Portsmouth Pet Cemetery

Out in the quiet countryside of southeastern Rhode Island, somewhere between Portsmouth and Newport, you'll find a tiny pet cemetery. Located in the front yard of the K-9 Instincts pet hospital are the remains of dogs, cats, birds and various other creatures that have kept local (and some not so local) Rhode Islanders company over the past 70 years or so. In fact this little graveyard was first opened in the late 1930s, and its most famous resident is "Pookie,' longtime companion of Edward and Wallis, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

That's right, Pookie:

Green-Wood cemetery in Brooklyn, New York

In September of 2007 Susie and I were staying with our friend Don in Brooklyn -- his wife was in the hospital and we had missed seeing them both during our travels overseas. So, we thought that while we were between gigs so to speak -- Maine was over and Paris redux was about to begin -- that we would drive to the second largest (?) city in America and spend some time with friends.

Well, before we left their house to drive back to Massachusetts -- we were staying with Dick and Dorothy at the time -- I suggested that we check out Green-Wood cemetery in Brooklyn since I had an Old Third Michigan solder buried there (Edward S. Earle in fact). Don kindly drove us and we spent a couple of hours wandering around this incredibly beautiful cemetery, located on what may very well be the highest point in the city. Anyway, it has a fantastic view of Liberty Island.

The cemetery is computerized and the kiosks are easy to use -- they even print out a map of the burial location you're looking for and what could be easier! Still, we wanted to walk and so we did, past the Civil War memorial and Leonard Bernstein's grave (photo below: Don Archer looking at Leonard).

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the tropical (!) green parrots that have nests in the massive gothic facade at the main entrance to the cemetery. One of the staff told us that about 15 years ago a crate of these birds broke open at JFK airport and they somehow found themselves at Green-Wood where they have been nesting ever since.

And one other thing: the cemetery is presently replacing every single Civil War veteran government stone with a brand new one-- in fact they had them all laid out in a large yard off to the side of the main entrance, just waiting to be put in place. Incredible.

Here are just a few photos from that all-too-brief trip to the cemetery -- just run your cursor over the bottom of the image to bring up the player controls, oh and you can just click on the image itself to access, well, the image itself!

Mt. Auburn

It was a gorgeous day on Monday, February 25, so I grabbed my camera and drove up to Mt. Auburn cemetery in Cambridge, MA. I had been to Mt. Auburn some years ago -- OK quite a few years ago -- and had always meant to return. since we live so close now -- about 60 miles or so -- I plan on returning in the spring for a good solid day of shooting.

As many of your know Mt. Auburn, founded in 1831 was the first of its kind: a burial ground in a parklike setting. It was in fact, according to the cemetery's website, "the first large-scale designed landscape open to the public in the United States." Indeed the cemetery is the birthplace of the pastoral cemetery movement in the United States.

It is also the final resting place of Longfellow, Mary Baker Eddy, James Russel Lowell, Bernanrd Malamud, Fannie Farmer, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Juliet Ward Howe, and scores of other American notables. And some of the finest sculpture in New England is to be found scattered along its winding paths and avenues.

So check out the few photos I took -- you can roll your cursor over the bottom to bring up the player controls and click on an image to go straight to the image itself:

Rhode Island's last Vampire

Rhode Island has a quaint and rather unique method for keeping track of most of the state's many small, rural cemeteries: they number them. While this may seem a bit cold and analytical it does help keep things straight. After all how many "Elmwood" or "Greenwood" or "Oak Grove" cemeteries might you find in a state?

Historic Cemetery no. 22 along route 102 in Exeter has the unique distinction in Rhode Island, and I suppose in New England generally, of being the final resting place of the last known vampire in New England.

According to local legend, when 19-year-old Mercy Brown died in 1892, there was speculation that all was not right with the Brown family deaths – her mother died in 1883 and her older sister Mary passed in 1884. All were interred in the Chestnut Hill Baptist Church cemetery, right on route 102. (photo: Mercy is the middle grave in the back, her sister Mary is on Mercy's left and their mother Mary is in front of her daughter Mary; George, the father, is in the front row to the left in the photo.)

Sooooo, after a great deal of speculation among the local townsfolk that maybe there was a vampire in the midst of the tiny community the bodies were exhumed. (And you thought 9/11 hysteria was new, eh?)

While two of the bodies were skeletons, Mercy’s was in pretty good shape and after an autopsy it was discovered that she still had “fresh” blood in her veins and heart! Well the townsfolk took care of that in short order: they burned the heart on the spot and the ashes were made into a remedy for the survivors to drink in order that they may be protected from such a cruel fate. It apparently worked since there were no reports of vampires again. At least that's one variation (For more about Mercy Brown click here!) Anyway, her father George lived until 1922.

Swan Point in Providence

Located off of the beautiful Blackstone Boulevard on the East side of Providence, the rock-lined entrance to Swan Point cemetery hints at what's inside: one of the most sculptured, meticulously maintained and plainly gorgeous cemetery parks in New England. Situated on a series of bluffs overlooking the Seekonk River, many of the residents look to the east across the river. There's also a wonderful drive along the river, and if you're looking for a place for quiet meditation, you can take several turns right down to the river's edge and catch your breath.

A few bits of sculpture makes this a worthwhile place to walk with friends, bicycle, or just casually stroll by yourself, contemplating the dreams and hopes laid out in stone before you.

A few stops are recommended. There's horror writer H. P. Lovecraft's small stone in lot 271 on which he proclaimed to the world, "I am Providence."

(photo: that's Howard Phillips Lovecraft's small stone on the far right there.)

Don't forgot to stop at the burial location Byron and Harriet branch of the Sprague family, where where you can find their 10-year-old daughter Mary and her 3-year-old brother William, both of whom died within three months of each other in 1860, now holding on to each for eternity.

Nearby is the resting place of their parents. Byron died just 6 years after his two children. Harriet, however, suffered that cruelest of fates: to outlive all her loved ones. She wasn't laid to rest next to her husband and children for another fifty years.



Or you might pay your respects to the grave of Elisha Hunt Rhodes. You might remember him from Ken Burns "Civil War." Elisha's letters home during the war served as one of the focal points of the series and were read by that great American storyteller, Garrison Keillor. Rhodes survived that war.

A stop at the office will provide you with a wealth of information, handy maps as well as a self0guided walking or driving tour of the grounds. And just inside the main door you will find a small kiosk, no bigger than an ATM machine, with touch screen instructions that will allow you to find anyone in the cemetery, and then print out a handy map to direct you right to the grave.

But really you will want to spend some time just wandering around this place. it must be beautiful in the spring and summer. I'll be back.

Old North burial ground in Providence

On Wednesday, 12 December I paid my second visit to the Old North Burial Ground in Providence, Rhode Island. (My first visit was several years back, and all I recall is the Elks monument.) As you can see from the attached photo it certainly has to be one of the oldest working cemeteries in New England. (Prior to 1700 the folks of Providence buried their loved ones on their own property.)

This is the final resting place of many of the great, near great and generally unknown people who help to make Providence a major industrial center. Like Brown family, as in the university and not the football team.

If you are looking for someone in particular or even just planning a visit to the cemetery, I urge you to click here right now. Doing so will take you to one of the few websites on the Old North Burying Ground, where you can find out all the details on how to locate someone in the cemetery. Another good website is sponsored by the Bucklin Society. Click here to surf over and check out their handy links. The cemetery office, open on weekdays only, can provide you with a a good map of the cemetery, with the street names clearly marked and some of the more well-known burials and monuments located as well.

(photo: part of the veterans' lot, with a monument to the veterans of the Spanish-American War in the background.)

Oh and way at the very "back" of the cemetery, just past the Potter's field area, you'll find a tiny bit of local history. Wedged in between I-95 on one side and the cemetery on the other is a small but very old portion of the Blackstone Canal, one of the chief watercourses here in the 19th century.

Undertaking on PBS

I just finished watching the Frontline show, "Undertaking," about a family-run undertaking business in Milford, Michigan. But this show is much, much more than a simple look behind the doors.

For anyone with a son, daughter, father, mother, niece, nephew, aunt or uncle, this is an hour or so of your time well spent. For me, watching this show -- and you'll have to watch it on your computer -- watching this show I couldn't help but think about my own father and mother passing on. Of course since the focus is on a family run funeral home I couldn't help but think of the hundreds of calls that once came into this apartment that is now our home in Providence, calls asking the family who owned and operated the Prata Funeral Home to please send someone to come and pick up a mother, a father, a son, a daughter, who had just passed away.

No melancholia here, though.

After listening to Thomas Lynch, one of the funeral directors, read from his essays and poetry about the dead and their relationship to the living, and the importance of how we, the living, deal with death and those who have passed on, I found to be truly a revelation and inspirational. And if you know of someone who has ever lost a child, hearing the Verrino story and listening to the young mother talk with such candor and in such lucid terms of her own son's passing is profound beyond belief.