I guess, essentially, life is a tragedy, but more for some than others.
I've never searched for any grave other than relatives, and only
then for the genealogical information on them.
Tasker Dunham
Remember how two weeks ago I visited the grave of Sandy Denny in Putney Vale Cemetery, London? Previously I thought that paying homage like that was a perfectly normal human activity but Tasker Dunham's comment left me wondering if I am unusually morbid or weirder than I might normally admit.
In my life, I have visited the graves of various well-known people. For example, twenty five years ago, down in Dorset, I visited the grave of Thomas Hardy in Stinsford churchyard. Actually, it's not all of him - just his heart. The rest of him is buried within the precincts of Westminster Abbey, London. The thought of the removal of Hardy's heart is slightly disturbing.
When on holiday in Seattle in 2014 - I made a point of visiting the grave of Jimi Hendrix in the city's Renton suburb. I blogged about that here.
Down in Laugharne, South Wales I have visited the simple grave of the poet Dylan Thomas on three or four occasions. He had a way with words but of course his life was tragically short. He died at the tender age of 39, a month after I was born. One can only imagine what else he might have written if he had lived a long life. Maybe one can absorb some of the literary genius of a man like that by simply standing at his graveside.
Another literary grave I have visited is that of Sylvia Plath. She died in 1963 and is buried in Heptonstall churchyard here in Yorkshire. She was only thirty years old when she chose to take her own life. In her memory, pilgrims have pushed dozens of pens into her grave. I blogged about my visit there in 2018. Go here.
Is it ghoulish to visit the graves of famous people you admire? Very possibly but I can't say for sure. One grave I must visit in the next few months is that of my brother Simon who died in the summer of 2022. As the executor of his small estate, I arranged for a gravestone to be erected above the place where he was interred - back in my home village. This job was finally completed last October. Though I have seen a couple of photos of the gravestone, I have yet to see it with my own eyes.
Finally: Have you visited the graves of any particular famous people or personal heroes? Who and where?
I've only been to the touristy type places like Westminster Abbey, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National, etc. I find them to be sobering and thought-provoking places. Much to the distress of my genealogy-minded relatives, I've requested no marker of any kind. My current plan is to be cremated with my ashes dispersed, though a "natural" burial would leave less of a carbon footprint. Of course when the time comes, it won't make any difference to me if they don't honor my request since I'll be dead and gone.
ReplyDeleteI think they should build a statue of you in your home town Kelly. Perhaps not quite as big as The Statue of LIberty but substantial.
DeleteI don't think it's strange to visit graveyards at all. When I was in England, one time, we made a sort of pilgramage to see the home and graves of my Mum's maiden aunts. I've also visited my dad's family's graves in Ladysmith. I always find graveyards interesting. How old people were when they died. The only thing I found strange is people buried in churches, under the floors of churches. That was a little odd.
ReplyDeleteOne might expect unpleasant odours to waft up from below the floor.
DeleteThey don't stay directly under the floor. Once the ceremony is completed and all attendees have gone home, the coffin is moved further down and into the crypts.
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ReplyDeleteTasker Dunham's quote reminded me of this.
“Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think.”
― La Bruyere
Most apposite.
DeleteI have not visited the graves of famous or important people. I think that to visit the grave of people is to make a memory for you most of all. Oh! I forgot. I forgot. I visited John F Kennedy's grave while visiting Washington DC
ReplyDeleteI bet the Kennedy family were most grateful.
DeleteIt's tradition in my family to visit the graves of our ancestors. We tell their story and say their name. I'm longing to visit Ely Cathedral and the nearby grave yard to honour my folks interred there. And we might as well go visit our Stanley ancestors while we're in Blighty. Yes, THOSE Stanley's...even if they're not happy stories.
ReplyDeleteDo you mean Stanley in County Durham?
DeleteI've visited the grave of Jim Morrison in Paris along with the other famous people buried in that cemetery; I can't remember who exactly but there were many familiar names from literature and history. Naturally, I paid my respects to my first cousin once removed in Langholm, Scotland, Hugh MacDiarmid aka Christopher Murray Grieve. It took me a while to find his gravestone and of course there was an excellent poem inscribed on it.
ReplyDeleteIf I ever pass through Langholm, I will make a point of visiting his grave.
DeleteIn the 90s I visited Pere Lachaise, which has many famous gravesites including Chopin, Edith Piaf, and Jim Morrison. Morrison's grave had burnt candles, a beer can, and a sock. In Canada I have visited Gabriel Dumont's grave in Batoche, Saskatchewan; he was a key leader in securing Canadian Indigenous rights. Most recently, I visited Leonard Cohen's grave in Montreal: in the Jewish tradition, it is covered with visitation stones left by admirers. I found Cohen's gravesite setting the most beautiful and moving.
ReplyDeleteDid you take one of your own stones Mr Stewart? It reminds me of the very end of the film, "Schindler's List".
DeleteI have wandered cemeteries and wondered about the lives and deaths of the people interred in them but I have never visited a famous person's grave. I've never visited the graves of anyone. I looked at the graves of my grandparents when I was there for other funerals but that's all. It's just not how I think.
ReplyDeleteIt's not morbid to go to a grave though, do it if it's meaningful and don't second guess yourself.
Thanks for your final reassurance Kylie.
DeleteIncluded in our tour of Vietnam was a visit to the tomb of Ho Chi Minh. I would not have bothered as the queues were very long but we had queue jump passes. It was quite interesting. More interesting was seeing his old French cars.
ReplyDeleteI took a self guided tour to see where famous people were buried in St Kilda Cemetery. That was ok.
The idea of "queue jump passes" is so unfair and undemocratic in my opinion.
DeleteMany people visit graves of musicians, poets or of people famous for some thing or other. The graves of people like Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley and others are shrines where visitors flock in great numbers; or think of the memorial for Dr. Martin Luther King.
ReplyDeleteI usually do not actively seek out a famous person‘s grave, but when Steve and I used to go to Scarborough for our summer holiday, we‘d always visit Anne Brontë‘s grave in the churchyard of St. Mary‘s.
Ah yes - Anne Bronte. I went there too - but just the once. Excuse me for asking this so bluntly but does Steve have a grave?
DeleteNo problem, Neil - death and all it entails is not a taboo topic with me.
DeleteSteve does not have a grave. His father, who died when Steve was 12 years old, was cremated and his ashes brought to the Garden of Remembrance at Barnsley Crematorium. We did the same with Steve; I carried his urn (in a sports bag) by plane from Stuttgart to Zurich, Zurich to Manchester, then on the Transpennine Express to Leeds, local train from Leeds to Harrogate where my sister-in-law picked us up. Of course the transport of the urn had to be registered with the authorities beforehand, and the box was opened (not the urn, though) for inspection at Stuttgart airport.
In Barnsley, we had a funeral service with family and friends (after we had a first one in Germany, where the cremation took place), then Steve's mother chose a spot near the tree where she thought her husband's ashes were put.
We were asked who wanted to distribute the ashes; Steve's cousin Rob volunteered and started spreading them, crying all the while. A gust of wind blew the ashes about, and both Rob and I got some on our shoes. Rob sobbed "I've got my cousin all over my shoes!" - an almost comical moment on a very sad day, and something very "Steve".
What a journey that was for you! Taking Steve to his old home when he had found a new home with you. It is clear that you cannot stop loving him.
DeleteHave I? No. I wouldn't even know where to find them. I have wandered around in a cemetery or two, mostly to look at headstones and admire the elaborateness of some and the simplicity of others and felt sad at all the very young babies and children who died too soon back in the 1800s and early 1900s.
ReplyDeleteA few words and numbers upon a gravestone can suggest a lot about another human's life.
DeleteI have not visited any graves of famous people but whilst I was in Germany in November I found the graves of my great grandparents in a Berlin cemetery. That was very emotional for me.
ReplyDeleteYes. I can imagine that and for Kay too.
DeleteI have told you before but anyway here goes: Anne Bronte, William Wordsworth, Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad, Delores O' Riordan and Rory Gallagher. I hope to visit Phil Lynott's grave sometime. I saw him and the rest of Thin Lizzy in 1981.
ReplyDeleteLike me, you are drawn to the graves of famous people from the arts field - not to soldiers, politicians or scientists.
DeleteI forgot Peig Sayers.
DeleteAnd I forgot Martin Luther King.
Delete"Even amongst fierce flames, the golden lotus can be planted" inscription on Sylvia Plath's gravestone. I went to Heptonstall with family in 2022. And of course to find David Hartley, the coiner, hung at York, was there as well. But no we did not deliberately go there to seek gravestones only to see the town and the two churches.
ReplyDeleteThere can be beautifully carved gravestones as well you come across.
Death is all around us even though modern people try to curtain it off.
DeleteI visited the grave of David Hartley,he of the Cragg vale coiners, in Heptonstall not even knowing Sylvia Plath was buried there.
ReplyDeleteI think the most unnerving thing that happened to me was going with my husband to Rake Lane cemetery on the Wirral to find the grave of my husbands great grandad x6?
Captain William Turner OBE. He was the Captain of the Lusitania when it was torpedoed off the Head of Kinsale.
It was a huge cemetery and I said we had no chance of finding him. We split up and within a minute my husband shouted that he'd found him!
There were thousands of graves.
After that we visited the memorial in Cobh or cove, Ireland. So many lost their lives.
I hope this comment finds you, the last few haven't appeared. Unless you're ignoring me. 😂😂
No - as you can see Christina - this comment got through just fine and thanks for such an interesting contribution. I cannot understand what might have happened to any previous comments you left here. I have always appreciated your honest and thoughtful comments.
DeleteThe only grave I have ever visited was that of the late Winston Churchill. We had Belgian friends staying with us and they particularly wanted to see his grave, so it probably would have been not long after he died.
ReplyDeleteMaybe some of us are born grave visitors and others are simply not. "Death is only an incident, and not the most important which happens to us in this state of being." - Churchill.
DeleteGoodness! Mentioned in the same post as Dylan Thomas, Thomas Hardy, Jimi Hendrix, and Sylvia Plath. What more can I say?
ReplyDeleteWhen I have visited many graves, such as the Lincolnshire Dunhams, it has been mainly because of wanting to see the places they lived: the Fens and the village of Saleby.
I thought that Lincolnshire Dunhams was a potato variety.
DeleteI've purposely visited the graves or tombs of many people, including Sandy Denny (as you know), Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, Antonin Dvorak and Marilyn Monroe. When I visited Monroe's tomb in Westwood, CA, there were many, many other stars in the surrounding cemetery -- Eva Gabor, Mel Torme and Dean Martin among them. So I sort of accidentally visited all those graves too. I think it makes sense to visit the graves of people we admire or who interest us. It's kind of mind-blowing to think that person is THERE, or at least their mortal remains are.
ReplyDeleteYour last sentence chimes loudly with me.
DeleteWhile I find cemeteries very calm and peaceful, and have strolled through several, I have never visited the grave of a famous person.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Tasker Dunham was right.
DeleteA few dead presidents, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington - he had dinner with the Fairfax family on this hilltop a week before he died. Edgar Allen Poe, I sort of stumbled across him one day in Baltimore while taking a short walk during a lunch break. Benjamin Franklin in Philly. A few years ago, I found the graves of my paternal Great Grandparents in Detroit.
ReplyDeleteSo Edgar Allen Poe ended up as a down and out drunkard in a Baltimore cemetery?
DeleteI'm sure I have but I can't really recall any except for Duane Allman and Barry Oakley's graves in Macon, Georgia. The circumstances are fuzzy. Some guys that my ex-husband knew took us there once. I recall it was a beautiful cemetery and there were a lot of guitar picks on the graves.
ReplyDeleteI have seen the graves of a few famous people but haven't gone looking for them on purpose. Like the Kennedy's grave in Washington, D.C. as part of a tour of Washington sites. Or the grave of Joseph Naper (founder of Naperville where I live) as part of a search for historical sites that my son had to do in 3rd grade.
ReplyDeleteMy sister and I have gone a few times to Chicagoland cemeteries looking for our ancestors' graves. I think we saw that Al Capone is buried not far from Great-Aunt Cecile!
Green-Wood Cemetery in New York City comes to mind. A lot of the who's who of NYC are buried there: Louis Comfort Tiffany, Boss Tweed, Henry Ward Beecher, Horace Greeley, Leonard Bernstein, Charles Ebbets, Jean-Michel Basquiat. It's a beautiful cemetery on a hill where visitors can also see the Statue of Liberty.
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