Cemeteries: Our First Public Parks

Graveyards are often portrayed as eerie, haunted places. Today, they’re depicted as places of fear and sorrow, where the living rarely go. But historically, cemeteries were central to community life. Far from being hidden or feared, they were embraced as spaces for reflection, creativity, and leisure. They allowed for open religious expression, inspired art and literature, and helped shape landscape architecture. This week we explore cemeteries and appreciate them for all that they have done to shape modern public parks and their roles in conservation and cultural history. Cemetery Scavenger Hunt Info :) For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at: Instagram: @nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @nationalparkafterdark Support the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page! Thank you to the week’s partners! Liquid IV: Use our code NPAD at checkout to get 20% off your first order. IQBAR: Text PARK to 64000 to get 20% off all IQBAR products and free shipping. BetterHelp: National Park After Dark is sponsored by BetterHelp. Get 10% off. Hello Fresh: Use our link to get up to 10 FREE meals and a free item for life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Did you know that if your spouse goes missing, but you don't tell anyone, that's not necessarily a crime? That surprising fact is at the heart of the brand-new season of Bear Brook, the award-winning true crime podcast from New Hampshire Public Radio. I'm your host, Jason Moon. In season three of Private Matter, we investigate another New Hampshire mystery. A beloved Christmas tree farmer with dementia vanishes from his small town. His wife never reports him missing. Can he still be found?

• 0:33Speaker 01

  If you knew Jay as well as I do, he's private. He doesn't want everybody to know his business.

• 0:40Speaker 02

  That, I don't believe you.

• 0:43Speaker 03

  I kind of revert back to that Bear Brook saying, what if we were to just come across something?

• 0:49Speaker 04

  And I wrote down, she said, I found him.

• 0:54Speaker 00

  Follow Bear Brook on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:03Danielle LaRock?

  Graveyards. They are the epicenter of every spooky-themed backdrop and are generally depicted something like this: crumbling headstones jutting out of uneven ground like jagged teeth. Phantoms float the grounds as fog snakes through the overgrown grass. They are places of loud silence, broken only by an owl hooting or a raven cawing from within the leafless branches of gnarled trees. In short, they are eerie. Knowing the bodies of hundreds, if not thousands, of people lay just underneath your feet can be, well, unsettling. They are physical reminders of our own mortality, and, as I just described, often get an unfair edit:

• 1:46Danielle LaRock?

  portrayed as places of sadness, suffering, and scariness; places where ghosts dwell and the living avoid. But that representation is relatively new. Not so long ago, cemeteries were not sequestered away and avoided. They were integrated and embraced. Not limited to a place purely for mourning, cemeteries acted as the first form of free, open religious expression in this country and gave birth to landscape architecture that inspired the layout of suburbs and places like Disneyland. They moved people creatively and inspired famous works of literature. They were the catalyst for the country's first conservation project. They served as America's first public art museums.

• 2:30Danielle LaRock?

  And wouldn't you know it, cemeteries were among America's first parks.

• 2:37Danielle LaRock?

  Welcome to National Park After Dark.

• 2:59Cassandra Yahnian?

  Fun fact, my first memories of learning how to ride a bike are in a cemetery.

• 3:04Danielle LaRock?

  That's your first ever memory?

• 3:05Cassandra Yahnian?

  Of riding, of learning to ride a bike.

• 3:08Danielle LaRock?

  Oh, I thought you were like, I come into this world in memory within the cemetery, trying to ride a bike. Okay.

• 3:16Cassandra Yahnian?

  Be like five, what happened to you before that?

• 3:20Danielle LaRock?

  Maybe you were a bike riding protege, I don't know.

• 3:22Cassandra Yahnian?

  That's true.

• 3:23Danielle LaRock?

  Well, that's fun.

• 3:24Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah. And you were talking about how your intro just reminded me of that a little bit, just because you were talking about how there, when I was a kid, I didn't think of it as this morbid place. It was this paved place that had flowers and it was open and I could fall without hurting myself or like crashing into a tree.

• 3:41Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, like little to no car traffic and just kind of a good place. Good on your, whoever.

• 3:46Cassandra Yahnian?

  It was my dad.

• 3:47Danielle LaRock?

  Made that decision. Cassie's dad, right on. Well, thank you, everyone, for joining us for another episode of National Park After Dark. My name is Danielle.

• 3:57Cassandra Yahnian?

  I'm Cassie.

• 3:58Danielle LaRock?

  And today I am going to be talking about my favorite, one of my favorite things, and that's cemeteries. I have been dying to do, dying, to do this episode for quite a long time, just trying to, similar to the Titanic, just trying to work it in, in any sort of

• 4:17Cassandra Yahnian?

  way. How can I make this work for National Park After Dark?

• 4:20Danielle LaRock?

  What's the angle here? And I found one, and it's a good one. So, no, it will not be my freebie. It actually does count.

• 4:28Cassandra Yahnian?

  Well, I'm excited. I'm excited because you have been so excited about this episode for a while. So I feel like your excitement has caught on to me, and now I want to learn. And also, your videos you've been posting on Instagram.

• 4:42Danielle LaRock?

  Oh, my God.

• 4:43Cassandra Yahnian?

  Print around in cemeteries has also got me intrigued in this episode.

• 4:48Danielle LaRock?

  I think it has most people intrigued, not about cemeteries, but how I formulate those videos, because it's not well. If there's one thing about me that, if it wasn't clear before, it is now, I'm not a great content creator. It's difficult for me, but I want to, like, share information. So that's where I've come. I've started, like, this cemetery series thing for people who don't know what the heck we're talking about. It's very informal and all over the place. And, like, if you think you're gonna get a curated, lovely, two-minute video, you're wrong. It's just me, like, in, literally, just in cemeteries.

• 5:32Danielle LaRock?

  I have a tiny little, it's like, one of those little tripods that are, I don't know, maybe like, five inches tall. Like, it's, I feel weird.

• 5:41Cassandra Yahnian?

  That you attach your phone to?

• 5:41Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. I feel weird as hell. Like, I would never bring, like, a ring light, or like, any sort of big stand to a cemetery to do content. Like, no shade on people who actually do that.

• 5:53Cassandra Yahnian?

  Because it takes a type of bravery to go out there in the public like that.

• 5:57Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. And, to be fair, I'm usually by myself. Like, there's, I don't go to cemeteries that are active. They're all historic cemeteries that I like to go in, and... Um, but this time of year, people are crawling around cemeteries when they usually are not. So I just feel really awkward. But I did get like a little mic thing, which sometimes works. So anyways, maybe this will breathe life into our TikTok again. Maybe I'll move it over to TikTok.

• 6:30Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 6:30Danielle LaRock?

  We'll see.

• 6:31Cassandra Yahnian?

  You do need things to post on TikTok, so.

• 6:33Danielle LaRock?

  I just need to figure out our password again after. I did post a little bit back there in 2022.

• 6:40Cassandra Yahnian?

  You did.

• 6:41Danielle LaRock?

  Or three.

• 6:41Cassandra Yahnian?

  I did. Our first videos are all created by you, I think.

• 6:44Danielle LaRock?

  You did one on the Everglades.

• 6:46Cassandra Yahnian?

  I did, and it went like semi viral, even though it's made like, even though it's really badly made, especially looking back on it now.

• 6:55Danielle LaRock?

  And it took you so long, too.

• 6:57Cassandra Yahnian?

  So long, it took me like hours. People who create content, good job.

• 7:02Danielle LaRock?

  Congra- I mean, oh, my God. Kudos and flowers to you. And I have an interest in it, but it's.

• 7:08Cassandra Yahnian?

  It makes me want to take a class, honestly.

• 7:11Danielle LaRock?

  I know.

• 7:11Cassandra Yahnian?

  Someone teach me how to use, like, how do normal people go on TikTok and make a fun video?

• 7:19Danielle LaRock?

  I don't know. I real- I truly don't know, especially because when I was like going to edit the video together and like chop it up and try and put it in there. I also, I maybe people do it on their computers, but I was doing on my phone and like trying to take my fingers and like clip the video and like touch everything, right? And then it wasn't precise, so it was just, I don't know, whatever. I don't know how people work like in those conditions. It was just, I couldn't see anything. All the text was tiny.

• 7:49Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah. You want me to edit your MySpace page to be the exact color pink you want? I got you, I got.

• 7:55Danielle LaRock?

  Do you want me to code?

• 7:56Cassandra Yahnian?

  You want me to code? I'm ready. Want me to make a video on TikTok?

• 8:01Danielle LaRock?

  Get out of here.

• 8:02Cassandra Yahnian?

  No chance.

• 8:04Danielle LaRock?

  Well, okay, back to, well, to start, I guess, this episode. Yeah, it's about cemeteries and we're gonna kind of start by, just to give you a little roadmap of the episode, we're gonna start by doing kind of like a brief overview of the history of American cemeteries, how they've changed and how our relationship with them has evolved throughout time. And then from there, we'll dive into some other things like cemetery symbolism, and then touch upon some cool events and things that you can do in cemeteries today other than create content. So hopefully you'll learn something and give you an opportunity to do something fun this spooky season within your local cemetery. So before we get into

• 8:48Danielle LaRock?

  it, because this is supposed to be like a fun, maybe not lighthearted episode, but more so light than some of our other topics generally tend to be, I do want to acknowledge right off the bat, a couple of things. And first and foremost, number one, this is truly gonna be a 101, meaning very basic and incomplete discussions of various topics. There are literal volumes of books written about each one of these topics that we're gonna talk about. So just know that the world and the library is your oyster. And if you want to know more, like, please research on your own. This is more of like an intro. So just, I am very well aware that many of these topics are, like, we're just scratching the surface of.

• 9:29Danielle LaRock?

  But also, and more importantly, as exciting and as fun as this episode hopefully is, I am also aware of how cemeteries can also be very poignant reminders of some very dark chapters in United States history, as they are reflective mirrors of the art of our history regarding different cultural attitudes and beliefs of various times, including the forced removal of indigenous people, slavery, segregation, socioeconomic disparities, and more. And that's reflected in the types of cemeteries that kind of pop up on our radar a lot. Like, there's a lot of different topics of discussion when it comes to indigenous burials and African

• 10:10Danielle LaRock?

  American burials and the lack of acknowledgement that they receive. So I totally understand that and we'll kind of touch on that at the very end. But by and large, this is going to be mostly about like the history of American cemeteries through the lens of European views and attitudes.

• 10:33Cassandra Yahnian?

  Gotcha.

• 10:33Danielle LaRock?

  Okay, great. Okay, so to get started, it may be very hard to imagine now, but before 1831, America had no cemeteries as we know them today. For centuries, European and North American burial grounds, for those of European descent, were either on private family plots or attached or adjacent to houses of worship. So churches and other religious houses. Religious views at the time were the reasoning for this. It was believed that to best prepare for the second coming, to be in a good spot, you needed to literally be in a good spot. And in their view, that was in consecrated ground, which was the ground around churches. So it had to be sacred locations.

• 11:17Danielle LaRock?

  Or, I mean, if you had a family plot of land and you were way outside of town and it just wasn't feasible for you to be buried around a church, like that also was an option. But people really wanted to be all up in that church. And also, burials outside of church was kind of like a second best option because people with a lot of power and money and influence were literally buried inside churches and interred

• 11:44Cassandra Yahnian?

  Saying.

• 11:44Danielle LaRock?

  in the, in the walls or under the floorboards and in crypts under the church. So that was like the best of the best VIP spots. And then outside of the church, if you couldn't afford that.

• 11:56Cassandra Yahnian?

  That's super interesting because when I was in England last summer, I think last summer, or maybe it was two summers ago now, but I was in England and we went to the coast and towards some national parks and stuff. And while I was there, we went to a tea room. But next to the tea room was a very, very, very old church, probably the oldest church I've ever stepped foot in.

• 12:19Danielle LaRock?

  Mm hmm.

• 12:20Cassandra Yahnian?

  And All through the walls, there were people buried and they had plaques outside and like almost to the ceiling. Just burials of people. And then outside, there were tons of gravestones in this little yard that was behind the church itself, but they were so old that they were crumbling. I mean, the dates on these were some of the oldest dates I've ever seen on a cemetery before.

• 12:45Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, or like completely wiped away, like weathered and yeah. Yeah. So that was the reason for it. I mean, it was religious. It's like for the second coming, which I know very little about, but I think it's when, isn't it when Jesus is supposed to come back and get you?

• 12:57Cassandra Yahnian?

  You're like resurrected.

• 12:59Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, or something.

• 13:01Cassandra Yahnian?

  Good luck being resurrected as dust.

• 13:05Danielle LaRock?

  You stupid idiots. Just kidding.

• 13:07Cassandra Yahnian?

  How are you?

• 13:08Danielle LaRock?

  Next. Everybody, everybody can have their own beliefs. I, who am I to say?

• 13:14Cassandra Yahnian?

  Like who are, we don't know anything about the afterlife. None of us do until we're there. So.

• 13:19Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, that's honestly every single time, isn't this so weird? Every time somebody dies, the first thing I think among sometimes like, oh, that's really sad. Like Jane Goodall.

• 13:30Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 13:30Danielle LaRock?

  Perfect example. She just passed away and have you seen the Netflix thing that she did?

• 13:35Cassandra Yahnian?

  I haven't watched it, but I've seen previews because she did an interview in March of this past year that was to come out after she died.

• 13:42Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. So they were asking her like a lot of not hard hitting questions, but just she knew it was going to come out posthumously. And so anyway, and she's been quoted in, in different interviews and I believe in that one too. You know, when somebody is like, what's your next big thing? And she's like, you know, I'm in my nineties. My next big adventure is dying and seeing what happens, you know?

• 14:04Cassandra Yahnian?

  See that clip?

• 14:05Danielle LaRock?

  And that, that is literally, especially since Ian died, just kind of like my first thought is, well, now that person knows. Now that person knows like what we're all dying to know, whether it's nothing or whatever version of what comes after this that we all like to toss around and contemplate and stuff like now they know.

• 14:28Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah. And I saw Jane Goodall said something along the lines of, she's like, either nothing's going to happen and that's okay. Or I'm going to be on the best of my, the longest best adventure after this.

• 14:39Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You lost a good one. Pour one out for Jane.

• 14:45Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 14:50Danielle LaRock?

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• 16:12Danielle LaRock?

  Going back to churches, they were generally located centrally because that was kind of like the biggest thing for Europeans at this point in time is just going to church. It was a huge part of their lives. So the churches were usually smack dab in the middle of town, which worked out just fine, especially in smaller towns. But in cities and places experiencing rapid population growth and population death, it was a huge problem when it came to people wanting to be interred there. They were running out of space. At first, churches would retrench or essentially dig up old graves, remove their remains to be disposed of in charnel houses, which are buildings or vaults specifically designed for the storage of human remains, and then rebury someone new.

• 16:58Danielle LaRock?

  Where they had just dug up somebody else. They're like, okay, this is, we can do this for a little bit. Like, this is sustainable.

• 17:04Cassandra Yahnian?

  We did it. Like, we'll just put them somewhere else now.

• 17:06Danielle LaRock?

  Yep, like, just a little refresh, browser refresh, or they'd skip that part for whatever reason, and just stack people on top of one another. It wasn't unheard of for different burial plots to contain five or six people stacked, one on top of the other.

• 17:22Cassandra Yahnian?

  That's my nightmare. Do not put me for all of eternity next to touching other people.

• 17:27Danielle LaRock?

  Oh, you're not next to them, you're under them.

• 17:29Cassandra Yahnian?

  On top of them, yeah.

• 17:30Danielle LaRock?

  Or under.

• 17:31Cassandra Yahnian?

  Below them. If I, I, well, if I have to choose a spot, it's on top.

• 17:34Danielle LaRock?

  For a little bit. You're on top for a little bit until somebody else.

• 17:37Cassandra Yahnian?

  Don't bury me in general.

• 17:39Danielle LaRock?

  Okay, well.

• 17:40Cassandra Yahnian?

  I'm claustrophobic.

• 17:41Danielle LaRock?

  I noted that a long time ago. Grave robbing was also rampant, something I think we talked about in the Burke and Hare episode that I did in, like, 2022 or 2023. We went.

• 17:55Cassandra Yahnian?

  The Roback.

• 17:56Danielle LaRock?

  I, I know. I was, like, racking my brain, and I almost hit play on it, but then I couldn't stand to hear myself. So I didn't. But I'm pretty sure that we talked about grave robbing and all of that extensively, um, either in that one, or, no, yeah, I think it was that one. There was also the matter of the integrity of the burial plots themselves. They would sometimes collapse under stress or dissolve during heavy rains, sweeping bodies out into the streets. They were also seen as disease-ridden, especially during times of epidemics like cholera and yellow fever, and were rapidly becoming public health crises. There's a rumor that the true reason for churches

• 18:34Danielle LaRock?

  burning incense during mass stems from attempts to mask the odor of rotting corpses coming from within and around the churches.

• 18:42Cassandra Yahnian?

  That kind of makes sense.

• 18:44Danielle LaRock?

  Again, I'm not, I feel like going back into the depths of my memory with going to mass, growing up. I thought that had to do with, like, the kings, the three kings or something that came, like, they brought frankincense, myrrh, and something else.

• 18:59Cassandra Yahnian?

  You're asking the wrong girl.

• 19:01Danielle LaRock?

  Okay. I'm, I mean, I can see it either way, but I, I'm just saying, I think there is some like biblical ties.

• 19:08Cassandra Yahnian?

  To as well.

• 19:09Danielle LaRock?

  For that. Yeah. But again, who am I to say? So all of those concerns, coupled with the growing popularity of cities and the increase in their population and need for space, were the catalyst for a new solution for the dead. By the early 1800s, city planners started drawing up ideas for new ways to handle the deceased. And that is when a group of horticulturists in Massachusetts had an idea. Well, more specifically, they had an idea to copy the French. In the late 1700s, France was having a major problem with the pileup of bodies. In a very similar way, but much larger and more severe in scale compared to what was happening in 1800s America. Paris's burial grounds had become dangerously overcrowded,

• 19:52Danielle LaRock?

  and the most infamous of locations being the Holy Innocents Cemetery near the cit- near the center of the city. This site had served as a resting place for over 2 million people over six centuries. And just as I described earlier, it was largely because people were dead set on wanting to be buried in sacred ground. Wealthier individuals, like I mentioned, often paid to be interred within the actual churches themselves, sometimes in crypts, other times beneath the floorboards, while the poorer were buried en masse in churchyards like holy innocents. And just as a little bit of a side note, I know that the trip that you did, you just described,

• 20:29Danielle LaRock?

  you saw like the, the church in, in England and saw exactly the description of like everybody being buried in the walls and stuff. Um, but this summer, for the first time, I did the Freedom Trail in Boston for the first time in its entirety. And one of the stops is the Old North Church. And for some rea- I've been in there before, like in passing, I guess, but I don't know if I've ever stopped and like really read all the information and clearly wasn't as invested as in what was going on there, aside from just like kind of filtering in and out. And part of the church is the crypt. And you can get tickets to go in it, like underneath the church into the crypt.

• 21:12Danielle LaRock?

  It's small, but it has over a thousand bodies.

• 21:16Cassandra Yahnian?

  That's not that small.

• 21:17Danielle LaRock?

  But it's small when you're physically in there. It's weird. It's, it's strange. But yeah, there's over a thousand bodies. It's part of the Boston National Historical Park. And the tour down there is self-guided. So it's not like anything official unless they have a special program or something. But it's really interesting. And also, this is relatively new. But when, so when I was in there, I was like, okay, this is interesting and whatever. I'm reading all about it. And then there's this tiny little case in the very back corner. That's a little plexiglass case and it has this fragment of a brick in it and a sign next to it. I'm like, what the heck is this? And it's like, the cursed brick. I'm like, what?

• 21:58Cassandra Yahnian?

  Oh.

• 21:59Danielle LaRock?

  And so I read it and essentially it's like, you know how people steal petrified wo- wood from petrified national forests? And then get bad luck and they're like, please take it back. This is ruining my life. Same thing happened. I guess a visitor a handful of years ago took a brick from the crypt and stole it and then brought it back with this huge apology letter. And he's like, this is ruining my life. Like it's cursed and I don't want it. And I'm so sorry I took it. And now they have a display of it.

• 22:25Cassandra Yahnian?

  Then none of the other visitors do the same thing.

• 22:27Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, but it's strange because it's not like there's just bricks laying around. This guy must have pried this thing out of the wall.

• 22:33Cassandra Yahnian?

  What a weird halftime.

• 22:36Danielle LaRock?

  But anyways, so, um, yeah, if you're interested in crypts and live in and around Boston, there's one uh, that you can go visit. So anyway, back to France. In Paris, the overcrowding was reaching a peak. Grave diggers were dumping bodies into large pits without proper coverage. Sometimes bodies were not buried at all, just kind of stacked above ground. And this neglect turned graveyards into putrid, overflowing landfills of decomposing flesh. And the use of charnel houses was common. Once the remains decomposed, bones were collected and stored there, making space for new bodies, but it just was not. They couldn't keep up.

• 23:15Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 23:16Danielle LaRock?

  The sheer number of corpses led to horrible conditions. Piles of decaying bodies would emit fat that oozed across the cemetery grounds and the smell of rot overwhelmed the surrounding neighborhood. Locals even claimed that the gases from decomposing bodies extinguished candles and discolored their clothing. I knew I didn't like Paris. I'm so sorry, but ew.

• 23:39Cassandra Yahnian?

  That is gross.

• 23:41Danielle LaRock?

  Paris was not one of my favorite places and maybe I was picking up on a past life. The situation somehow got even worse in seventeen eighty when a season of relentless rain softened the ground so much that a nearby house's basement was flooded with bones from a collapsed cemetery wall that it was adjacent to. King Louis XVI realized that this was not a good look and banned all burials within Paris and ordered the complete removal of remains from burial grounds like Holy Innocence. The removal operation was conducted at night to avoid public disturbance and crews transported remains in black draped wagons through the streets accompanied by priests with incense and torches.

• 24:22Danielle LaRock?

  The chosen destination for the remains was a labyrinth of old limestone quarry tunnels carved out beneath the city, which became what we now know as the Paris catacombs. So if you're wondering where all those bodies came from and all those bones and all those remains, anyone who's ever seen pictures of the catacombs or have physically been there and just this overwhelming sea of seemingly endless human remains, it's coming from all these overwhelmed burial grounds that were literally overflowing with dead people and they had nowhere to put them.

• 24:55Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's crazy to think of it now because now the catacombs are a place that people visit purposely. And when you think about it back then, it would be, I imagine, places that people would avoid.

• 25:07Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 25:07Cassandra Yahnian?

  Very much so. And now it's a tourist destination. So it's just interesting. But as soon as you said a burial in the middle of the city with two million bodies, I knew it was the catacombs.

• 25:18Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 25:18Cassandra Yahnian?

  Like it has to be. There's no other one.

• 25:21Danielle LaRock?

  Well, I mean, that's the, the Holy Innocence was a different, that was a burial ground. That was like a graveyard.

• 25:27Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 25:27Danielle LaRock?

  And then they're like, okay, we have all these, we need a solution. And that solution did work for a moment of time, but what about long term? Like they needed a long-term solution. They couldn't just keep. Doing this. People were scarred from the whole, you know, decomposing bodies oozing out into the street situation. And we're desperate for a better, longer lasting alternative. And also how difficult emotionally, like these are your loved ones. Like we today, you know, in America, we think, okay, when my loved ones die, I, I have the option of a burial where I can go and be like, this is the location where my person is.

• 26:10Cassandra Yahnian?

  Mm hmm.

• 26:11Danielle LaRock?

  And I can go visit them and this is their spot.

• 26:13Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 26:13Danielle LaRock?

  Not like they're just mixed up with millions of other people. I have no idea where they are. Their body is literally like, you know, it's just emotionally, it was probably just as difficult as like the problems that it created outside of that.

• 26:30Cassandra Yahnian?

  Definitely.

• 26:31Danielle LaRock?

  That solution came after the French Revolution, when new, more hygienic and thoughtfully designed burial grounds were ordered to be created outside of the city limits. The most famous of which is Pere Lachaise Cemetery. This cemetery was built on a forty-three acre plot of land and the man behind its vision was an architect named Alexander Theodore Bron-Yard. And what he created was so unique, up until that point, nothing like it existed in the entire world. First, it was non-denominational, meaning it accepted people from all faiths, which at the time was groundbreaking. You didn't do that before. It was designed to be a beautiful park-like resting place for the dead, set up like a small

• 27:13Danielle LaRock?

  village with winding cobblestone paths, street signs and lush landscaping. The grounds were wonderfully landscaped, filled with trees like maple, cherry and willows, and dotted with flowers and rose bushes. It was more of a peaceful garden than a traditional graveyard, a place that invited visitors to stroll and reflect, somewhere to actually spend time. It opened in eighteen oh four and accepted its first resident, a four-year-old little girl. And with that, the modern cemetery was born.

• 27:46Cassandra Yahnian?

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• 28:28Cassandra Yahnian?

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• 29:03Danielle LaRock?

  You would imagine that this would be something, like a solution, that people would be super thrilled about. Like, hey, we just went through a nightmare with all that stuff and graveyards and that setup that wasn't working. But in actuality, the cemetery struggled. People were wary of this new scenic and pleasant alternative to the traditional graveyard. I mean, it was change, right? You've been doing something the same way for centuries and especially if you have very strong religious beliefs and ties to a certain way of doing things, it's going to take some time to adjust. But plus, it was also outside of the city, remember? It was ordered to be built far and away to hopefully avoid problems like they were facing

• 29:47Danielle LaRock?

  before, which clearly solved a number of big issues, but it presented another problem in regards to accessing it. You know, people couldn't just hop in their car and drive over in 10 minutes, like they had to walk or take carriages or, you know.

• 30:02Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, they couldn't visit their loved ones whenever they wanted.

• 30:05Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. And in the first year, only fourteen people were buried there, which wasn't the best for business. So they decided to make people interested in their business. They decided to buy and move three famous people, playwrights and a medieval couple known for their love letters that were very popular at the time, to their cemetery and they publicized the crap out of it. They're like, hey, look what we, look who's here.

• 30:30Cassandra Yahnian?

  Don't you want to be buried next to them?

• 30:32Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah.

• 30:33Cassandra Yahnian?

  That's such an interesting marketing move.

• 30:35Danielle LaRock?

  But it worked so well. It worked really, really well.

• 30:39Cassandra Yahnian?

  Really funny, actually.

• 30:41Danielle LaRock?

  Today, over a million people are interred in this cemetery, including famous rock stars, actresses, poets, and more. The cemetery, nicknamed the City of Immortals, is filled with works of art in the form of life-sized sculptures and statues that are so beautiful. They draw thousands of people every year. Every once in a while, images of certain graves will go viral online coming from, from inside this cemetery. So even if you don't know the name or the story I'm describing, you probably recognize some of the famous graves or sculptures within it. Notably, Oscar Wilde's tomb, which has been sealed to visitors as thousands of women would kiss it with red lipstick.

• 31:22Danielle LaRock?

  So it was getting completely covered with lipstick stains from visitors. Or the grave of Victor Noir, born Ivan Salmon, a journalist killed by Prince Bonaparte. Originally bronze, like many of the sculptures in the cemetery, it's oxidized over time. So it's largely green, kind of like the Statue of Liberty. However, the artist who did the sculpture did Victor some favors because he sculpted him with a, he was packing, okay? There's a little bulge down there that is noticeable. And legend has it, over the years, I don't know where it originated, but legend has come to

• 32:08Danielle LaRock?

  claim that if you rub this bulge, it'll provide different fertility benefits and it's good for fertility.

• 32:16Cassandra Yahnian?

  I've seen this on, on social media and I've seen that it's been rubbed so much that the coloring has actually Changed.

• 32:25Danielle LaRock?

  Oh, it shines like a new penny down there.

• 32:28Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. So it's those types of monuments and sculptures that really make this cemetery so beautiful. And of course it has historical significance, but it's just, it's stunning. Hearing of the early success of this cemetery and desperately needing reform in the ways in which burials were being conducted in America, Harvard professor Jacob Bigelow proposed doing the same thing that Paris did with the city of immortals, but with one big exception. He envisioned it wilder and more spacious. He envisioned a public park because surprise, surprise, there weren't public parks as we know them today either.

• 33:07Danielle LaRock?

  And I do need to mention like a little asterisk here because there were public parks, most notably at this time, Boston Commons, which is the oldest park in America. It was founded in 1634, so it kind of takes the crown for the oldest park here in this country. But it started as a cow pasture and military training ground before it became a central spot for things like protests and public executions. So its creation wasn't intended for recreation and pleasant things. It was more practical uses and.

• 33:44Cassandra Yahnian?

  Practical uses like public.

• 33:46Danielle LaRock?

  Like beheadings.

• 33:49Danielle LaRock?

  And hangings and grazing your cows and whatnot. And it did eventually gain speed as a spot for recreation nearly 200 years after its creation. So it wasn't initially designed with recreational intention, but Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts was. Bigelow spent years trying to shop around his idea to people with power and money that could make it happen. But just as the people in France balked at the idea of this new concept called the cemetery, so too did Bostonians. He had found the perfect location for his idea in the year 1830. Roughly 71 acres of forest nestled along the Charles River in Cambridge named Stones Woods. It was used mostly by Harvard students.

• 34:34Danielle LaRock?

  As a place to meander and stroll, but it was undeveloped. It was just somewhere, you know, people happened to pass through or spend time. He purchased the plot, but didn't have enough to develop it into his vision. Lacking public support, he turned to another form of support, the Massachusetts Horticulture Society, and offered them a deal. If they agreed to lend their name and support publicly, and to use their bougie contacts and influential friends to gather support for potential investors, Bigelow would set aside thirty acres of the seventy-one acres of land for them to use as their headquarters and experimental gardens. It worked, they agreed, and the marketing once again was strategic. The project was advertised as the Horticultural

• 35:17Danielle LaRock?

  Society's garden and cemetery. Like, they kind of were like, Small font. Big font garden, and then it's like asterisk and cemetery, very small. It was successful, and within a year, the garden cemetery was open, the first landscaped rural garden cemetery in the United States, complete with a lavish opening night ceremony in the cemetery's amphitheater. Plans were immediately drawn up for the construction of the grounds through naturalistic landscape elements, which included dredging ponds and creeks, constructing a large viewing tower, installing fountains and carving winding paths and roads throughout the property, leaving wooded areas and reflective ponds, and highlighting the panoramic views from the central hills summit that overlooked the city.

• 36:02Danielle LaRock?

  Then there were the plants. As news of this new crazy idea called a garden cemetery spread, horticulturists from around the world sent gifts of seeds, everything from magnolia trees from Ohio and vegetable seeds from the London Horticulture Society. By the end of the eighteen thirties, Mount Auburn had several hundred trees planted and was just getting started. It began incorporating conservation ideas over time. By eighteen seventy, with a growing interest in Mount Auburn as a destination for bird watching, a committee on birds for the cemetery was established, resulting in planting of trees and fruit-bearing shrubs that would attract the birds. Sculptures were installed, becoming the first outdoor sculpture gallery in the country, and all of the work that was

• 36:44Danielle LaRock?

  Done with the intentional landscaping resulted in the first true landscape architecture project in America. So there's a lot of firsts going on here with a cemetery. Like in, you know, we have all these things that we kind of take for granted now. And I mean, you don't even bat an eye at them. It's so normal. But this was the, one of the first projects that really paved the way.

• 37:06Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah. When you're talking about it, I'm like, yeah, all this makes sense, but it doesn't, you forget that at one point this was an idea and not a normal.

• 37:15Danielle LaRock?

  Right.

• 37:23Danielle LaRock?

  Word spread fast and as plans moved off blueprints and started taking shape in real life, people took notice and wanted in. You know, they're like, oh, okay, this is actually really nice. We didn't believe you at first. We were scared, but this actually looks lovely. It didn't just gain the attention of Boston locals who loved the idea of spending eternity there. It became a tourist sensation. People from the likes of Emily Dickinson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Henry David Thoreau, and Nathaniel Hawthorne all visited for recreation, inspiration, and to pay their respects. But more importantly than celebrity visitors, it drew in the average person and a lot of them. The beautiful tranquil setting of Mount Auburn was a major draw for

• 38:06Danielle LaRock?

  city dwellers seeking to experience nature. People visited not only to mourn, but for recreation, education, and sightseeing. They had celebrations and picnics. This cultural phenomenon resulted in the rural cemetery movement in America. And soon after its opening, places across the nation began copying its model from New York to San Francisco. As Greg Melville states in his book, Over My Dead Body: Unearthing the Hidden History of America's Cemeteries, says of Mount Auburn, quote, "It laid the first building block for the modern environmental movement. Untethered graveyards from houses of worship and turned them into freestanding entities which transformed America's burial practices and customs. Nearly

• 38:48Danielle LaRock?

  every modern cemetery in the country shares DNA of Mount Auburn."

• 38:54Danielle LaRock?

  Seven years after the opening of Mount Auburn, Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn opened its giant brownstone Gothic revival gates. And while it mimicked the rural park-like layout of Mount Auburn, like of course, they're using that cemetery as a blueprint to be repeated. It leaned into funerary art and leaned in hard. New York's growing community of artists from poets, painters, writers, and architects descended here for inspiration. But in particular, the sculptors who were commissioned by the ultra wealthy New Yorkers with a desire to permanently display their opulence really flourished here. And while I have some mixed feelings about that, like

• 39:35Danielle LaRock?

  what they were commissioned to create for people are so extra and so bougie and so over the top. Like for someone who wants a simple green burial and not a lot of razzle dazzle. This is the complete opposite of that. They kind of just really wanted to leave their mark of who they were and the power and money that they had. So while I don't know how I feel about that for myself, it sure as hell makes for an absolutely stunning cemetery. And I'm so happy a bunch of people decided to do it at one point because I get to see it.

• 40:09Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's like not for me, but it's beautiful.

• 40:11Danielle LaRock?

  Right. And people of the time too, took notice of the grand mausoleums, the life-sized or larger bronze and marble statues and other artistic funerary pieces. It gained so much popularity. In fact, it became the country's most visited urban tourist attraction nationwide.

• 40:30Cassandra Yahnian?

  Interesting, a cemetery.

• 40:32Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. So what the heck were people doing there? Of course, many of them were simply taking in the sights, strolling the grounds, observing the scenery and monuments and the, you know, absorbing the the peace and tranquility that cemeteries generally offer, but they were also picnicking. An article from the Bellows Falls Times from July of 1894 reads, quote, "Holding a picnic in a cemetery may seem a rather gruesome festivity, but it worked happily in the town of Temple the other day. All hands on deck took hold and beautified the grounds and the..." Cemetery picnic was so successful that it will be repeated next year. All over America, people started flocking to cemeteries for the exact things you would say, see today in public parks.

• 41:15Danielle LaRock?

  They would lay out blankets with baskets full of sandwiches and drinks right alongside the headstones. At times having full-fledged, multi-course holiday meals with the dead. This was in no way a revolutionary idea. People of different cultures throughout time have longstanding traditions of eating meals with the deceased. But for America, this was very new and weirded out a lot of people, especially older generations. While it may seem strange to us now, we have to consider the time and a couple of different factors. First, this was a time before public parks. Like I said, cemeteries were the parks. There is no established areas for people to go and do activities like this in a public rural setting.

• 41:58Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, you're not in the middle of New York City and you can go to the park and play frisbee and have a picnic and read a book under a tree. If you want to find that solace, it's in a cemetery.

• 42:09Danielle LaRock?

  Yep. And secondly, Americans had a much closer relationship and a higher level of comfortability with death. This is a time where the child and infant mortality rate was high and women frequently died in childbirth. Men died in wars and disease epidemics took people by the millions. You know, it was when somebody dies young today, it's a tragedy and of course it happens, but not nearly to the degree that it happened before. So people had a more intimate and close relationship with death and were just kind of like, it was more of a norm and something that wasn't. I mean, our attitude here in America at this point in time with death is very removed and it was not that way at this time. Picnicking gained so much popularity in cemeteries.

• 42:54Danielle LaRock?

  It started kind of looking like the aftermath of Burning Man. A June 1900 article. I know, not good. A June 1900 article from the Conservative stated, quote, "A remarkable fad sprang up in Denver of going to cemeteries for picnics. It has become such a nuisance to have thousands strewn the grounds with sardine cans, beer bottles, and lunchboxes that the police interference was almost contemplated." So people are just leaving garbage and litter and trash, you know, like with thousands of people doing that.

• 43:29Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 43:30Danielle LaRock?

  Leaving.

• 43:31Cassandra Yahnian?

  Very quickly.

• 43:32Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. The popu- and I don't mean to pick on Burning Man. I just feel like festivals have that type of reputation. I have no interest in ever finding out for myself. Just as with golf, if you ever find me at Burning Man.

• 43:45Cassandra Yahnian?

  You've been Brock Potom.

• 43:47Danielle LaRock?

  It's happened.

• 43:50Danielle LaRock?

  The popularity of picnicking in cemeteries eventually faded by the 1920s and has even been banned in certain cemeteries even to this day. But as with many urban parks we see today, and certainly within national parks, it isn't always about what cemeteries can do for people, living or dead, but what they can do for conservation. In the early 1930s, a young Ralph Waldo Emerson started spending a lot of time in the woods near his grandfather's home in Concord, Massachusetts. Gaining inspiration from the natural world in that slice of forest in New England, he went on to publish Nature, a book-length essay that became essentially the gospel for a literary and philosophical movement called transcendentalism,

• 44:32Danielle LaRock?

  a movement which set the stage for the American environmental movement. And you can read all about that movement, but at its core, it was essentially this movement that really took hold in the 19th century and emphasized individual intuition and self-reliance. And like, kind of this inherent goodness of humanity and nature and the belief that spiritual truth transcends material reality. And it kind of rose in popularity, especially here in New England. Like, that's obviously where it took root here. As kind of a reaction against organized. Religion and it just it kind of encouraged people to just find truth and through personal

• 45:14Danielle LaRock?

  experience with a deep connection to the natural world versus finding it through organized religion. Concord became the focal point of this movement and attracted people like Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Margaret Fuller to the area to stroll the woods and contemplate transcendentalism.

• 45:34Cassandra Yahnian?

  Right, that.

• 45:35Danielle LaRock?

  That thing, of course, as one does.

• 45:38Cassandra Yahnian?

  As we all do.

• 45:40Danielle LaRock?

  Many of their works were inspired by this piece of property and stuck with them both professionally and personally for years and years to come. However, by 1854, 90% of Concord had been stripped of its woodlands. Writing in his journal, Thoreau remarked about this, writing, quote, "Each town should have a park, or rather, a primitive forest, of 500 acres or 1,000 acres, where a stick should never be cut for fuel, a common possession forever, for instruction and recreation." And the best shot at protecting a space like that? A rural cemetery that would protect it forever. And thus, with Emerson of the cemetery's commission, construction of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery began in 1855.

• 46:26Cassandra Yahnian?

  Sleepy Hollow?

• 46:27Danielle LaRock?

  As in, the legend.

• 46:29Cassandra Yahnian?

  Sleepy Hollow?

• 46:30Danielle LaRock?

  The legend.

• 46:31Cassandra Yahnian?

  Headless horsemen?

• 46:32Danielle LaRock?

  Of Sleepy Hollow. Yep.

• 46:34Cassandra Yahnian?

  Wow, how fitting for, for the cemetery.

• 46:37Danielle LaRock?

  Spooky season. Guess what? I'm not going to talk about that legend one bit.

• 46:41Cassandra Yahnian?

  Really?

• 46:43Danielle LaRock?

  Really? Sorry. Maybe.

• 46:46Cassandra Yahnian?

  But it's Sleepy Hollow.

• 46:48Danielle LaRock?

  Maybe some other time. I was too focused on the cemetery portion.

• 47:00Danielle LaRock?

  As many trees as possible were saved during construction of the cemetery and during its open and during its opening cemetery, Emerson spoke of how he envisioned, as the years passed by, the beauty of the cemetery growing and maturing. That, quote, "These acorns falling at our feet would someday become oak." overshadowing our children in a remote century. Sleepy Hollow's creation, the way it began as this idea to intentionally protect and cultivate nature in a segment of forest, again, was unprecedented. And as author Greg Melville points out, Sleepy Hollow is often omitted from the conversation regarding the first to protect a natural space in this country, forgotten as often happens to burial grounds.

• 47:45Danielle LaRock?

  Instead, the focus is placed squarely on the space designated by Congress in 1872, and that is Yellowstone National Park. Many of the people who advocated for the protection of Sleepy Hollow are buried there, including Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Thoreau, and Emerson, eternally resting under the trees they wanted to save. So Sleepy Hollow began as a conservation project in wanting to protect the forest. And it's like, how do we do that? I guess you bury dead people here because then it's protected. It was like, almost like a loophole in a way, you know?

• 48:20Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's smart. It's a smart loophole. It's like, well, you can't destroy land that is a important burial ground.

• 48:26Danielle LaRock?

  Right. It's very, very clever.

• 48:30Danielle LaRock?

  With all of that hype and love and admiration for cemeteries and how beautiful and meaningful they are, they are dying in visitation and in use. There are a few reasons for that, but overwhelmingly, we are choosing other alternatives when it comes to deciding what to do with our mortal remains. Aquamation, green burials, human composting, body donation, and even becoming part of a memorial coral reef have all risen in popularity as we have woken up to how problematic the death industrial complex has become. People argue it has become predatory and powerful, and not to mention, it is absolutely horrendous for the environment. Aside from the glaring problem of running out of space for sprawling cemeteries,

• 49:13Danielle LaRock?

  those once far removed rural garden cemeteries are now encapsulated by cities who have grown to surround them. But traditional burials are bad, bad news bears for the environment. Because, you know, at first, it's like, great, let's just, over there, away from all the people, there's so much space and room. And again, it's like, that was a solution to a problem at one point, but now we're running into that problem again. I mean, like,

• 49:40Cassandra Yahnian?

  Well, when you kind of think about it, too, is like in Sleepy Hollow's case, you are preserving some of the trees that were otherwise going to be bulldozed over and, and built upon. But when you look at cemeteries as a whole now and today, a lot of them have paved roads in them. They have to cut down trees because you have to bury bodies and have gravestones. So you are, even though you're preserving a piece of land, a lot of it is grass and buried bodies.

• 50:08Danielle LaRock?

  Well, the way it's landscaped and things are yeah, different.

• 50:11Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's not as eco-conscious as you might think.

• 50:15Danielle LaRock?

  But also, you know, like Mount Auburn in their case, which surprise, we will be going to tomorrow before our event.

• 50:25Cassandra Yahnian?

  Oh.

• 50:27Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, because it's close to where we're going tomorrow. So I would like to bring you, because I have been before and it's amazing and beautiful. And I think after especially hearing this, like 24 hours later, seeing it in person would be really cool. But with their case, you know, originally, it's like, great, it's away from the city. It overlooks Boston, but it's still separate now. Oh, my God. It's in the middle, smack dab in the middle. Cambridge has surrounded, you know, grown up around it.

• 50:56Cassandra Yahnian?

  Huge, just basically Boston.

• 50:58Danielle LaRock?

  Right. So it's like that idea that was once a, a, a answer to a big problem as far as, you know, keeping it away from, we're running out of away is what I'm saying, you know? So that's a problem, but also traditional burials are just terrible for the environment. And that's another huge conversation and one that could take up an entire episode. But I just wanted to give some fast facts about it, just to give you a glimpse into how, how terrible it is for the environment. According to the Green Burial Council, every single year, Americans alone deposit into the ground through burials, 4.3 million gallons

• 51:38Danielle LaRock?

  of toxic embalming fluid, including formaldehyde, along with 1.6 million tons of concrete, 81,000 tons of metal, and 20 million board feet of wood. Heavy metals from medical- Devices left in corpses and powerful pharmaceutical drugs like those used in chemotherapy also seep into the ground and along with the embalming fluids eventually seep their way into underground waterways. Cremation is also a hugely popular alternative to traditional burials that have, you know, skyrocketed in popularity over the last few decades and for a time was thought to be a much better alternative to traditional burials for environmental reasons. But studies over the last few decades show as the process stands today, I mean, there are improvements

• 52:23Danielle LaRock?

  trying to be made with the technology and how things are done with cremation. But as it stands right now, it isn't better by much due to the release of harmful gases and the huge amount of energy that it needs to power even a single cremation. So that's kind of a side note, but I did want to mention that. So as all these facts and figures start to emerge, the public is starting to favor more environmentally friendly options as we begin to recognize just how huge of an environmental impact traditional burials have on our world, which is great. I mean, this is great for nature to improve your, you know, what you can do to reduce your carbon footprint, even after you're dead is awesome. Totally a big advocate for that. But in the context of

• 53:08Danielle LaRock?

  cemeteries, it's bad news because with their interred residents becoming further and further removed from the living and other options for recreational activities that people once sought to do within cemeteries, like, you know, there's actually, you can go to a public park now.

• 53:23Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, they exist.

• 53:23Danielle LaRock?

  To play flag football. You don't, you don't have to go to a cemetery. There's less visitation, especially here in New England with the older cemeteries. I mean, people aren't visiting their great, great, great grandfather. Like the graves from seventeen seventy two, you know, the cemeteries and burial grounds, a lot of them are burial grounds that once had a church or some form of house of worship that either has been burned or demolished or whatever. There's usually a plaque that'll say like this here once stood, whatever.

• 53:52Cassandra Yahnian?

  I think we also have a lot more of a connection to our loved ones who have passed on remaining where I now. Nowadays than we did when cemeteries first became an idea because when we first, I mean, going back for a long time, but cemeteries were where your loved one was. And that was kind of the only place that you could be close to them. But now we have pictures, we have videos of them. We have all of these things where we can feel close to them in our homes, where I feel like has also probably really contributed to people not going to cemeteries as much.

• 54:25Danielle LaRock?

  Exactly. And you know, a lot of people just aren't being buried. They, you know, like my, you know, my, the people who I've lost that are very close to me do not have physical graves. So there's no need for me to personally visit a cemetery for personal reasons in that way. So with all of those factors, you know, there's less visitation, which means less money. And with less money coming in, all that funding going, you know, that isn't there. It means less budget for upkeep and there's more problems associated with maintaining the grounds and keeping the gates open to these cemeteries. So what can be done? You know, like what is the solution there? And I'll give you a solution, a little bit of a recommendation.

• 55:10Danielle LaRock?

  And this was my favorite part of the episode, do research, because this is where I get to event recommendations and ways that you can go into cemeteries and have your own experience, other than just going to stroll around and poke around on your own. Understandably, special events ramp up in earnest this time of year with spooky season. I mean, it's like their Super Bowl season right now in October. And I'll highlight a few of those special events, but there are year-round events in cemeteries that are happening all of the time that are just as fun and just as intriguing. And I really encourage everyone who is even slightly interested in this topic or just their local history, to look into events that are going on in their nearby cemeteries

• 55:56Danielle LaRock?

  or historical societies, because I guarantee that you will find something nearby that you will want to participate in or at least investigate and see what it's all about. Big name cemeteries like the ones we talked about today, Mount Auburn, Greenwood. And Sleepy Hollow and also the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, which I didn't get into, but is very famous. And we went to, that was my birthday wish a few years ago.

• 56:20Cassandra Yahnian?

  We went with Ian and Al and we walked around the Hollywood Cemetery and it was an interesting experience because I was thinking about it a lot in this episode where you were talking about how people used to go for fun and to recreate and the Hollywood Cemetery kind of still embodies that atmosphere because people go, they pay a ticket price. It's like, it's very nice there. It's beautiful. You know, everyone has these incredible headstones that are there. And of course, a lot of that comes down to the people who are buried there are very rich and very famous. So that's in part of why it's so beautiful, but it's a cemetery, but it doesn't have like

• 57:01Cassandra Yahnian?

  this ominous, like sad feeling. It's very bright and welcoming and it was an interesting place to be.

• 57:08Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. And it's, that's like a perfect example of having famous people interred there and drawing visitors, you know, because we went, I mean, I wanted to go because we were there already for another event. It lined up with my birthday and it just, it's kind of like this iconic location and we got the map, you know, and we're like have it out and we're like, okay, where's Judy Garland? And yeah, whereas I have a picture of Ian in front of, um, what's his name? Ramon, something. He's like a famous rock star.

• 57:35Cassandra Yahnian?

  I remember that.

• 57:37Danielle LaRock?

  God, people are probably screaming at me right now.

• 57:40Cassandra Yahnian?

  I don't remember the person, but I remember him wanting a photo in front of.

• 57:43Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, I have a picture of him there. And then I also, I was going through because I wanted to see, I'm like, oh, what, uh, what pictures do I have of that? When I was researching this episode, I have a picture of you in front of Toto's little memorial marker. And I have a video. I was like, why did I save this video? It's like three seconds long. It's not even really of anything. Like, what the heck is this? It looks kind of like I have the video going in my hand and I forgot to turn it off. And I'm watching it and at first I almost deleted it because at first it's just when we were inside the um, it was like the mausoleum, one of the mausoleums or um, I don't know what it's

• 58:24Danielle LaRock?

  called. It was a huge indoor building and it was echoing like crazy and I'm like, what the heck is this? And I kept it because no one's in it. It's just filming the memorial markers or grave markers and it's Ian laughing and it's just echoing like throughout.

• 58:44Cassandra Yahnian?

  Through the whole thing.

• 58:45Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah. Um, but anyway, yeah. So that's a perfect example of somewhere that does really leans into events and drawing people there. Um, and like you said, I mean, a lot of people who are entered there are very wealthy. So they have money coming in and things like that, but they aren't the only ones who have events. So I wanted to, just from the three that we talked about, they're literally bullet point lists of just, because we'd be here forever if I talked about everything. But Mount Auburn, I mentioned it super briefly, but this is a hotspot birding destination. So for all you birders out there, this is one of this cemetery's biggest attractions. They host thousands of

• 59:28Danielle LaRock?

  visitors every single year for birding events and they have walking tours and birding ID tours and it's a part of.

• 59:37Cassandra Yahnian?

  So interesting.

• 59:38Danielle LaRock?

  It's a long, like a migration route, like a very, a special migration route. So, and especially with all the specifically landscaped trees and vegetation to attract birds, it's like people go there specifically for this and they have events.

• 59:53Cassandra Yahnian?

  So fun.

• 59:54Danielle LaRock?

  Like seasonally for it. It's really interesting. They have everything from forest bathing opportunities, drawing workshops, historic walks, uh, meditation retreats, like they have events all of the time. So this is kind of, it goes without saying that most of these cemeteries have really have special events that have to do with historic walking tours of the history of the cemetery. This is like above and beyond those offerings.

• 1:00:19Cassandra Yahnian?

  Gotcha.

• 1:00:20Danielle LaRock?

  Greenwood in New York has. Candlelit walks, they have parades, they have death education series, school programs, school field trips, environmental and historical research fellowship opportunities. They have artists in residence programs because like I said, they really gained a lot of notoriety for their art, especially when they started. They have after dark light shows and so much more. And then Sleepy Hollow, of course, has lantern tours. They have murder mystery events, jack-o'-lantern painting nights, especially this time of year. They have live storytellings of classic tales like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Dracula, and The Headless Horseman.

• 1:01:06Danielle LaRock?

  I gotta go since I don't know anything about it, apparently, and neither will you from this episode.

• 1:01:13Danielle LaRock?

  Cemeteries also routinely host outdoor movie nights. That's a huge thing this year. They're starting to wrap up because the weather, especially in New England, is getting chillier. But look up cinema in the cemetery events near you and you can literally, it's like outdoor. You just bring your blanket and a chair and set up in the cemetery and they have a big outdoor projector and you can watch a movie. Cute. There's concerts, yoga classes, workshops, and of course, the historic walking tours that go over everything from the lives of those who are interred there, local legends, their architecture, horticulture, birding, and so much more. And to finish this up, if you don't live near any cemetery that hosts events like this,

• 1:01:56Danielle LaRock?

  or if they happen to be all sold out, especially this time of year, you know, they're super popular. I looked into a couple at Mount Auburn and they were like, yeah, no.

• 1:02:08Danielle LaRock?

  You're not getting in. I do have a solution for you. And I participated in this last year and it was so much fun. Especially if you're an introvert and like, don't want to be social but want to still do something fun, like it was fun event. This is the best of both worlds. You get the best of both worlds. So I follow a page on Instagram and it's called Talk Death Daily. And each year they host Cemetery scavenger hunt. And this is an event that you can do 100% by yourself in whatever cemetery that you choose, or at one of their participating cemeteries that are involved in the event. So I'm going to break down how this works because I was so, I was like, oh my God, I hope this comes

• 1:02:50Danielle LaRock?

  out before the cemetery scavenger hunt and it does. So if you're listening to this in real time this year, you have like roughly a week to prepare yourself. So this year it's running on Sunday, October 26th. So on that day, this is, this is what you're going to want to do. You're going to want to pick a cemetery and arrive there at least 10 minutes before the start time, which will be 2:30 PM Eastern. Clues are dropped all at once, like across a bunch of their Instagram, their Facebook and on their website, like they, they drop a bunch of clues and you have 45 minutes to explore the grounds in search of headstones or monuments or different features that match the given clues. And once you find the clue or the answer to the clue,

• 1:03:34Danielle LaRock?

  you take a selfie with it and you're provided with this form that as you find the clues, you upload your picture to the corresponding clue to show that you found it. And you have to just submit it by the end of the allotted time, which is like 45 minutes. And they pick winners and announce the winners about an hour after the 45 minute window closes. And they give out prizes to the person who finds 13 clues first, the highest number of clues found over the 45 minutes and different accolades for like most unique photography. Like sometimes people, like they, they say, okay, you need to be able to identify yourself within each picture. So we know you're

• 1:04:16Danielle LaRock?

  not just like Googling a picture and uploading it. Once you see, like we have to see that this is you. And in the past, some people have like dressed up or like used a little like fun, like, like a Bigfoot little figurine or something to hold or just something unique and cute. So most creative photography, they'll give out awards for that too. And they advise you to do your research beforehand into your cemetery of choice to make sure you're doing everything. By the book, make sure that you're not going to break any rules or go against any guidelines of that particular cemetery, just to make sure you're being respectful. Um, and of course, that means being mindful of any other people that may be in there and staying far away from any active burials

• 1:04:57Danielle LaRock?

  or um ceremonies or anything like that. And they encourage you to find cemeteries that are the most historic and larger diverse that you can, because they'll give you a better um chance at locating clues.

• 1:05:10Cassandra Yahnian?

  Finding like all of these things.

• 1:05:12Danielle LaRock?

  Yep. And if you are close to one of their partners, they're doing collaborations with some really incredible cemeteries, collectives and individuals and different death adjacent groups to give you an opportunity to connect with like-minded people. And they really encourage you to go out and go to one of those events if you're close to them. And I wrote down three. Uh, the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, New York, Lone Fur Cemetery in Portland, Oregon, and Riverside Cemetery in Waterbury, Connecticut are participating this year as like official partners. And the clues are kind of just to give you like a snapshot and like, what the heck are you looking for?

• 1:05:48Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:48Danielle LaRock?

  Last year, I'm trying to think. So last year would be like, find uh like a weeping willow. Like, cause there's, if you follow my cemetery symbolism series, you know that there are different symbols and things like that on headstones uh that were popular at different points in time in history. So they'll be like, find a headstone with a weeping willow, or find a headstone where the person's initials are all H. So like Horace Herbert Harrison, HHH.

• 1:06:16Cassandra Yahnian?

  Gotcha. So there are things that you could find in most cemeteries theoretically.

• 1:06:21Danielle LaRock?

  Correct.

• 1:06:22Cassandra Yahnian?

  Do it from wherever you are.

• 1:06:24Danielle LaRock?

  Yes.

• 1:06:25Cassandra Yahnian?

  That's cool. That's a fun idea.

• 1:06:26Danielle LaRock?

  Or like find a grave that somebody died in eighteen seventy-nine or whatever. Like, it's just, they try and make it as accessible to the most amount of people who are going into their local cemeteries versus like particular ones that can be only found in certain locations.

• 1:06:44Cassandra Yahnian?

  You're not gonna find, find Judy Garland.

• 1:06:46Danielle LaRock?

  Oh, right. It's like, find Judy Garland. Good luck.

• 1:06:50Cassandra Yahnian?

  One cemetery.

• 1:06:51Danielle LaRock?

  Yep.

• 1:06:52Cassandra Yahnian?

  That's such a fun way. To do spooky season.

• 1:06:55Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, and to get people out and involved and interested and eyes and on locations that you may just like pa- I mean, the amount of cemeteries that we drive by as the average person is crazy. I mean, they're everywhere, but they're just places that we don't really venture to often. And they're just, they're just such, there's opportunity there to just have like a really unique experience, especially, especially for people who are interested in history, like, which is the vast majority of our listeners. So there's that. And the last thing about that event in particular, this year, they're raising funds for the Black Cemetery Network, which is a national platform for highlighting activities to identify, interpret, preserve,

• 1:07:36Danielle LaRock?

  and record African-American burial grounds and their histories with an emphasis on identifying, honoring, preserving, and archiving black cemeteries that have been marginalized, underfunded, unmarked, or abandoned. So.

• 1:07:49Cassandra Yahnian?

  Love an event with a good cause.

• 1:07:50Danielle LaRock?

  Yep. Many cemeteries and burial grounds are treasures cloaked in scary outfits. And while some of them have been left to the elements to be reclaimed by nature, some are national landmarks. There are currently fourteen national cemeteries actively managed by the National Park Service, including Gettysburg, Little Big Horn, and Poplar Grove. However, roughly seventeen hundred of them are designated as national historic landmarks or are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, including Mount Auburn, Sleepy Hollow, and Greenwood.

• 1:08:25Cassandra Yahnian?

  And there's your tie-in for a national park.

• 1:08:30Danielle LaRock?

  There it is.

• 1:08:31Cassandra Yahnian?

  There's the cherry on top of the.

• 1:08:35Danielle LaRock?

  There is so much beauty to behold in the lands of the dead. Burial grounds, to me, are places where the living can give final acts of devotion to the deceased. Can they be a little unsettling? Yeah, but I think we have pop culture to largely think for that. Because if you truly slow down and take the time to read the engravings in stone, they are miniature love letters, either in epitaphs or symbols. Some are small, faded, and worn by weather and time, while others loom largely. In the form of giant sculptures, impossible to miss. But regardless, they are testimonies that we have always loved, lost, grieved, hoped for something better, wanted to be remembered, and wished to be honored.

• 1:09:17Danielle LaRock?

  While there can certainly be uniqueness in headstones and details etched into them, there is an epitaph that gained popularity in the 18th century and serves as a gentle reminder to all of us today. Remember, friends, as you passed by, as you are now, so once was I. As I am now, so you must be. Prepare for death and follow me. And with that little memento mori, I will leave you for this episode. I hope you enjoyed learning a little bit about the history of cemeteries and how rad they can be and how special they are. And I hope I inspired you to go check out your local cemetery and tag me in your pictures. I would love to see.

• 1:09:57Cassandra Yahnian?

  Well, for a cemetery episode, that sounded like it would be dark and scary, was not. And it was fun and interesting. And I think just right on the money for spooky season. And I loved the little end part where you said that graves are just tiny love letters.

• 1:10:15Danielle LaRock?

  They are. Like, if you think about it, and you're not going to spend money and time and like, resources to putting up a memorial, whether it be simple and small and plain, or elaborate and decadent and opulent, like, big to small, you're still doing it because you love that person and want to honor them. Unless you've figured it out for yourself beforehand, you're like, I'm, I'm commissioning this for me when I die. You know, largely, it's, it's, unless you're setting yourself up.

• 1:10:51Cassandra Yahnian?

  Which is still a love letter to yourself.

• 1:10:53Danielle LaRock?

  Right, right. And just a little, the, at the very, very end here, just a shout out for my primary resource, this book here, which I did mention in a quote earlier, it's called "Over My Dead Body: Unearthing the Hidden History of America's Cemeteries" by Greg Melville. This book, I'm not even gonna lie, is, I read this last year, and this is one of my favorite books of all time, like, top five book.

• 1:11:20Cassandra Yahnian?

  Wow, okay. That's a big honor.

• 1:11:23Danielle LaRock?

  It is.

• 1:11:23Cassandra Yahnian?

  Read a lot of books.

• 1:11:25Danielle LaRock?

  I do read a lot of books. It's just so incredible because it goes over, I mean, everything that I said and way more. He goes in depth with indigenous burials and, and the problems we've uncovered with, you know, African American burials and how like I just mentioned with the Talk Death event, that they've just been largely forgotten and how we used to segregate cemeteries, you know, segregation even even in death and just, he goes over everything. It's not just European centered, which is why I love this so much. It's kind of all encompassing and he does a great job, um, going over a complete history and even the

• 1:12:06Danielle LaRock?

  parts that are difficult to face. But, and he starts, it's also cool because it's formatted from oldest to newest, East Coast to West Coast.

• 1:12:16Cassandra Yahnian?

  Interesting.

• 1:12:16Danielle LaRock?

  So he'll start in like Plymouth, Mass. And then work over to like the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. And it's kind of like part travelogue, part his history based. It's like he has his own because he's personally traveled to all of these places and it's great. It's really fun. So if you're interested at all in any part of this episode, I definitely recommend this book. Okay. Wow. Thanks, everyone. I feel like I thought this was going to be a short episode and I feel like it was long.

• 1:12:45Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah, I don't think it was short. You had a lot of information.

• 1:12:48Danielle LaRock?

  Wow. Okay. I'm, I'm so happy. So yeah, if you, uh, I was also in my outline. I even had like a little, it's funny because I still have the like header for it and I just never filled it in. I was going to talk about symbols. And then I was like, I don't have the time. Who has the time?

• 1:13:06Cassandra Yahnian?

  Who has the time for these things? That's what your symbol series is for.

• 1:13:10Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, that's right. So if you were interested in that, be on the lookout for some chaotic material on.

• 1:13:16Cassandra Yahnian?

  It's on Instagram right now and maybe one day it'll make its way to TikTok. We'll see.

• 1:13:22Danielle LaRock?

  Yeah, we'll see. Okay, everyone. Well, thank you so much for joining us and learning a little bit about the history of American cemeteries. We appreciate you so much. We'll see you next week.

• 1:13:33Cassandra Yahnian?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:34Danielle LaRock?

  In the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch your back. Bye, everyone. Bye. Thank you for joining us again this week. If you love National Park After Dark and want to hear exclusive bonus stories, join us on Patreon or Apple subscriptions. Patreon subscribers have access to our National Park After Dark Book Club, live streams, Discord, and much more. If you prefer to watch our episodes, video episodes are now available on YouTube. If you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe on your favorite listening platform. And to follow along with all our adventures, you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and X at National Park After Dark.

• 1:14:22Cassandra Yahnian?

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