Now that we’ve gotten the history of Westminster Abbey out of the way, what better time than now to start visiting some royalty?

There plenty to talk about when it comes to Queen Mary I (1516-1558) and her half-sister, Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603).

Queen Mary I

Born on Feb. 18, 1516 at Greenwich Palace (which no longer exists), Mary was the only surviving child of Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon of Spain. People tend to forget that Henry and Catherine were married for more than 20 years before divorcing her to wed Anne Boleyn.

After her parents’ divorce around 1533 and Henry’s break with the Catholic Church, Mary eventually lived at Hatfield with half-sister Elizabeth. She did have some pity for Elizabeth after Anne Boleyn was beheaded in 1535. At that time, Elizabeth was ousted from favor and had little contact with her father. It was thanks to Mary that Elizabeth became closer with him.

During her father’s final marriage to Catherine Parr, Mary was brought back to court and named in her father’s will in the line of succession.

Mary succeeded to the throne on the death of her brother Edward VI in 1553. Once in power, Mary took action to return England to Catholicism. She also resurrected the laws against heresy, and as a result, nearly 300 Protestants were burned at the stake. Her moniker “Bloody Mary” was well earned.

Mary married Prince Philip of Spain in 1554, which didn’t please her subjects. At age 37, she was 10 years older than her new husband. She insisted that he be given the title of king consort and all official documents bear their joint names. However, Philip left England to return to Spain a few years later when he realized he would have no heir with her.

Death of Queen Mary I

Dying childless on Nov. 15, 1558 at age 42, Mary was buried in a vault in the north aisle of Henry VII’s Lady Chapel in a coffin, above which the large monument we see today was later erected. Most of the monarchs at Westminster Abbey are buried beneath the Lady Chapel. Henry VII spent a great deal of money on it, which was begun in 1503 but not completed until 1516, nearly six years after his death.

Queen Elizabeth I

Queen Elizabeth I was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn and like her half-sister, she was born at Greenwich Palace on Sept. 7, 1533. When Henry tired of Anne and had her beheaded so he could marry Jane Seymour, Elizabeth was unceremoniously tossed aside. Her household was allotted little money but she did receive a good education.

From time to time, depending on her father’s mood, Elizabeth was brought to the English court where she impressed Henry VIII with her intellectual prowess. She developed a relationship with her stepmother, Henry’s fifth wife, Katherine Howard, only to see her beheaded. It’s small wonder that Elizabeth had little trust in marriage by this time.

By now, Elizabeth and Mary were not exactly “bosom friends” for many reasons. The largest bone of contention was their religious differences. Not surprisingly, Mary was staunchly Catholic like her mother Catherine and had married a Catholic. Elizabeth favored her father’s Church of England, which had replaced the Catholic Church when he divorced Catherine of Aragon.

When Mary died in 1558, Elizabeth was crowned queen at Westminster Abbey on Jan. 15, 1559. She ruled for 44 years until her death on March 24, 1603 at age 69. She never married and had no children.

Two Sisters, One Monument

Here’s where it gets interesting!

As I noted earlier, Mary’s coffin was placed in a vault in the north aisle of Henry VII’s Lady Chapel. After Elizabeth died, the monarch who replaced her, James I, had Elizabeth’s coffin placed on top of Mary’s in the vault. I don’t think that was an accident.

Grace, our tour guide, shared with us that what came next was rather fitting considering how much the two sisters couldn’t stand each other.

When you walk into the north aisle, this is what you see. Made of white marble, the monument is massive. Commissioned by James I, it was made by sculptor Maximilian Colt and painted by John de Critz. The recumbent effigy resembles portraits of Elizabeth in old age. According to Westminster Abbey’s web page, the cost was £1,485 at the time.

As you get closer, you’ll notice something. There’s only one effigy resting on top of the base enclosed under the canopy, and that’s of Elizabeth I. Mary is nowhere to be seen! Below is a photo of the only mention of Queen Mary I.

To get some idea of what the monument looked like in its earlier days, this is a 1620 engraving of it from London’s National Gallery.

The roses and fleur-de-lis were prominently placed on the railings around the monument.

Princess Sofia

After you’ve seen Queen Elizabeth I (and pondered poor Queen Mary I’s lack of presence), you’ll notice at the end of the north aisle there are monuments to some royal children worth mentioning.

To the left is Princess Sofia, born on June 23, 1606 and died the next day at Greenwich Palace. She was the fourth daughter of James I and Anne of Denmark. Below is an engraving of her monument.

Sophia’s monument resembling a stone crib was designed by Maximilian Colt, and painted and gilded by John de Critz (they created Elizabeth I’s monument). The tomb is carved with lacework and an embroidered velvet cover. I didn’t get a very good photo of it. The angle at which it is placed makes it impossible for you to see the effigy’s face, so they have a mirror in place.

The Latin inscription on the end of the monument is translated below:

Sophia, a royal rosebud untimely plucked by Fate and from James, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, and Queen Anne her parents, snatched away, to flower again in the rose garden of Christ, lies here. 23rd June, 4th year of the reign of King James 1606.

Princess Mary

To the right of Princess Sophia is her older sister, Princess Mary. Born on April 8, 1605 at Greenwich Palace, she was the third daughter of James I and Anne of Denmark. She lived 17 months before succumbing to pneumonia on Sept. 16, 1608.

Her effigy, created by Maximilian Colt, represents a young girl wearing a mature dress, with the traditional ruff, carved in ivory.

It reads:

I, Mary, daughter of James, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland and of Queen Anne, received into heaven in early infancy, found joy for myself, but left longings for my parents, on the 16th of September, 1607. Ye congratulators, condole: she lived only 1 year [sic, according to Everett Green] 5 months and 88 days.

Princes in the Tower?

You may be wondering what this item is located behind Princess Sophia and Princess Mary. I admit that I didn’t pay much attention to it at the time.

I learned this was a monument created for the so-called Princes in the Tower, Edward and Richard. Their story is long and complicated. William Shakespeare wrote about them in his play, “Richard III”.

The princes, sons of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, were born during the Wars of the Roses. After Edward IV’s death in 1483, his brother the Duke of Gloucester (later Richard III) became Lord Protector of Edward’s son and heir, the 12-year-old Edward V. The Duke immediately placed Edward in the Tower of London, closely followed by his nine-year-old brother Richard, for “their protection”.

What became of these two boys remains a mystery but they were never seen alive again. It’s long been believed that Richard III, who was crowed king in 1483, had them murdered. This has been debated for centuries with many theories having been put forth about it..

Nearly 200 years later, in 1674, King Charles II ordered the demolition of what remained of the royal palace to the south of the White Tower. The location included a turret that once contained a privy staircase leading into St. John’s Chapel.

Beneath the foundations of the staircase, some 10 feet below the ground, workmen found a wooden chest containing two skeletons. It was concluded that they were the bones of children. Charles II had them interred at Westminster Abbey in the later 1670s and they’ve been there ever since in the monument you see today.

In 1933, the remains were forensically examined and thought to be the bones of two boys between 10 and 12. But testing was not exactly precise in those days, so doubts remain still today if it truly is Richard and Edward. We’ll likely never know.

I’ve got more royal tombs for you so come back for more in Part III!

[Note: For more information on Tours by Grace, visit: https://www.toursbygrace.com/]

Last week, I told you I planned to feature some local (to me) cemeteries in my next blog posts. But this week, I realized I didn’t want to do that.

In the past, I’ve tried to write about my adventures chronologically. However, sometimes I get the urge to do something different.

When you make the rules, you can do that.

Today I’m starting a new series on London’s Westminster Abbey, which I visited in June 2023. There’s a bit of a story behind my relationship with this place, but I’ll try to keep it brief.

Disappointed in 1998

It started in July 1998 when I visited London for the first time with my college roommate and dear friend Megan. While I was not yet a cemetery hopper, I wanted to see Westminster Abbey. So one day we headed over there and to my disappointment, it was closed for an event.

However, that event turned out to be a visit from Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip! They were due to arrive in a few hours. We decided to settle down and wait, getting a prime place to watch near the gates. They were going to be part of a ceremony in which some new statues of 20th-century martyrs were to be unveiled.

Needless to say, seeing the royal couple walk in was worth the wait! But that meant we missed out on going inside.

My second opportunity came in September 2000 after a week-long tour of Scotland. I spent a few days in London after the tour before heading west to Swindon to stay with a couple I knew. I planned to go back to the Abbey, but I ran into a fellow tourist in my hotel’s Internet cafe who was catching a bus to see St. Paul’s Cathedral and he invited me to tag along. So I did.

Fast forward to January 2020 as my family and I prepared to visit London and Paris, my husband and son had been to neither. I’d never been to Paris. Covid rudely put that off until June 2023 and we made new plans. I was determined to not only visit Westminster Abbey, but to hire a guide who could show us around to make the most of it.

Hopefully, the third time would be the charm.

Tours By Grace

There are plenty of guides eager to show you around Westminster Abbey. You can also rent an audio tour if you prefer. But when I found Grace (of Tours by Grace) online, I got the feeling right away that she was exactly the right person for us. And she was!

Grace is a certified Blue Badge London Tourist Guide and that’s nothing to sneeze at. It takes two years of training and passing strict qualifications to become one. These are not folks reciting a list of facts out of a guidebook while glancing at their watch. They tailor your tour to what you specifically want to see. Even if what you want to see most are graves.

There’s an awesome benefit to having waited until 2023 to visit. You couldn’t take pictures inside the Abbey until October 2020. Photography is still not allowed during services. But had I visited before, I wouldn’t have been able to take a picture of a single grave or tomb.

Britain’s Oldest Door

If it hadn’t been for Grace pointing it out, I’m not sure we would have seen Britain’s oldest door.

The door was dated for the first time in 2005 by a process called dendrochronology. A detailed study of the wooden door (in the vestibule leading to the Chapter House), showed that the wood came from a tree chopped down after 1032 A.D. The door was constructed sometime in the 1050s. This was during the reign of King Edward the Confessor.

According to the Westminster Abbey web site:

The door was obviously retained when Henry III rebuilt the Abbey and Chapter House from 1245 but cut down to be put in a new position. In the 19th century, the fragments of cow hide were first noted and a legend grew up that this skin was human. It was supposed that someone had been caught committing sacrilege or robbery in the church and had been flayed and his skin nailed to this door as a deterrent to others.

A Few Facts

I’m not going to spend much time on the history of Westminster Abbey, which is over 1,000 years old. With only two exceptions, every monarch since 1066 has been crowned there. The Abbey had just hosted the coronation of King Charles less than a month before our visit. We saw the Coronation Chair, pictured below, that he sat in. It has plexiglass in front of it, thus the reflection of the stained glass.

The Abbey has never had a bishop, except for a brief time during the 1540s (before then, it was presided over by an abbot). Upon its re-founding by Elizabeth I in 1560, it was established as a royal peculiar. Ever since, it’s been outside the hierarchy and jurisdiction of the Church of England.

Westminster Abbey is among many monasteries founded in the Catholic Church, although it was later repurposed as a powerful symbol of Protestant national identity. Although much of the architecture is French in origin, the Abbey is widely regarded as quintessentially English.

How Many People Are Buried in Westminster Abbey?

Over 3,300 people are buried or commemorated in the Abbey. Many are not buried there but have a cenotaph placed in their honor, such as Victorian authors (and sisters) Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte. They’re actually buried in Haworth in Yorkshire.

An estimated total of 18 English, Scottish and British monarchs are buried in the Abbey, including Edward the Confessor, Henry III, Edward I, Edward III, Richard II, Henry V, Edward V, Henry VII, Edward VI, Mary I, Mary Queen of Scots, Elizabeth I, James I, Charles II, Mary II, William III, Queen Anne, and George II.

During the early 20th century, for reasons of space, it became more common to bury cremated remains (ashes). In 1905, actor Sir Henry Irving became the first person to have their ashes interred at the Abbey.

Eight British prime minister are buried in the Abbey, and I happened to notice a few of them as I was walking around (and over) them. That’s the tricky thing about walking around Westminster Abbey. You might be stepping on a king or a poet or a prime minister and not even realize it!

The Unknown Warrior

At the west end of the Nave, you’ll find the grave of the Unknown Warrior, whose body was brought from France to be buried at the Abbey on Nov. 11, 1920. The grave, which contains soil from France, is covered by a slab of black Belgian marble from a quarry near Namur.

Where did the idea come from? In 1916, a chaplain at the Front, the Rev. David Railton (1884-1955), noticed something in a back garden at Armentières. It was a grave with a rough cross on which were written the words “An Unknown British Soldier”. In August 1920, Rev. Railton wrote to the dean of Westminster, Herbert Ryle, who took up the cause of creating a memorial. The body was chosen from unknown British servicemen exhumed from four battle areas, the Aisne, the Somme, Arras, and Ypres. (some sources say six bodies but confirmed accounts say four).

General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing, on behalf of the United States, conferred the Congressional Medal of Honor on the Unknown Warrior on Oct. 17, 1921, which hangs in a frame on a pillar near the grave.

First Impressions

As an American accustomed to outdoor cemeteries, I found the tombs/graves of Westminster Abbey overwhelming and amazing all at once. The range of materials, along with the different sizes of monuments and memorials, had my head spinning. A single rectangle represented the author Charles Dickens, while an admiral I’d never heard of merited an enormous monument that could fill a small house.

Some feel that Dickens actually wanted to be buried in Rochester Cathedral, near where he died in 1870. But public opinion at the time demanded that Westminster Abbey was the only place for the burial of someone of his distinction.

Also, you can look up at a wall in the East Cloister and see a memorial that just happens to include some skulls. While I’ve seen skulls on grave markers in New England cemeteries, that’s not something I’ve ever seen inside an American church.

There’s a great deal more to see at Westminster Abbey. So much more. I hope you’ll join me.

I’m wrapping up my series on Iowa City’s Oakland Cemetery today, which brings my July 2019 Iowa Road Trip to an end as well.

Last week, some of the veteran graves I shared with you were made of white bronze (zinc). These are some of my favorite markers because in this part of the country, I don’t see too many of them. Because the Monumental White Bronze Co. of Bridgeport, Conn. had a factory in Des Moines, Iowa, zinc markers are easy to find in Hawkeye state cemeteries.

When I came across the Carleton family white bronze marker at Oakland, I was flummoxed. So many little children’s names were on it and almost all had died in infancy. Figuring out their story took a little time but it was worth it.

The Carleton Family

Born in Maryland in 1812, James P. Carleton graduated from Pennsylvania’s Washington College (now known as Washington and Jefferson College). He married Louisa Patterson in Indiana. Eventually, the couple settled in Iowa City, Iowa around 1841 and James became a well-regarded judge of the Fourth Judicial District.

Over the course of their marriage, Louisa would bear six children. Five died in childhood. One, Cornelia, died at age 16. I don’t have any information on their causes of death. Was it illness? Was it a congenital heart defect? Something genetic? We will never know.

Louisa gave birth to their last child, Rinehart, on Oct. 12, 1848. He died on Jan. 14, 1849. She died on March 6, 1849 at age 29.

I can’t help but wonder if it was from a broken heart.

Judge Carleton remarried to widow Mary Jane Young on Oct. 4, 1849. They had three children together, Adda, Mary, and James-Anna. Adda lived to age 36, Mary to age 88, and James-Anna only 15 months.

Judge Carleton died on Oct. 3, 1853 at age 43.

James-Anna, the last child born to Judge Carleton and his second wife, died on June 5, 1855. She has her own plate at the foot of the marker.

Two other white bronze plates can also be found at the base.

The final death noted on this monument is for the father of Judge Carleton’s second wife, Mary, the Rev. Alcinous Young, who died on March 30, 1876. His wife, Mary’s mother (Mary Young), shares the panel with him. She died on Oct. 8, 1856.

This white bronze marker must have been purchased after Rev. Young’s death in 1876. I don’t know who planned what it would say and whose names would be included. My guess is that it was Judge Carleton’s widow, Mary. She died in 1899 at age 72 in Burlington, Iowa. Her obituary indicates she was probably buried in Oakland Cemetery but I found no marker for her there.

I have to think that the rest of the Carleton clan owes a great debt to the person who had this monument made because these children, however short their lives were, deserve to be remembered.

Civil War Governor

I promised last week that I’d fill you in with more information about Iowa governor Samuel Jordan Kirkwood.

Born in Maryland in 1813, Kirkwood taught school before moving to Mansfield, Ohio in 1835. In 1843, he was admitted to the bar and served as the area’s prosecuting attorney for four years. That same year, Kirkwood married Jane Clark, sister of Phoebe Ann Clark, and thus became the brother-in-law of Edward Lucas. He was the son of Iowa’s first territorial governor Robert Lucas and his second wife Friendly Ashley Sumner Lucas.

The couple moved from Ohio to Iowa in the 1850s and Samuel got into the milling business with his brother-in-law Ezekiel Clark.

Samuel was elected to the Iowa Senate, serving from 1856 to 1859. In 1860, he was elected governor of Iowa. That year, the John Brown raid on Harpers Ferry further inflamed the country over slavery, and Kirkwood sided with abolitionists. Barclay Coppock, a young man who was part of Brown’s raid, fled to Iowa. Kirkwood refused to accept extradition papers for him from Virginia, and allowed Coppock to escape.

During the Civil War, Kirkwood recruited enough volunteers to put together over 50 regiments of infantry and cavalry for the Union cause. He was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln to be the minister to Denmark, but Kirkwood declined.

After leaving office in 1864, Kirkwood practiced law in Iowa City. In 1865-1867, he served the remainder of James Harlan’s term in the U.S. Senate, and served in the Senate again from 1877 to 1881. Between his separate terms as a Senator, he was again governor of Iowa from 1876 to 1877. He resigned as governor in 1877 to begin his second term as U.S. Senator.

In 1881, Kirkwood resigned his Senate seat to become Secretary of the Interior under President James Garfield until 1882. After unsuccessfully running for Congress in 1886, Kirkwood spent the rest of his life practicing law and serving as president of an Iowa City bank.

Samuel Kirkwood died in Iowa City on Sept. 1, 1894, at the age of 80. Kirkwood Community College in Iowa City, Coralville, and Cedar Rapids is named for him. Kirkwood Avenue in Iowa City, where Kirkwood and his wife, Jane, lived for much of his political career, is named for him, as is Kirkwood Elementary School, located in Coralville, Iowa.

The Kirkwoods had no children. Jane stayed in Iowa City after her husband passed away. She died at age 99 on April 28, 1921. She is buried with Samuel.

Large Rectangular Slabs

I encountered a number of large, rectangular slabs from the 1840s to the 1870s that look like they came from the same stone mason. I don’t know much about the individuals they represent, but I enjoyed the different fonts and motifs on them.

Oakland has 27 Stover memorials listed on FindaGrave.com. This pair is for father and son Joseph Stover (1782-1875) and John Stover (1830-1858). It’s possible that John died of typhoid. Their markers both feature weeping willow trees.

A native of Ohio, Samuel Shields married Jane M. Eaton in 1850. The couple moved to Iowa City in 1853. They had two children, Rocina (who died in 1860), and Wilbur (who died in 1952 at age 79).

Samuel died in 1858 at age 35. His marker features an open Bible. Jane outlived him by over 30 years, dying on Feb. 12, 1890 at age 63.

A native of New York, Jane Shepard married British immigrant Joseph James Moyle in 1854. The couple moved to Iowa where Joseph worked as a miller. The couple had three children together. The third, Jennie, was born on Sept. 16, 1860. Jane died less than a month later on Oct. 5, 1960. Her grave marker features a hand pointing upward to Heaven.

Joseph remarried twice after Jane passed away, adding four more children to his family. He died in 1888 at age 57 and is buried with his third wife, Ida, in Fairview Cemetery in Lenox, Iowa.

End of the Road

I flew back to Atlanta a few days later, savoring the memories of our Iowa road trip. But I was ready to explore some cemeteries closer to home that I’d been wanting to visit. I’ll be sharing those with you in the next few weeks.

In my last post, I introduced you to Iowa City, Iowa’s Oakland Cemetery and focused on the story of the Black Angel. This week, I’ve got some veterans I’d like to honor by sharing their stories.

During the Civil War, Iowa contributed 48 regiments of state infantry, one regiment of black infantry, nine regiments of cavalry, and four artillery batteries. In addition to these federally mustered troops, the state also raised a number of home guard or militia units. In other words, a lot of soldiers!

Near the front of Oakland is the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) section where you’ll find a handful of military graves for soldiers who served during the Civil War. They were Union soldiers enrolled in different groups from various states, most from Iowa but not all. There are other veterans buried at Oakland as well.

Samuel J. Kirkwood Corps 78 GAR Monument

Oakland Cemetery has something I can’t say I see very often and that is a tree-shaped GAR monument. It was erected on May 30, 1896 by the Samuel J. Kirkwood Corps 78 to honor the fallen GAR soldiers. At the time it was placed, there were 16 GAR graves there.

Samuel J. Kirkwood was Iowa’s governor twice (1860 to 1864 and 1876 to 1877). He also served in the U.S. Senate and was U.S. Secretary of the Interior. He passed away in 1894 and is buried at Oakland, but I’ll feature him in more detail in Part III.

I wasn’t sure what the Samuel J. Kirkwood Corp 78 was until I stumbled up on this tidbit on Pat Grandsta’s web site about the governor’s early involvement in the Civil War in raising troops for the Union:

Kirkwood immediately issued a proclamation calling for the various counties to raise volunteer companies consisting of a minimum of 78 men each; the companies would comprise a state militia which would ultimately be mustered into the United States army. In addition, the governor used his oratorical skills to explain his — and Lincoln’s— belief that the Union should remain inviolate. The result was that twice as many Iowans volunteered as could be accepted.

I admit I was almost giddy to find an article about this exact monument in the Iowa City Weekly Republican from June 3, 1896. Iowa City’s GAR veterans pooled their money to erect a proper monument to honor their comrades interred at Oakland Cemetery.

Little Drummer Boy

At the GAR plot, my gaze was drawn to the marker for Johnny Hendricks. It’s not often you see a Civil War veteran marker for a 12-year-old boy.

I couldn’t find much about Johnny back in 2019. But a fellow named Kurt Knapp on another Facebook page managed to find out the following:

Not very much info available on Johnny, being only 12. Below is a brief listing of his death in the Iowa Volunteers Casualty/Death list. He was a private in the 25th Iowa Volunteers. Died in a hospital in Nashville on May 5, 1865. Most likely, he had friends who paid for embalming and shipping his remains back to Iowa.

At the time, most soldiers of both sides were buried in local graveyards or other open land, unless compassionate friends pooled their resources to return the remains to their home state.

Difficult to see the cause of death, but looks like: Febris Typhoidea. (Typhoid), a serious stomach and intestinal infectious disease caused by bacteria Salmonella typhi. Not uncommon among Civil War soldiers, in fact, more died from diseases than trauma.

Children on the Civil War battlefield were not as uncommon as you might think. According to the Vintage News, it’s thought that over 250,000 of participants were younger than 18, some not much older than 10. Tossed into an unfamiliar world, they were forced to act like adults. Most had lied about their age and joined without their parents’ permission.

The youngest, like Johnny, often became drummers and messengers.

Johnny’s friends (it appears) rallied to get his remains sent home so he was not left to rest in a grave in a state he never knew. While his life was short, Johnny was not forgotten then. Or now.

“We Miss Thee Everywhere”

Not far away from the GAR plot are two white bronze (zinc) monuments that got my attention. The first was for Dover, Maine native Justin H. Trundy, who saw a great deal of action while a member of the Sixth Maine Infantry, Co. E.

Trundy moved to Iowa City with his new bride, Nellie, in 1869. When he died on Aug. 7, 1888 at age 47, he was senior vice commander of Iowa City’s GAR. He and Nellie had one son, George. Nellie would outlive Justin by 45 years, passing away in 1933.

Trundy’s monument has one of the more poignant epitaphs on the base.

We miss thee from our home, dear.

We miss thee from they place;

A shadow o’er our life is cast,

We miss the sunshine of they face.

We miss thy kind and willing hand,

They fond and earnest care;

Our home is dark without thee,

We miss thee every where.

“Rest, Soldier, Rest”

Ohio native Jasper N. Templeman enlisted at 16 in the Union Army but due to his small stature, he was made a drummer boy much like Johnny Hendricks. He was noted for his handsome features and good nature. He mustered into the 22nd Iowa Infantry, Co. G, on Feb. 17, 1864.

Three of Jasper’s brothers also served in Co. G. One of them, Milton, would die of disease in 1863. Jasper mustered out with the regiment in Savannah, Ga. on July 25, 1865.

After the war, Jasper moved to Miller, Dakota Territory, where he worked for the Northern Pacific Railroad and later opened the Pioneer Gallery, a photography studio in Miller. In 1870, he married Alma Reeves in Norway, Iowa. They would have seven children together, all but one living to adulthood.

Unfortunately, Jasper’s health was failing by the time he reached his 40s. His youngest child was still an infant when he died at age 42 on March 22, 1890.

From the Oxford Weekly Journal (Oxford, Iowa), April 3, 1890:

Jasper N. Templeman died at his home in this city, on Saturday morning after a long and painful illness He had only recently returned from southern California where he had spent some time in hope of restoration to health. He leaves a wife and seven children. Mr. Templeman was about 43 years of age; in 1864, when a boy not yet seventeen, he enlisted in Co. G, 22nd Iowa Infantry, and made a good record as a soldier. His burial was conducted by Iowa City Post, G.A.R. Many of our citizens will remember the deceased as a former citizen of our town. He was highly respected by all who knew him.

Alma did not remarry but remained in Iowa City, later moving to California for a time. She died in 1946 at age 95 and is buried beside Jasper.

I’ll be back soon with more stories from Iowa City’s Oakland Cemetery.

Iowa City is only about 15 miles west of West Branch and is the home of the University of Iowa. We stayed in a hotel there overnight and headed for Oakland Cemetery the next morning.

According to its website, Oakland Cemetery was deeded to the people of Iowa City by the Iowa territorial legislature on Feb. 13, 1843. The original plot was one block square. The cemetery now encompasses 40 acres. Oakland Cemetery is a non-perpetual care cemetery supported by city taxes. The staff is committed to the maintenance and preservation of privately-owned lots and accessories. It is still an active cemetery and you can purchase a plot there if you so desire.

According to Find a Grave, Oakland Cemetery has around 16,000 graves recorded there. However, I’m sure there are more than that.

Teresa Karasek Dolezal Pica Feldervert

Most people visit Oakland Cemetery for one reason and that’s to see the Black Angel. This is the second Black Angel I’ve encountered in Iowa. The first was the statue in memory of Ruth Anne Dodge by sculptor Daniel Chester French that’s adjacent to Fairview Cemetery in Council Bluffs, Iowa. I wrote about that one in 2017.

The story surrounding Iowa City’s Black Angel is a bit sketchy in places and some of the specifics are unknown. But when it comes to a haunted statue, that’s kind of the norm. Right?

We do know that Terezie “Teresa” Karasek was born around 1836 in Czechoslovakia (then known as Bohemia). It was only after her death that it was discovered that she’d studied at the University of Vienna, earning the equivalent of a degree in gynecology and becoming a midwife. She reportedly delivered more than 100 babies.

Her son, Eduard, or “Eddie”, was born in 1873. He was her son by Dr. Frantizek Dolezal, whom she married in 1865. She arrived with Eddie in Iowa City sometime around 1877. I’m not sure what became of Dr. Dolezal.

Eddie died in 1891 at age 17 of meningitis. He was buried in a crypt in a different plot in the cemetery than where he is now and a tree-shaped monument was erected in his honor. His body (and the tree marker) were later moved to the site of the Black Angel monument around 1913.

Overwhelmed with grief, Teresa moved to Chicago then to Minnesota where she married Joseph Pica. She would divorce him and move to Eugene, Ore. where she met and married wealthy ranch owner Nicholas Feldevert in 1897. He was of German heritage.

At the base of the monument, you can see the words “Rodina Feldevertova”. The word “rodina” means “family” in Czech. Both Teresa and Nicholas shortened it to Feldevert at some point.

When Nicholas died in 1911, he left Teresa a wealthy widow. Much of the money went to fund projects back in her hometown of Strmilov in Czechoslovakia.

But Teresa also wanted to honor her third husband and son, so she began making plans to commission a statue that would eventually be placed by their graves at Oakland. It would eventually be her final resting place as well.

Mario Korbel

On the advice of friends, Teresa contacted up and coming Czech sculptor Mario Korbel in Chicago to create a statue. She also wanted him to incorporate Eddie’s tree monument into his design. His model in clay at the Art Institute of Chicago caused a stir and Teresa gave him the green light to cast it in bronze. In July 1911, he stopped in Iowa City on his way west to check the site where it would eventually be placed.

While waiting for Korbel to finish, Teresa had Nicholas’ remains disinterred in February 1912 and sent to Portland, Ore. to be cremated before having them sent on to Oakland Cemetery in Iowa.

Korbel’s eight and a half foot statue arrived in Iowa City in November 1912. Unfortunately, Teresa didn’t like what she saw and refused to pay Korbel for his hard work. He hadn’t incorporated Eddie’s tree monument as she had requested. She also did not like the dark patina on the bronze at all.

A lawsuit ensued and Teresa ended up paying for it after all. The statue was placed on its four-foot tall base. An inscription in Czech is on the side of it.

The inscription translated reads:

The sun and clouds stood above my journey/There were tough and joyful days in my life./ You did my work just to make the world better./ You fold your hands and your head goes down./ Your spirit flies away where everlasting reward/ Is waiting for you after hardship.

Teresa died on Nov. 18, 1924 in Iowa City. Her remains were cremated in Davenport, Iowa, and her ashes were buried with her husband and son beside the Black Angel. She was 88 and had little money left. Her death year was never carved into the base because there was nobody left in her family to pay for it.

The Black Angel only darkened more over the years, causing people to talk. But according to an NPR article bout the statue that I found, that’s not unusual:

Bronze is an alloy made up of copper and zinc and sometimes even other metals like aluminum, manganese, nickel or zinc. So that metal combination can change the color. Also chemical combination called a patina is added to the surface of Bronze sculptures and that can create some interesting color changes.

Paul Benson is an art conservator for the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art and he also says the environment can play a big role.

“Put a sculpture out in Kansas City, put another one out in New York City they may turn completely different colors,” says Benson.

The Myths of the Black Angel

There are quite a few myths and stories surrounding the Black Angel. Many students and other Iowa City residents visit the statue, along with interested travelers like me.

The biggest night of attraction is on Halloween where visitors gather around the statue, and some test their luck by touching or kissing the statue. It’s said that if someone touches or kisses the statue they will be struck dead unless that person is a virgin.

It is also rumored that if a pregnant woman walks beneath the statue’s stretched wings that she will miscarry. Some have seen mysterious ghostly figures walking nearby. It goes on from there.

The Black Angel has been vandalized several times over the years. Her outstretched fingers have been damaged. Paint has been applied many times. It’s rather amazing that she is still intact after all these years.

The Black Angel appears in W.P. Kinsella’s 1986 novel “The Iowa Baseball Confederacy” in which the statue plays right field for the Confederacy. She also makes an appearance in Andrea Lawlor’s 2017 novel “Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl,” in which the titular Paul seduces a graduate student under its wings. Footage of the Black Angel is included in the music video for “Alive Twice” by the band Friendship.

More recently, a new restaurant called The Black Angel opened in Iowa City in August 2023.

The NPR article said Oakland’s grounds keeper Russell Buffington noted that people leave money and flowers for the angel. He’s found bottles of liquor given as offerings, and a lot of people have been married in front of it.

Teresa’s Legacy

In the end, the ghost stories aren’t what really matter. It’s always been about one woman’s wish to keep the memories of her beloved son and her husband alive.

Author Tim Parrot wrote a book called “The Black Angel A Centennial History 1913 – 2013”. He said Teresa didn’t care about the whispers about the statue, according to interviews with her that he’s read.

“Her concern wasn’t for the Black Angel. It wasn’t about anything except her son and her last husband. She seemed very concerned about people knowing who they were.”

I’ll be back next week with more stories from Oakland Cemetery.

When I realized we would be driving right past the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library in West Branch, Iowa on our journey back to Omaha, I was determine that we’d stop. We wouldn’t have time to visit the library itself, but if it was possible to get a glimpse of Hoover’s grave, I was going to try.

This was my first official U.S. presidential grave! I’ve seen 10 more since, but seeing Hoover’s was special to me.

Born in West Branch, Iowa

Herbert Clark Hoover was born in West Branch, Iowa on Aug. 10, 1874, making him the first American president to be born west of the Mississippi River.

His father, Jesse Hoover, was a blacksmith and farm implement store owner. His mother, Hulda Randall Minthorn Hoover, raised in Canada, moved to Iowa in 1859. They were Quakers. From what I’ve read, he had a happy early childhood.

Jesse died in 1880 at age 34 of a sudden heart attack and Hulda died in 1884 of typhoid, leaving Herbert and his two siblings orphans. Hoover lived the next 18 months with his paternal uncle Allen Hoover at a nearby farm.

In November 1885, Hoover went to Newberg, Ore., to live with his maternal uncle John Minthorn, a Quaker physician and businessman. The Minthorn household was considered cultured and educational, and imparted in Herbert a strong work ethic.

We did watch a film at the visitor’s center before they closed. I was curious to know why, since Hoover only lived in West Branch nine years, did he choose it as the site for his presidential library? Apparently, Hoover always had fond memories of his childhood in West Branch, when his parents were still living, so that’s where he wanted it.

The library and museum are located within the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site, which contains Hoover’s birthplace, a reconstruction of Hoover’s father’s blacksmith shop, a one-room schoolhouse, and a Quaker meeting house. We had time to briefly visit Hoover’s birthplace cottage then hoofed it down a long path up a hillside to his grave. The National Park Service manages the site.

Early Days

Plenty of authors have written about the Hoovers, so I’m going to try to hit the highlights.

Herbert Hoover was part of the inaugural class at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. He graduated in 1895 with a degree in geology and became a mining engineer, working on a wide variety of projects on four continents.

While a senior at Stanford, Hoover met his future wife, Waterloo, Iowa native Lou Henry. Born in 1874, Lou grew up something of a tomboy in the Monterey, Calif. area. She loved the outdoors as much as Herbert did.

Lou got a teaching credential in 1893 from San Jose State University (then San Jose Normal School) and worked at her father’s bank. The following year, she enrolled at Stanford to pursue a degree in geology. In 1898, Lou became the first woman to receive a bachelor’s degree in geology from Stanford, one of the first women in America to hold such a degree.

Married Life

In 1897, Hoover took an engineering job in Australia. Lou and Herbert were engaged before he left. They were married in her family’s home on Feb. 10, 1899. Herbert was hired as chief engineer of the Chinese Engineering and Mining Company in Tianjin, China, where they went after their honeymoon.

Caught in China during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, Hoover organized relief for trapped foreigners. Lou, who learned Chinese, treated gunshot wounds, built barricades, and rode through the area on her bicycle with a pistol patrolling with Western troops. I have to say, Lou was no slouch!

The Hoovers made their home in London in November 1901 after Herbert was offered a partnership with a British mining company. His work took them all over the world. The Hoovers had two sons who joined them as they traveled. Herbert Hoover Jr. was born in 1903, and Allan Hoover was born in 1907. The family became wealthy after Herbert’s decision to become an independent consultant in 1908.

In 1914, Hoover helped Americans stranded in Europe at the outbreak of World War I. For the next three years, he headed the Commission for Relief in Belgium, helping find food for some nine million people. His skills impressed Pres. Woodrow Wilson so much that he appointed him U.S. food administrator for the duration of the war.

The Hoovers returned to America in January 1917. When the U.S. entered World War I three months later, Herbert was appointed head of the Food and Drug Administration, and the family made their home in Washington, D.C.

After World War I

Hoover was tapped to head the American Relief Administration. The ARA sent food and supplies to war-ravaged Europe. The outreach to Soviet Russia garnered Hoover much criticism, but he defended his actions by saying, “Twenty million people are starving. Whatever their politics, they shall be fed.”

In 1921, President-elect Warren G. Harding chose Hoover to serve as secretary of commerce. Continuing as commerce secretary under Pres. Calvin Coolidge, Hoover spearheaded efforts that ultimately led to construction of Hoover Dam and the St. Lawrence Seaway.

When Coolidge decided not to run for another term in 1928, Hoover received the Republican presidential nomination. Hoover and running mate Charles Curtis ran against New York Gov. Alfred E. Smith and vice presidential candidate Joseph T. Robinson in a contest that focused on Prohibition and religion. Hoover captured more than 21 million popular votes to Smith’s approximately 15 million, and he received 444 electoral votes to his Democratic opponent’s 87.

Presidential Years

Lou was her husband’s frequent adviser while he was president. Throughout her tenure, she refused to give interviews to the press, seeing them as intrusive. Instead, she gave speeches over the radio, the first president’s wife to do so.

The stock market cash of 1929 plunged the country into the worst economic collapse in its history. Hoover parted ways with leaders of the Republican Party who thought there was nothing for the government to do but wait for the next phase of the business cycle.

Hoover called business leaders to the White House to urge them not to lay off workers or cut wages. He urged state and local governments to join private charities in caring for Americans made destitute by the Depression. He asked Congress to appropriate money for public works projects to expand government employment. He established new agencies such as the Federal Farm Board, the Federal Drought Relief Committee, and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.

But Hoover would not provide direct federal relief to the unemployed. Instead, he promoted indirect relief through public works projects and loans to states. His programs proved inadequate as the number of unemployed workers increased from 7 million in 1931 to 11 million in 1933.

Hoover’s political reputation as the “master of emergencies” collapsed in the face of rising unemployment. Although he mounted a vigorous campaign for re-election in 1932, Hoover lost to Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Hoovers departed Washington on March 4, 1933. He was only 58.

Back to Private Life

While Hoover considered going back into politics after his defeat, the Hoovers were understandably bitter about what happened. He and Lou lived in Palo Alto until her death after a heart attack in New York City at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel on Jan. 7, 1944. Her funeral was held at St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York.

Hoover was a constant critic of Roosevelt. In response to continued attacks on his character and presidency, Hoover wrote more than two dozen books, including The Challenge to Liberty (1934). At the 1940 Republican National Convention, Hoover hoped for the presidential nomination, but it went to the Wendell Willkie, who lost to Roosevelt in the general election.

After World War II, Hoover befriended President Harry Truman despite their differences. Because of Hoover’s experience with Germany at the end of World War I, Truman selected him in 1946 to tour Allied-occupied Germany and Rome, Italy to ascertain the food needs of the occupied nations. On Hoover’s initiative, a school meals program in the American and British occupation zones of Germany began on April 14, 1947. It served 3,500,000 children.

In 1954, a group of Hoover’s friends incorporated the Herbert Hoover Birthplace Foundation to raise money for preservation of his birthplace, and to plan for site improvements. One of their ideas was to build a small museum, and with Hoover’s approval work began in the late 1950s. The architectural firm of Eggers and Higgins of New York drew the plans for the original building. While the museum at West Branch was still under construction, Hoover decided to expand it and make it his Presidential Library.

The Library and Museum was officially dedicated on Aug. 10, 1962, Hoover’s 88th birthday. Hoover and former President Truman were present at the dedication.

Herbert Hoover died in New York City on Oct. 20, 1964, following massive internal bleeding. Two months earlier, Hoover reached the age of 90, only the second U.S. president (after John Adams) to do so. At the time of his death, Hoover had been out of office for over 31 years. This was the longest retirement in presidential history until Jimmy Carter broke that record in September 2012. Hoover was honored with a state funeral in which he lay in state in the U.S. Capitol rotunda.

On October 25, Hoover was buried in West Branch. Lou Hoover, buried in Palo Alto following her death in 1944, was re-interred beside him soon after.

The original Library and Museum building was expanded several times. On Aug. 8, 1992, former President Ronald Reagan rededicated the Library and Museum. The $6.5 million renovation/expansion was a public–private partnership, with Washington supplying $5 million for bricks and mortar, supplementing $1.5 million raised by the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Association for new exhibits.

Iowa architect William Wagner designed the memorial. Two plainly inscribed ledger stones of Vermont white marble mark the Hoover graves.

Across the curved walkway, an American flag waves. Hoover signed the congressional resolution making “The Star Spangled Banner” the national anthem during his term as president in 1931. My picture of it isn’t very good but it gives you an idea of what it looks like.

It would be easy to sink into the debate over how much Herbert Hoover was out of touch and inept as a president, as many scholars opine. But as we were heading back to our car, I thought how more interested I was in the Hoover marriage. They were both outdoor enthusiasts, highly intelligent, shared a love of geology, and were devoted to each other. I don’t doubt that they had some lively debates in their private moments. More than some presidential marriages, I think the Hoovers respected and loved each other deeply.

It was time to head to Iowa City to check into our hotel for the night. We had another Iowa cemetery stop before we returned to Nebraska.

It’s not often I visit a large cemetery and only visit a few graves, then take off. But in the case of Anamosa, Iowa’s Riverside Cemetery, that is exactly what I did. Sometimes time is not on my side.

You might remember that I talked about artist Grant Wood a few months ago when I was writing about Cedar Rapids’ Oak Hill Cemetery because Dr. Byron McKeeby is buried there. A dentist in real life, he stood is as the model for the farmer in Wood’s classic “American Gothic” painting.

In a nutshell, Riverside Cemetery has about 4,720 memorials listed on Find a Grave with the earliest death date listed in the 1840s. It’s an active cemetery with burials taking place. That’s about all I know about it.

Grant Wood’s Home Town

Born in Anamosa in 1891 to Francis Maryville Wood and Hattie DeEtte Weaver Wood, Grant Devolson Wood and his mother moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa after Francis passed away in 1901. Soon after, Wood began as an apprentice in a local metal shop. After graduating from high school, Wood enrolled in the Handicraft Guild, an art school run entirely by women in Minneapolis, Minn. in 1910.

In 1913, Wood enrolled at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and performed some work as a silversmith. Near the end of World War I, Wood joined the military, working as an artist designing camouflage scenes as well as other art.

From 1919 to 1925, Wood taught art to junior high school students in the Cedar Rapids public school system. From 1922 to 1935, Wood lived with his mother in the loft of a carriage house in Cedar Rapids, which he turned into his personal studio.

Between 1922 and 1928, Wood made four trips to Europe, where he studied many styles of painting. But it was the work of the 15th-century Flemish artist Jan van Eyck that influenced him to take on the clarity of this technique and incorporate it in his new works.

In 1932, Wood helped found the Stone City Art Colony near Anamosa to help artists get through the Great Depression. He became a great proponent of Regionalism in the arts, lecturing throughout the country on the topic.

From 1934 to 1941, Wood taught painting at the University of Iowa’s School of Art. During that time, he supervised mural painting projects, mentored students, produced a variety of his own works, and became a key part of the university’s cultural community.

On our journey east, we stopped at Iowa State University and visited the Parks Library to see some of the murals Wood did there. According to a sign, the murals illustrate the theme put forth by Daniel Webster: “When tillage begins, other arts follow.” The murals were restored in 1974.

Regionalism

Wood is associated with the American movement of Regionalism, primarily situated in the Midwest, and advanced figurative painting of rural American themes in an aggressive rejection of European abstraction.

Wood was one of three artists most associated with the movement. The others, John Steuart Curry and Thomas Hart Benton (a favorite of mine), returned to the Midwest in the 1930s due to Wood’s encouragement and assistance with locating teaching positions for them at colleges in Wisconsin and Missouri, respectively.

A portrait of the Wood’s mother, “Woman With Plants” (1929), is regarded as Wood’s stylistic breakthrough, but it was “American Gothic” in 1930 that put him on the art world map and has kept him there. Alternately interpreted as a hymn to Middle American values or a spoof of them, it caused a sensation when it first appeared at the Art Institute of Chicago and has since been endlessly reproduced and parodied in all kinds of media.

Wood died of pancreatic cancer one day before his 51st birthday on Feb. 12, 1942. A lounging lion dominated the family stone in the middle of the plot.

Grant is buried with his parents, his brother, John (who died in 1935), and his sister, Nan (who was the farmer’s daughter in “American Gothic”). Nan died in 1990 and spent the last decades of her life promoting her famous brother’s work. I did not get a picture of her marker, unfortunately.

White Bronze Beauty

It was a delight to find a few white bronze markers scattered about Riverside Cemetery. This one for Adeline Spaulding Smith caught my eye due to the fact it was in such good condition. The clam shell on top is still intact as well. I’d never seen one up close before.

Born in Maquoketa, Iowa in 1850 to master carpenter Alonzo Spaulding and Mary Sheerer Spaulding, Adeline Brown Spaulding was one of four children the couple had. On Nov. 4, 1873, she married Scottish immigrant James E. Smith in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Before that time, her death notice told me, she had been a school teacher in the Cedar Falls, Iowa public schools.

Adeline died on Oct. 7, 1878 after a short illness at age 28. Her body was returned to Anamosa so she could be buried with grandmother in Riverside Cemetery. Adeline’s husband, James, moved to Vermont to be near his mother and died there in 1933. I don’t know what became of the little child they adopted before Adeline died.

The next two white bronze markers, I later learned, are cenotaphs. That means the people they represent are not actually buried there.

On the left is the cenotaph for Martha “Patty” Eyre Booth. According to her Find a Grave memorial:

She is listed on the cemetery records as “Mrs. Martha Booth,” but she was the widow of Peter Booth, and had married a second time, to Levi Rumrill. But Rumrill also predeceased her by a number of years. Where Martha actually is buried is not known. After Rumrill’s death, she came to Anamosa, Iowa, in June 1840, where several of her children were, and she reverted to the “Booth” name. It is believed that she was buried in Wilcox Cemetery near Fairview, Iowa — where her son Edmund’s first daughter — who died at age 17 months — was buried. But the location of the graves was lost. Thus the cenotaphs in the Anamosa cemetery with the rest of the family.

Mrs. Booth died on June 28, 1854, many years before white bronze markers were being made. So it was placed much later.

On the right is a smaller marker for Harriet Booth, the daughter of Edmund and Mary Ann Booth. Born on Feb. 22, 1846, Harried died on July 31, 1847 at the age of 14 months.

Her father, Edmund (1810-1905), was a bit of a legend as a deaf pioneer and abolitionist. His Find a Grave memorial notes:

Born in 1810, Edmund Booth epitomized virtually everything that characterized an American legend of the 19th century. He taught school in Hartford, Conn., then went west to Anamosa, Iowa, where he built the area’s first frame house. He left in 1849 to travel the Overland Trail on his way to join the California Gold Rush. After he returned to Iowa in 1854, he became the owner and editor of the Anamosa EUREKA, the local newspaper. Edmund Booth fit perfectly the mold of the ingenious pioneer of 19th-century America, except for one unusual difference – he was deaf.

Edmund is buried at Riverside Cemetery with his wife (and Harriet’s mother), Mary Ann Walworth Booth. Also deaf, Mary Ann was one of Edmund’s former pupils in Connecticut. I did not get a photo of either of there graves.

Time to Go

We had one more stop to make before checking in at our Iowa City hotel that night. We had a Presidential grave to visit!

Last week, I introduced you to the Anamosa State Penitentiary (ASP) Cemetery and shared some of the stories I uncovered while researching the graves. I hope you’re ready for a few more!

“Until Sane”

One of the more bizarre stories I came across at the ASP Cemetery was about Truman J. Gilchrist. His last name was misspelled on his grave marker. Then I saw on his Find a grave memorial was that he had been committed to ASP for safekeeping “until sane”.

If that doesn’t make you want to dig deeper, I don’t know what would.

Born in 1865 in Iowa to Joseph Gilchrist and Sarah Bushyager Gilchrist, Truman grew up on a farm in Franklin County, Iowa. At age 34, he married Tena Albertena Howard in 1901. They settled in the Hampton area (about 130 miles from ASP) and had two children together.

On the morning of Oct. 28, 1904, Truman showed up at a neighboring farm belonging to the Bushyagers (possibly his mother-in-law’s family) nearly naked and told them he had killed Tena. They rushed to the Gilchrist home to find Tena laying dead in the bedroom, her two little ones alive and well nearby. She had been shot with a double-barreled shotgun.

At first, everyone was stunned. There had been no indication that Truman ever had a beef with his wife. He’d not appeared to be insane. Rumors swirled that Truman suspected in the weeks leading up to the murder that Tena was poisoning him (she was not). He’d supposedly sought help from a doctor. Truman was put in the county jail to await the court’s decision. In the meantime, one article said, the Gilchrist children were being adopted by the Fred Paullus family in Hampton.

In early February, a judge declared Truman insane and he was sent to ASP’s Insanity Unit where he was to stay until he “became sane”. If and when he did , he could be tried for the murder. Truman would remain at ASP for 45 years, never leaving the Insanity Unit. He died there on Aug. 30, 1950 at the age of 85.

Tena is buried in Union Cemetery in Lockridge Township, Iowa. She was 40 when she died. I don’t know what became of their children.

“Recovered”

In the case of Elias Lyons, prison officials deemed him “recovered” from his insanity but he was back at ASP not long after his release.

Born in 1890, Elias Lyons was convicted of larceny in 1911 and sentenced to serve his time at Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison (which closed in 2015). He was later sent to ASP to spend some time in the Insanity Unit. But in 1914, he was deemed “recovered” and sent back to Fort Madison along with 19 other prisoners. He was released from prison on Nov. 22, 1914.

On Dec. 7, 1914, Elias attempted to stop a car to rob its passengers by placing a rope across a bridge road in Burlington, Iowa.

Elias was sent back to ASP where he died on May 19, 1925. He was 34. I don’t know what his cause of death was.

“Interior Decorator Before Prison”

Charles DeForrest Ives only spent the last few months of his life at ASP. But he’d already spent the previous 15 years at another prison. However, from what I can tell, Charles hadn’t always led a life of crime.

Born in Elkhart, Ind. in 1901, Charles was the son of Joseph G. and Helen Van Doren Ives. Charles wed teacher Florence Lake in Des Moines, Iowa in 1923. They settled there and Charles worked various jobs over the next several years, from engineer to painter/wallpaper hanger. The couple had two sons together.

Unfortunately, Charles slid into criminal activity. On Jan. 10, 1931, he attempted to rob a grocery store owned by George Cordaro. He had an accomplice, whose wife was thought to be the lookout. Later, Charles would confess to sheriff Charles Keeling that he and Cordaro had struggled over the gun and “In the scuffle, my gun went off.”

Charles also is noted to have felt bad about what he’d done and said, “Tell them to get the clean sheets ready at Fort Madison,” referring to the Iowa State Penitentiary.

Charles was in a truth-telling frame of mind and went on to confess to six street car robberies and two holdups. He claimed he had only done it because he needed the money. When he went to trial, he plead not guilty to the murder, but was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

However, many suspected there was more to it than that. The lookout, Lela Wiggins, was thought to be the reason Ives had held up the store. The two were thought to be lovers and some felt Ives confessed to protect her from serving time. Her husband, Hoyt, had assisted Ives in several robberies. He was convicted of a different robbery and sentenced to 10 years at Fort Madison. Lela divorced Hoyt while he was in prison.

Charles’ Find a Grave memorial claims he served time at San Quentin in California but I found no record of that. He did his time at Fort Madison. I wonder if he ran into Hoyt Wiggins while he was there. Charles contracted tuberculosis and was transferred to ASP’s hospital unit. He died there on Dec. 20, 1945 at age 44.

His death certificate listed his profession as “interior decorator before prison”.

Charles’ wife, Florence, divorced him and went on with her life. She continued to teach and moved with her sons to Clinton, Iowa. She died in 1985 in Durango, Colo. One of her sons became a doctor and moved to Louisiana.

Misspent Youth

I have more questions than answers concerning my final story. Arthur Fawcett was still a boy when he died, having gone down the wrong path.

Born in England in 1909, Arthur was the son of Thomas Lester Fawcett and Jennie Smith Fawcett. The Fawcetts emigrated to Canada in 1910 then to America in 1911. According to the 1920 U.S. Census, Thomas was working as a miner in Polk County north of Des Moines. Later, he worked laying linoleum.

Sadly, Thomas died on Feb. 25, 1927 from a brain abcess. He was 41. He is buried in Floyd Cemetery in Sioux City, Iowa.

It wasn’t long after that when Arthur’s name started appearing in the Sioux City Journal as the culprit in various car thefts/joy riding incidents. On Nov. 22, 1297 he got fined for a traffic violation. On Dec. 13, 2017, Arthur and a friend were arrested for the theft of seven cars (with which they went joy riding) and charged with larceny of a vehicle. As a result, they went to jail.

Arthur somehow got paroled a few months later. In February 1928, he was arrested again for having tried to sell tires off of a stolen car. Back to jail he went. In May 1928, his sentence was reduced by three months.

I’m not exactly sure what happened after that, but Arthur died at ASP on March 20, 1930. He was only 20 at the time. His death certificate lists his cause of death as cirrhosis of the liver. That’s not something I’ve ever seen in a fellow that young.

We had a brief stop to make in Anamosa before we began out trek back west. Join me next time at Riverside Cemetery.

Since cemeteries are viewed by many as outdoor museums, it isn’t a stretch for me to say that I’m a bit of a museum junkie. It doesn’t take much to get me to visit one, the more obscure the topic the better. I love learning about anything and everything!

When I was doing research for this road trip, I discovered that Iowa’s Anamosa State Penitentiary (ASP) not only had a museum, it had a cemetery that’s open to the public. There was no way I was going to miss out on that!

So we headed east from Springville to Anamosa, a brief 10 mile ride. I was also interested in visiting Anamosa to visit the cemetery where artist Grant Wood was buried. I talked about him during my visited to Cedar Rapids’ Oak Hill Cemetery. Wood spent his last years in the Anamosa area. I’ll be writing about that in a few weeks.

Approved in 1872

First approved in 1872 by the Iowa Legislature because the prison in Fort Madison was full, the Anamosa State Penitentiary was first known as the Additional Penitentiary, then the Anamosa Penitentiary before it was a Reformatory. Then it became a Penitentiary once again. Inmates did much of the labor on the stone walls and buildings, some of them dying in the process.

ASP’s walls, which are about 12 feet thick at the base and four feet thick at the top, enclose about 12 acres. It had a Female Department and an Insane Unit for decades.

One of Anamosa’s most infamous prisoners was 11-year-old Wesley Elkins, convicted of killing two people. Sentenced to life, Elkins ended up only serving a nine-year sentence. You might also remember Frank Novak, who I wrote about a few weeks ago. He tried to fake his own death for the insurance money, committed murder, and fled Cedar Rapids to Alaska. He was eventually caught and spent some years at Anamosa.

ASP’s most infamous inmate was serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who served time there for 18 months on a sodomy charge. He was released in 1970 and returned to the Chicago area where he began to commit his many murders.

As of March 2021, there were about 945 inmates serving time at ASP. That same year, corrections officer Robert McFarland and nurse Lorena Schulte were murdered by prisoners during a botched escape attempt. Inmates have been killed during escape attempts at ASP before, but 2021’s incident was the first time staff members working at the prison were killed by prisoners.

Prison Museum & Gift Shop

It may seem hard to believe that a working prison might have a museum and a gift shop, but Anamosa does. It’s housed in the building that used to be a cheese factory. The penitentiary once produced large amounts of food for prison consumption, from beef and milk to fresh vegetables.

The museum has a recreation of a typical historic cell (it’s understandably small) and records of past inmates, photos of construction, and examples of prison products. Prison sports teams, stories of famous inmates, and the evolution of correctional policies and prison administrators are all included. I was quite impressed at the amount of information and the number of artifacts they had.

One thing I learned while I was there was that during his stay, John Wayne Gacy was a model prisoner. He worked in the bakery and helped build a miniature golf course that is still in use today. I looked for a picture of it at the museum but never saw one.

We spent a good amount of time talking to the museum staff, who told us that many of their family members currently worked at ASP or had worked there in the past. While not exactly a pleasant place to work, ASP continues to provide jobs for many in the community.

I want to note that I don’t know if this museum is still open. Apparently, it closed during Covid and I don’t know if it ever reopened. If that’s true, I’m glad we had the opportunity to see it.

Also Called Boot Hill Cemetery

Located about a mile and a half from the prison is the ASP Cemetery, also known as the Iowa Men’s Reformatory Cemetery and Boot Hill Cemetery.

I was a bit surprised that ASP’s cemetery is open to the public like it is. Most prison cemeteries, even the ones as old as ASP, are close to the facility and off limits. But I’m certainly glad we were able to see it.

The first cemetery associated with ASP was established in 1876 at Prison Farm No. 1 or possibly at Farm No. 5. Its exact location is unknown. The graves are of those prisoners whose bodies were left unclaimed or were not taken to one of the state’s medical colleges. They were buried in common graves that contained up to eight bodies. Tall limestone markers were placed at each grave and contained the prisoner’s name and death date.

They were moved here when the current cemetery was established in 1914. Subsequent graves hold individual bodies, and are marked with shorter limestone markers with the prisoner’s name, age, date of death, and sometimes their prison number. According to Find a Grave, the most recent burial took place in 2021. So it is still an active burial ground. Most of the time, prisoners who die at ASP are now claimed by family members and taken elsewhere for burial.

They are in three different styles. Two styles are upright stones, one with a triangular top and the other with a rounded top. They were used from 1914 to the 1940s. The third style of stone is a flat, horizontal marker that was used from the 1940s to the present.

Find a Grave lists about 180 graves here. There don’t look to be that many markers. Then I realized that some of the larger stones had multiple names on them, like this one.

One of the earliest burials listed on the above marker is for George Williams, who died on Dec. 11, 1873. That was when construction began at ASP.

Listed right below Williams’ name is that of Noah Banks. Born in 1828 in Arkansas, Banks was convicted of more than one bank robbery in 1874 and was sent to ASP for five years. The Waterloo Courier reported that:

Upon receiving his sentence he [Banks] swore the direst vengeance on all who had been instrumental, in any way, in securing that result, and more especially did he call down curses upon the devoted heads of our citizens, who may now draw a long breath of relief, resting secure.

Banks escaped prison twice before he died. Once in Independence, Mo. and another at ASP. But he was captured both times. Banks died at ASP of kidney disease on June 18, 1876 at age 47.

Dying the same day was African-American prisoner Edwin Smith, who died of tuberculosis at age 26. He was serving a two-year term for larceny.

ASP Escape Attempts

On July 14, 1881, 11 prisoners on their way to the dining hall made an attempt to escape. Charles Thomas, 23, was shot by a guard and brought back inside. A few others were also caught while four managed to get away. I don’t know if they were ever caught but rewards were offered for their capture/return.

Thomas had been at ASP for about a year, sentenced to a six-year term for larceny and robbery.

Charles died from his wound about a month later on Aug. 21, 1881. The article I found below gives us a glimpse into what a prison funeral might have been like. Warning, it’s a little medically graphic in detail.

Two more inmates died as a result of another attempted prison escape on Aug. 10, 1886. Patrick “Paddy” Ryan (30) and Albert Mitchell (27) were both shot. One died instantly and the other the next day.

Death of a Tramp

Some of those resting at the ASP Cemetery were housed in what was termed the Insane Unit. John Reed was one of them.

I could find out little about him. In the articles I read, Reed is described as a tramp who suffered from alcoholism. He would not disclose who his parents were, he said, because they were poor and he didn’t want to bring shame to them.

Born in 1882, he was convicted of murdering a bridge tender in 1910. What happened to bring that about and how he died in 1912 are in the article below.

It’s doubtful John’s parents knew whatever became of him. He was about 30 when he died.

A Terrible End

Then there are those stories that just leave you shaking your head, such as the one for Cain Russell.

Cain Russell was a farmer in Birmingham, Iowa, married to Etta Jane Marriott Russell. Together, they had several children over the years.

On the morning of Aug. 1, 1917, Cain shot and killed his wife with a shotgun blast to the back of her head.

According to bits and pieces I’ve read, 18 months before this, Cain had come before an “insanity board” to determine his soundness of mind but had escaped being sent to an asylum. He was described as increasingly short-tempered and irritable. One account of the murder read as follows:

The morning of the tragedy the mother had nursed her 11-months old baby boy and laid him on the bed asleep. As she went to the kitchen she noticed her husband prowling around in a closet and asked him what he wanted, and he replied nothing, but was evidently getting his gun. She then went to the garden for a pan of beans for dinner, brought them to the kitchen and placed them on the table.

It is supposed she was going out of doors again, as the husband came behind and shot her at close range with the one-barreled shotgun, the full load striking her behind the left ear, making a frightful wound, but did not disfigure her face. She dropped to the floor and was partly in a reclining position in the kitchen, her head resting on a chair. The husband apparently realized what he had done and was filled with remorse, as he had tried to kiss her after the deed, and his face and hands were covered with blood.

Cain was sent to ASP and placed in the Insane Unit. He died there on March 27, 1930 at age 58. His brother, Samuel Russell, supposedly died at the asylum in Mount Pleasant, Iowa in 1911.

Cain’s Find a Grave memorial notes that he suffered from Huntington’s Disease., a genetic disorder with no cure. I’m doubtful anyone knew much about it at that time. Cain’s deterioration over the years leading up to the murder sound similar in some ways to what Huntington’s Disease sufferers go through.

While some of the Russell children were grown and married, several were quite young and one was an infant. They went to live with their siblings or other relatives. Etta is buried at Iowa’s Van Buren Cemetery. She was 43 at the time of her death.

Cain and Etta’s youngest daughter, Leoma, had Huntington’s Disease. Born in 1914, she was only three years old when her mother died. She married Llewellyn Mallinger in 1932 and the couple had three children. Her death certificate states that when she died of pneumonia on March 24, 1959, she was living at the mental health institute in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. It also noted she had suffered from Huntington’s Disease for 12 to 15 years. She was 45 when she died. She is buried at Highland Cemetery in Richland, Iowa.

I’ll have more stories from Anamosa State Penitentiary Cemetery next week.

Last week, I shared a number of white bronze (zinc) monuments at Springville Cemetery in Linn County, Iowa. Today I’m going to share some additional monuments that got my attention (made of other materials).

In reviewing my photos, I came across one that caught my eye because it has a Georgia connection. A native of Iowa, Isaac E. Robinson was only 21 when he died far from home in Rome, Ga. during the Civil War.

An estimated 76,242 Iowa men (out of a total population of 674,913 in 1860) served in the military during the Civil War, many in combat units attached to the Western armies. About 13,000 died of wounds or disease (two-thirds of whom were of the latter).

Far From Home

Isaac was born in Iowa around 1843 to George H. Robinson and Sarah Butler Robinson. His father died in 1847 and his mother remarried to Samuel Starry around 1850.

Isaac was living in Onion Grove, Iowa (now called Clarence), which is about 33 miles east of Springville. He enlisted in the Union Army on Aug. 30,1861 and was assigned to the Ninth Iowa Infantry, Company B. Issac was 18 at the time.

According to his military records, Isaac’s service included battles of Pea Ridge, Ark. (March 1862), Chickasaw Bayou (December 1862), Fort Hindman (January 1863), assault and siege of Vicksburg (May – Apr 1863), siege of Jackson, Miss. (July 1863), Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, Ringgold Gap (November 1863), and Resaca and Dallas, Ga. (May-June 1864).

Isaac received a severe wound in his thigh on May 27, 1864 in Dallas, Ga. He died on Aug. 28, 1864 in Rome, Ga, most likely of sepsis. His remains were eventually sent back to Iowa for burial in Springville Cemetery. I don’t think he was married. Unfortunately, his inscription is very worn and faded.

Isaac is buried beside his father, George, and his mother, Sarah, who died in 1872. She shares a marker with her second husband, Samuel, who died in 1880.

Rock of Ages

It’s hard to not be drawn to the Jordan monument with its combination of stone and mosaic tile. I’m always curious by how these were made and who made them.

Lemuel Dyer Jordan and his wife, Nancy, came to Iowa sometime in the 1840s from Maine. Their eldest son, George, was born in 1846. He worked as a stock buyer (cattle) and married Emily Alice Gilliland around 1865. The couple had several children.

George died in Springville on March 24, 1921 at age 75. Emily died on Dec. 16, 1926 at age 77 but she does not have a marker.

George and Emily’s youngest son, Frank, was born in 1886. He, too, was a stock buyer. He married twice and served in World War I as a private. In later years, he operated a drug store in Springville. He spent the last three years of his life at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Knoxville, Tenn. where he died on Jan. 27, 1947.

Danish Blacksmith

Probably the most unique grave marker at Springville Cemetery is this one for Danish immigrant Christian “Chris” Nielsen. In 1887, he married Inger Marie Nielsen (not related). They emigrated to Iowa from Denmark around 1890. Together, they had three daughters. One of them, Tevvedora, died in infancy but the other two lived long lives.

As you can see, Chris was employed as a blacksmith. The anvil and hammer make that apparent. I have no idea who made it for him, but it’s very cleverly done.

Chris died on Thursday, Oct. 15, 1936 after a long illness. He was 78. Marie died in 1945. She has her own marker and a shared one with Chris and Tevvedora.

Fort Dearborn Massacre Survivor

When I photographed Susan Millhouse Simmons’ grave, I knew nothing about her. Frankly, I was stunned when I began reading what happened to her before she ever arrived in Iowa.

Born in 1777 in Pennsylvania, Susan married John Simmons in Ohio in 1808. In 1810, John enlisted in the First United States Infantry and was assigned for duty to Fort Dearborn in Illinois. He was soon made a non-commissioned officer. The couple’s son, David, was born that same year. A daughter, also named Susan, was born Feb. 12, 1812 at Fort Dearborn.

Fort Dearborn was located on the south bank of the main stem of the Chicago River in what is now the Loop community area of downtown Chicago. At the time, the area was basically wilderness.

On Aug. 15, 1812, soldiers and settlers evacuating Fort Dearborn were massacred by Pottawatomie Indians in a surprise attack, killing 53 soldiers, women, and children. Among them were John Simmons and his little son, David. John died defending the wagon his wife and children were in. He was buried much later in a mass grave on the battle site.

Survivors were taken prisoner by the Pottawatomie and were held captive as long as two years before making their way to freedom. Susan and her daughter were taken to Green Bay, Wisc. On the march, she walked and carried her baby, the entire distance being over two hundred miles. She was a captive for eight months. One narrative I read stated that many times, she was told to hand over little Susan to them but she adamantly refused.

In fall 1812, the Pottawatomie, with their prisoners, left Green Bay, and marched to the ruins of Fort Dearborn, then around the end of Lake Michigan and up to Mackinas, to Fort Meigs. In April 1813, negotiations for the prisoners were opened. Susan and little Susan were set free and returned to Ohio.

Susan married widower John Redenbaugh in 1820. Daughter Susan married Moses Winans in 1828. They had nine children. John Redenbaugh died in 1847. When Moses and Susan Winans moved with their family to Springville, Iowa in 1853, her mother went with them.

Susan Millhouse Simmons Redenbaugh died in Springville on Feb. 27, 1857 at age 79.

Moses Winans died on Aug. 24, 1871 at age 63. Susan Winans moved to California with some of her adult children after 1885. She died in Santa Ana, Calif. at age 88 on April 27, 1900. She is buried in Santa Ana Cemetery along with her adult children Lewis, William, and Amy. Some of her other adult children (Hiram, John, Esther, David) who remained in Iowa are buried in Springville Cemetery with their father.

Our next stop was Anamosa, Iowa, where we visited the Anamosa State Penitentiary museum and the prisoner cemetery located nearby. You won’t want to miss that!