by exploring the back hillside where some of the loneliest vistas are found.

 

Visiting Council Bluffs, Iowa’s Fairview Cemetery: A Forest of Stone Trees, Part II

14 Friday Jul 2017

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“In sight of the massive granite and marble monuments of the wealthy departed arc hundreds of modest graves, where just as loving hands have adorned them according to their means, and undoubtedly their occupants rest as peacefully as the others. It seems to be natural for people to select hills on which to bury their dead.”

— H.H. Field’s “History of Pottawattamie County” on Fairview Cemetery

Last week, I shared the story of Annie Dodge and the Black Angel of Council Bluffs. This week, we’re going inside the gates of Fairview Cemetery to look at some of its tree monuments and markers. One presented a mystery that I’m still untangling.

Before Council Bluffs became a city, thousands of Native Americans were sent to live on a Reservation there created for members of the Council of Three Fires of Chippewa, Ottawa and Potawatomi. The Treaty of Chicago (1833-1835) forced them to vacate Illinois, clearing the way for that city to incorporate. By 1846, the Potawatomi were forced to move again to a new reservation in Osawatomie, Kansas.

According to its Web site, Fairview’s oldest known burial was in 1826, well before the area was officially designated as Fairview Cemetery in 1846. Located in the heart of old town Council Bluffs, it was named Kanesville in 1848 after benefactor Thomas L. Kane. He helped negotiate federal permission for Mormons heading west to use Indian land along the Missouri River for their 1847-1847 winter encampment. The hill they camped on is where Fairview is located.

Emigrants near the Missouri River in 1852 at the Kanesville crossing near Council Bluffs, Iowa. Photo source: Brigham Young University, L. Tom Perry Special Collections.

Many of the Mormons who died of exposure and disease while at the camp are buried here although few of those headstones remain intact. A plaque notes that Potawatomi Indians (Council Bluffs is located in Pottawattamie County, there’s a difference in the spelling) and other settlers are also buried here.

According to Find a Grave, Fairview has over 8,000 burials. However, an 2010 article I read said (about an Eagle Scout’s project in which he recorded all the graves) it was around 7,300. More than 2,000 graves are those of veterans, including veterans of the War of 1812 and the Civil War. A number of markers are just plain illegible due to weathering over time.

When you into Fairview, it doesn’t seem as hilly as it actually is. The front area is a gradual ascent.

Can you spot Christi in the purple top?

Around the top, some teens on skateboards were zooming around. Not a wise idea when you could find yourself flying straight into a huge granite monument! I was relieved when they left because I didn’t want them to make a permanent home there as a result of an accident.

Once you get up to the top, this is what you can see.

The picture I posed last week of the view of Omaha is better than this one but it still give you a good idea of how far you can see from the top.

Fairview has two things I love to see. Lots of tree-shaped monuments and white bronze (zinc) monuments. They are both endless sources of fascination for me as they can vary so greatly. Today I’m going to focus on the trees. It’s always puzzled me why they were so common in earlier times.

Of course, the fraternal order Woodmen of the World tree monuments can be found in cemeteries across the county. But there are plenty of tree monuments with no connection to WOW at all.

Let’s take a look at the tree monument for British immigrant Thomas Green. I found some great information about him thanks to Daily Nonpareil reporter Mary Lou McGinn, who wrote about a house in Council Bluffs once owned by one of Green’s daughters.

A native of Yorkshire, England, Green was born in 1818. He married Selby native Mary Anne and they had several children. According to the 1881 England Census, he operated a successful shipbuilding business in Selby with his son, Richard. Daughter Maria married George Jackson in 1869, a Selby lad who emigrated to America with his parents 10 years earlier.

This tree monument for Thomas Green has symbols that taphophiles like myself love. Ivy (on the back) symbolizes friendship. An anchor often means hope or eternal life. Since Green was once a shipbuilder, the anchor has double significance.

Sons Richard and Robert emigrated to America in 1867 and the rest of the Greens joined them in 1871. According to H.H. Field’s “The History of Pottawattamie County”, the Greens crossed the Atlantic in 13 days and traveled by land for two before reaching Council Bluffs on June 11, 1871. Two days, really?

With sons Richard and Robert, Thomas established a lumber business called Thomas Green and Sons. In 1880, Thomas sold the business to start the Thomas Green and Sons Packing Company. Their pork packing plant, located in the Mosquito Creek valley two miles from Council Bluffs, specialized in hams and bacon.

Thomas died in 1886 and Mary Anne followed in 1909. Richard died in 1908. All of them (along with Maria and George) are buried at Fairview.

The identity of Victor’s parents and how long he lived are unknown. The calla lilies at the base often mean resurrection or beauty.

The tree monument for “Little Victor” Austin is doubly sad because beyond finding out he died in 1891, there was nothing else I could discover about him due to the condition of the marker. This broken stump-style of monument (common for children) can be seen elsewhere at Fairview.

Willie Russel was only two years old when he died in 1888. His monument notes that he was the son of William A. and Rena Russel but there is no record of their burial at Fairview. A dead dove is carved near the base, signifying a premature death.

A fallen dove lies at the base of Willie Russel’s grave, which has a base of stone logs.

Clarke Prescott’s tree monument is one I see often in cemeteries but is executed better than some and has stood the test of time well. The inscription is still easy to read. Researching his life resulted in a mystery I’m still trying to solve.

Greenleaf Clarke Prescott (as his birth records indicate) was born on Jan. 8, 1849 in Pittsfield, N.H. Not in Plattsmouth, N.H. in 1850. His parents were John and Mary Clarke Prescott, who both died in 1862, leaving Clarke an orphan at the age of 13.

The birth date on Clarke Prescott’s monument is at odds with records I found. The fern fronds at the base stand for humility and sincerity.

Clarke moved to Salinas, Kansas in 1869. In 1874, he married young widow Fannie Sawyer and they had four children of which two survived. In 1881, the Prescotts moved to Council Bluffs where Clarke worked as an agent for the Plano Harvester Works (based in Illinois) until his death in 1888.

Ancestry has records of Clarke’s will. His death resulted in a true legal mess for widow Fannie for some time because of a dispute over land claims he owned with the Union Pacific Railroad. Fairview Cemetery had a $25 claim against Clarke’s estate in 1891, indicating they weren’t paid for his burial plot.

The debt for Clarke Prescott’s grave at Fairview had not been paid three years after his death.

Fannie shared the same address as native New Yorker Lawrence Kelly in 1889, whose name appears in Fannie’s legal documents as someone working on her behalf in the case. Lawrence Kelly’s profession was marble cutter before he became retail manager of a grave monuments business. His father had sold monuments in Council Bluffs in the 1880s.

Did Lawrence Kelly purchase Clarke Prescott’s tree monument for Fannie? It would explain the high quality of it since he clearly knew the industry. Did they meet when she went to purchase one for Clarke?

Fannie married Lawrence Kelly in 1891 in Council Bluffs. She (and her children) disappear from records after that. Lawrence’s name doesn’t appear again until 1920, and by that time he was widowed but still selling grave monuments. By 1930, when he was 78 years old, he was back in New York living with his sister. Yes, still selling monuments.

What happened to Fannie and her kids? I’ll have to dig some more to find out the end of her story.

This one is for a child but the inscription is so worn and obscured by lichen, you can’t read the name.

The head of the lamb at the base has been broken off.

Here’s a variation of the tree monument, a tree trunk holding up an open book. The inscription has completely worn away so I don’t know who it was for. But whomever carved the tree stump took quite a bit of time making it.

The inscription on this monument is complete illegible.

Finally, instead of a tree stump, I liked the look of this cross made out of two logs. John R. Slack lived to the age of 30 and was a member of GAR #31, so he was likely a Civil War veteran. But that’s all I know about him.

John Slack’s monument is a nice mix of rustic and traditional.

Next time, I’ll spend some time sharing photos of some of the many white bronze (zinc) monuments at Fairview. I hope you’ll enjoy them as much as the trees.

Angels on the monument for Minnie Klopping

Visiting Council Bluffs, Iowa’s Fairview Cemetery: The Legend of the Black Angel, Part I

07 Friday Jul 2017

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On the last day of my April 2016 adventure to Nebraska, Christi and I crossed the Missouri River to visit Fairview Cemetery in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The views from Fairview are quite impressive.

Even if cemeteries aren’t your thing, just visiting Fairview to see the view of Omaha is worth it.

So why am I devoting an entire blog post to two people who aren’t even buried at Fairview? The legend of the Black Angel has tantalized Iowa residents for years and is well worth sharing. Iowa actually has TWO Black Angels, one right next to Fairview Cemetery and a different one in Oakland Cemetery in Iowa City (which I haven’t had a chance to visit yet).

On the way up to Fairview, we saw a monument commemorating the 1858 visit of Abraham Lincoln (before he became President) to Council Bluffs. His main goal was to see some property that a friend was offering as collateral toward a loan he hoped to obtain from Lincoln.

But with his reputation already strong as a powerful figure and orator, Lincoln’s old friends and new ones who wanted to spend time with him turned his visit into more than just a few days. While he was there, he met Grenville M. Dodge and his wife, Annie, at a reception. Dodge would later join the Union Army and reach the rank of Major General.

Erected in 1911, the monument’s inscription reads:  “A King of all men whose crown was love and whose throne was gentleness. This monument is to commemorate the visit of Abraham Lincoln to Council Bluffs August 19, 1859. From this point he viewed the extensive panorama of the valley of the Missouri river and in compliance with the law of Congress he selected this city as the Eastern terminus of the Union Pacific railroad.”

A native of Massachusetts, Grenville Dodge was born in 1831. In 1851, he graduated from Norwich University with a degree in civil engineering. For the next decade, he was involved in surveying for railroads, including the Union Pacific. Dodge served with distinction during the Civil War and was also heavily involved in military intelligence. After the war, he became the Union Pacific’s chief engineer and a leading figure in the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad.

Grenville Dodge in his younger days.

But it was was his wife, Ruth Anne “Annie” Dodge, that figures more prominently in my story. Dodge’s first job was surveying for the Illinois Central Railroad in Peru, Ill. It was during this time in Peru that he met Annie. Although she played piano, and enjoyed opera and poetry, Annie could ride a horse and shoot a gun as well as Dodge.

Grenville Dodge met his future wife, Annie, while working for the Illinois Central Railroad. Photo source: Union Pacific Railroad.

On May 28, 1854, the couple married. The Dodges moved to Nebraska Territory, where they tried homesteading on his Elkhorn River claim. Indian attacks on settlers caused them to move to Omaha by the fall. Daughter Lettie was born there in 1855. In 1856, the family moved to Council Bluffs. Their second daughter, Ella, was born there in 1858. Third daughter Anne was born in 1866.

After the war, the Dodges built a new home at 605 Third Street in Council Bluffs.  Between 1860 and 1870, their wealth increased from $12,000 to $350,000.

Built in 1869, Grenville and Annie’s 14-room Victorian era home is located in Council Bluffs overlooking the Missouri River Valley. Made a National Historic Landmark in 1961, the house has been open for tours since 1964. Photo source: Council Bluffs Online, LLC.

The Dodges spent much of the later 1870s through the 1890s in Manhattan, New York as Grenville’s engineering expertise took him around the world. They retired to Council Bluffs in 1907 and Dodge worked on his memoirs. Grenville Dodge died of cancer in January 1916 and was buried in Walnut Hill Cemetery in Council Bluffs.

Grenville and Annie Dodge are actually buried in this mausoleum in Walnut Hill Cemetery, just a few miles from Fairview Cemetery. Photo source: David Habben, Find a Grave.

Annie died in September that same year and was buried beside her beloved Grenville at Walnut Hill. Daughters Ella and Anne contacted famed sculptor Daniel Chester French to create a memorial statue to honor their mother. French is best known for his statue of Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D.C.’s Lincoln Memorial. He created many memorial sculptures in his lifetime that grace cemeteries today, including Atlanta’s Westview Cemetery.

French completed the statue in 1918 and it was dedicated in 1920, just outside of Fairview Cemetery.

A native of New Hampshire, Daniel Chester French is best known for his statue of Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D.C.

Why did the Dodge sisters have the statue placed just outside Fairview and not at Walnut Hill where their parents are buried? I don’t know the answer to that.

The Black Angel was inspired by a dream Annie Dodge had three times.

The bronze statue aged over time and took on a dark black cast. As a result, French’s statue became known as the Black Angel.

The inspiration for the Black Angel came from Annie herself. Before she died, Annie had a dream. While standing on a rocky shoreline, she saw an old boat come out of the mist. In the prow of the boat, a beautiful woman whom Annie guessed was an angel stood holding a small bowl overflowing with water.

The Angel still beckons those who come near to drink.

“Drink,” the angel said. “I bring you both a promise and a blessing.”

Annie chose not to. She later told her daughter, Anne, “I felt unworthy, and it seemed to me it would be presumption on my part to partake of anything so wonderfully pure, so heavenly, so spiritual.”

The angel appeared to Annie in a dream a second time. Again, she chose not to drink. When the angel came to her a third time, she accepted the offer. After drinking from the bowl, Mrs. Dodge felt that she had been “transformed into a new and glorious spiritual being.”

I took many photos of the Black Angel but this one is my favorite. She does have an intense stare at certain angles.

“I drank of that wonderful water of life and it gave me immortality,” she said to Anne.

Annie died shortly after her third dream of the angel.

According to an Omaha World-Herald article, nobody knows for sure when or why the memorial became shrouded in legend. As early as 1975, a World-Herald reader complained that a recent article had misrepresented the statue as a grim characterization of the Angel of Death.

Some have said the Angel comes to life after sundown and, borne by her powerful wings, flies around the graves. Others claim she shoots jets of fire from her eyes when the clock strikes midnight.  Others recount the curse of her stare — look into her eyes at midnight, they say, and prepare for an early demise.

The shadow of the Angel can be seen falling on the inscription. You can see Fairview Cemetery’s fence in the background.

Kori Nelson, executive director of the Historic General Dodge House and a Council Bluffs native, knows all about the legends. She’s heard the vague warnings against meeting the angel’s gaze or touching her outstretched hand.

“It’s just a statue with a fountain. I mean, that’s really all it is,” she said. “I think it’s our job to put out the story of what actually is true.”

Over the years, the statue became a target for vandalism and graffiti. The bronze developed a dark patina (thus the Black Angel name). Water stopped flowing from the bowl in 1960.

In 1984, restoration efforts began. Since then, security measures have been installed to discourage vandals. Motion-activated cameras photograph late-night visitors. I read that an audio system warns against trespassing. There was no water flowing when we were there.

I don’t view Annie’s Angel as a dark force at all. I like to think of her as perhaps carrying the essence of Annie, bringing a ray of light and hope to the world she left behind. I’m glad I was able to see her.

Next week, I’ll be back at Fairview and sharing stories of the people (actually) buried there.