Legends 16: Unusual Graves

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Welcome to Lore Legends, a subset of lore episodes that explore the strange tales we whisper in the dark, even if they can't always be proven by the history books.

So if you're ready, let's begin.

When we die, we're remembered by the people who knew us.

Siblings, cousins, friends, and colleagues carry on our memory until they too pass on.

I've heard it said that the people we love don't really die until we do, because their memory is still inside us every day.

But once we're all gone, what's left?

For many of us, it's our grave and headstone.

Just a few words about who we were.

Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons, or daughters who eked out a living between two hopefully distant dates, all of which is etched onto a stone slab a few feet high.

That doesn't seem like a lot to honor a life well lived, or one that was taken from this world too soon, but some legends are remembered a bit differently.

Their graves do more than just honor them.

They help define who they were while they were still drawing breath.

Some of these graves were marvels of modern engineering, while others demonstrate the lengths people will go to in order to remain with their loved ones, even in death.

So join me as we examine the most unusual graves, the ones that go beyond simple headstones.

They are works of art shaped and molded out of our grief and paranoia.

And while they serve as reminders that yes, we too shall one day pass away, we don't have to be forgotten.

I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore Legends.

Our first story takes us to Moncton, Vermont, located along the state's western border.

It was there where Timothy Clark Smith was born in 1821.

He was an ambitious man, graduating from Middlebury in 1842, followed by a stint at the U.S.

Treasury Department in Washington, D.C.

Then, he received a medical degree from the University of the City of New York in 1855.

But soon after graduating, Smith uprooted himself from the United States and moved to Russia.

He built a new life there becoming an Army surgeon and eventually meeting his future wife Catherine Some reports claim that she was Russian but it appears that she was actually the child of an English Army surgeon.

They had several children together after a number of years Smith was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln to the position of consul in Odessa He valued his career but also wanted what was best for his family especially his children and that's why when his eldest four reached a certain age Smith took them back to the United States with him to attend school school.

Catherine and the younger children stayed behind in Russia, seemingly for decades.

Timothy Smith was found dead at the age of 71 on February 25th of 1893.

His body was interred at the vault at New Haven, Vermont's central burying ground, while officials waited word from his widow.

New Haven, Vermont is a small picturesque town just north of Middlebury, close to the New York border.

Now, the cemetery where Smith's grave is located was renamed Evergreen Cemetery in 1915 after a row of, you guessed it, evergreen trees was planted there.

The oldest grave at Evergreen dates back to 1791, although it's possible that it was moved there from a family cemetery later on.

The land itself appears to have officially become a burial ground in 1810, and it is still an active cemetery to this day.

It's located just off the rural Town Hill Road, and its ornamental gate is flanked by its namesake Evergreens.

But according to local lore, Timothy Clark Smith was deathly afraid of being buried alive, a fear known as taphophobia.

This was a common fear to have at the time too.

For example, Edgar Allan Poe published a short story called Premature Burial in 1844 about a man who takes extensive precautions to avoid winding up six feet under while still alive, a fate he ultimately succumbs to by the end of the tale.

The 19th century saw a variety of inventions which were designed to help those who had been buried alive communicate with people above ground.

These included air pipes and bells connected to pull strings, but more on those later.

Smith, not one to take chances, availed himself of as many of these precautions as possible.

One legend claimed that his biggest fear was contracting a disease known as sleeping sickness, which would give him the appearance of having passed away.

The last thing he wanted to do was wake up inside a coffin with the lid over his head.

And so, after his death, his son, Harrison, traveled from Iowa to Vermont to make sure his crypt was built according to certain specifications.

It cost a pretty penny of course but the end result was a grave that any corpse would be happy to decompose in.

It was a single underground room which was constructed out of cement and stone.

It boasted a cement shaft filled with glass that connected the room to the surface above.

Some say this window was meant to provide his relatives with a way of confirming that he was truly dead.

All they had to do was look down through the window.

There was also a staircase leading up in the event that Smith felt the need to leave his grave at any moment.

And as was customary at the time, he was buried with some kind of a signaling contraption, either a bell inside or a wire connected to a bell on the surface.

Although for a man who was so afraid of being buried and forgotten, he made his grave pretty difficult to find.

He has no headstone, nor any kind of engraving or plaque identifying his burial site.

The glass window looking down on his remains is sadly no longer functional.

Ferns have moved in beneath the surface of the grave, and condensation on the window's interior have blocked visitors from peering inside.

In 1939, one local paper reported that several older locals had tried to catch a glimpse of Smith's corpse, debating whether or not they actually saw the bones of one of his hands.

By the 1940s, the grave had already become a tourist attraction.

The cemetery's superintendent was quoted as saying, Every summer we have any number of visitors, some from distant states, who come to New Haven to see the Timothy Smith grave.

Personally, I can't see what they see in it.

And that makes sense, as the window had already become too cloudy to see all the way into the tomb.

Of course, that hasn't stopped certain rumors from spreading, even to this day.

And the most disturbing legend of all: that if you listen carefully, you might hear the sounds of screams and a ringing bell coming from the grave.

For our next chapter, let's do some traveling.

About 850 miles south of Vermont is the city of Charlotte, North Carolina, the home of Leela Maude Davidson Hansel.

She was born there in 1861 to a wealthy family.

How prominent were they?

Well, the nearby Davidson College was named after her grandfather.

Leela herself worked as a schoolteacher, where she was known for a number of positive qualities.

She had a sunny demeanor and an unwavering love for humanity.

She was also beautiful, with one paper describing golden hair that wreathed a face that was the talk of ballrooms of two states.

These were attributes that earned her the nickname the Sunshine Woman.

Then, in 1910, she married a judge named Charles P.

Hansel, who happened to be a member of the state legislature.

The two began building a life together until things took a turn for the worse around 1914.

That's when Leela came down with a case of tuberculosis, forcing her and her husband to pack up and move to Hendersonville, North Carolina.

The hope was that the change in scenery and in climate would help her get better.

Unfortunately, she only got worse.

But no matter how sick she got, nor how badly the disease sapped her beauty away, she still held on to her smile, which lit up every room she entered until her death on December 2nd, 1915.

Leela's unembalmed body was buried in a brick above-ground vault in Oakdale Cemetery, with her coffin sitting directly on the ground.

Located in Hendersonville, Oakdale was founded in 1885 and encompasses 22 acres of land.

Over 5,000 bodies are interred there, with more being added each year.

Her vault was the first of its kind at Oakdale, and just like Timothy Clark Smith's grave, it was not marked with her name.

But her burial site differs quite a bit from the Good Doctors in one unique way.

Rather than a windowed shaft leading down to her chamber, Leela's tomb was fitted with a roof.

made of glass squares.

An article in the Charlotte Observer stated the squares measured about two inches square at the base and four inches through to the tip of the pyramid, which points downward.

They were arranged in seven rows of 21 panes each for a total of 147 squares.

It seems that even in death, she could not bear to be kept out of the sun.

According to one account, she pleaded with her husband before her passing that she not be buried underground.

She was quoted as saying, lay me where the sun will shine on me all day long.

Her tomb was designed by undertaker J.W.

Stepp while Lila was still alive.

In fact, she had been the one to approve his design and it was completed only a few weeks before her untimely passing.

When she was finally laid to rest, songs about beauty and sunshine were sung in her honor as she took her place beneath the glass roof.

But her unusual burial site led to a proliferation of rumors.

People started wondering whether they could see inside her tomb.

One news article from 1926 reported that three out of four visitors to Leela's grave claimed that they could see her body.

The trick was was visiting on a sunny day and waiting for the light to hit the tomb at just the right angle.

So, what might someone expect to see while peering inside?

Well, some have said that Leela wears a gray dress adorned at the wrists with elegant lace.

Others claim the chamber is chock full of flowers surrounding her casket.

And those who knew her while she was still alive believe that she wore a permanent smile across her face, ever the embodiment of her nickname, the Sunshine Woman.

But the tomb's designer, Mr.

Stepp, disagreed.

For one, seeing inside her tomb was practically impossible as he had used opaque glass, which was then arranged in such a way that it would keep the light from reaching the inside.

In addition, Leela was laid to rest in a simple burial shroud, not a gray dress.

Her coffin was only opened enough to reveal the top half of her body, and she didn't have thousands of flowers positioned around her.

But of course, that didn't stop people from trying to catch a peek.

A newspaper reporter in 1926 decided to see for herself and visited visited the grave a total of two times.

Afterward, she came away convinced that the tomb's designer had in fact been wrong.

It was possible to see inside.

What she witnessed was astounding too.

She reported not seeing a body, but a miniature skeleton, its eerie bones exposed to the light, with no trace of the shroud mentioned by Mr.

Stepp.

Apparently, a crack in the tomb had let in sufficient moisture that had utterly decayed the cloth.

The reporter also believed that the flowers people claimed to have seen were pieces of brick brick that had the appearance of roses.

The skeleton's diminutive size was blamed on the glass panes, which acted like a camera lens and optically shrunk the full-sized bones.

But the reporter's article did little to shut down the rumor mill.

It was back up and running by December of 1931.

According to the legends, Leela has been a bit restless since her death, as the gossip going around claimed that she had turned over in her grave.

The reason for her change in position, the branches of two pine trees west of her tomb had grown so much that they overshadowed the chamber's glass roof, blocking out the sun.

Of course, some people have suggested cutting down those trees to grant Leela her beloved sunshine again.

Meanwhile, neighborhood children did brisk business selling cups of water to visitors so that they could pour them on the glass to better see the skeleton inside.

Unfortunately, no amount of water will offer a glimpse into her tomb today.

The grave has long since been covered over in concrete, blocking out Leela's afternoon sun glow, leaving the sunshine woman where she doesn't belong.

Lost in eternal shadow.

Several states away from Leela Hansel are the remains of Mitty Wilkins Manning.

She was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi on January 19th of 1871.

Her father, Van Manning, had been a lawyer and a former Confederate soldier, while her mother grew up as part of a wealthy local family.

Mitty wasn't alone in the house growing up.

She had two older brothers, as well as an older sister named Mary and a younger sister named Harriet.

Sadly, while her siblings would go on to do great things, such as enter local politics or serve during World War I, Mitty wouldn't be so lucky.

Her life was tragically cut short in April of 1875 by an unknown disease.

It took her quickly, at the tender age of four.

Mitty's body was laid to rest at Hillcrest Cemetery.

Founded in 1845 as Town Cemetery, its grounds have been used for burials all the way back to 1838.

Then it's beautiful too, with a variety of holly, cedar, magnolia, and linden trees planted across its sprawling 24 acres.

Then in 1905, it became Hillcrest.

She's buried among a number of unknown Confederate soldiers, as well as some victims of an 1878 outbreak of yellow fever, some of whom are marked by special monuments.

One was put up by the Mississippi Press Association to commemorate some of the reporters who died of the illness.

Another was put up in honor of Father Oberti and the Catholic nuns who tended to the sick as the epidemic dragged on.

But despite all that celebration and grandness, Mitty's grave is something special.

It's an above-ground, brick-walled tomb with a marble slab on top.

In fact, it looks an awful lot, like a large table.

And right there on the top of it is a raised circular portion of the slab that bears her name, her birth and death dates, and the names of her parents.

And there's also an inscription of a quote from the book of Isaiah, which reads, He shall gather the lambs with his arms and carry them in his bosom.

But that's not what sets Midi's grave apart from the others.

You see, that circular section of the marble top does more than just tell people who rests inside.

It also moves.

It was designed to swivel to the side in order to reveal a window, which would allow visitors to gaze down into the tomb itself.

You see, Midi's mother Mary was so devastated by her daughter's death that she had the sliding window installed so that she could visit and look down at her daughter's face, which was positioned directly beneath the glass.

Sadly, Midi's angelic face couldn't last forever.

As her remains started to decompose, Mary's visits did more to inflame her grief than to soothe it.

Before long, she was staying at her daughter's tomb day and night, staring through the the porthole at what was left of her daughter.

Her husband eventually had to step in and have their daughter's body buried underground, but he left the marble slab and sliding window in place.

And eventually, the Manning family moved away and Mitty was left alone.

In fact, neither of her parents nor any of her siblings are buried there in Hillcrest Cemetery.

In recent years, a local preservation society donated time and money to restore the young girl's tomb, which was sadly on the verge of collapse.

Years of being hit with lawnmowers by maintenance crews had done considerable damage to its integrity, so the group built a cement base around it, along with a new brick structure to support the marble slab on top, and they repaired the sliding mechanism for the window.

And a rededication ceremony for the new grave was held in September of 2020, with a local reverend presiding over the occasion.

And of course, you won't see Midi through the glass.

She's tucked safely beneath the soil, out of view from the public.

But visitors can still slide that that cover out of the way and gaze into her empty tomb.

At the rededication service, the minister was quoted as saying, Show me the manner in which a nation cares for its dead, and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender mercies of its people, their respect for the laws of the land, and their loyalty to high ideals.

Clearly, Mitty Manning was well loved in both life and death.

And although things have changed a lot since then, those tender mercies are still on display.

To see them, all you need to do is step up to the glass and look inside.

Timothy Clark Smith wasn't the only person with a fear of being buried alive.

After all, there's a reason it was a common fear.

And although he came up with several ingenious solutions to avoid that fate, others went to even more extensive lengths to avoid it.

In 1799, George Washington was dying.

Several days before, he had contracted a throat infection after going out in the cold in wet clothing, and now he was on his deathbed, his secretary, Tobias Lear, close at hand.

Washington whispered to him, I am just going.

Have me decently buried and do not let my body be put into the vault in less than three days after I am dead.

Lear allegedly bowed in agreement with the former president's wishes and repeated the instructions back.

Then, Washington responded with his final words, Tis well.

Washington died on December 14th and was officially buried on December 18th.

For those doing the math, that was more than three days later, just as he had wished for.

Less than a century later, and thousands of miles away, it was the turn for another man to die, the composer Chopin.

He took his last breath in Paris, only 39 years old, but just before he did, he allegedly told his sister, The earth is suffocating.

Swear to make them cut me open so that I won't be buried alive.

During a later autopsy, Chopin's heart was removed from his body and placed in a jar of cognac.

It was then smuggled into Poland by his sister where it was kept safe inside a local church.

The rest of him is interred in Paris's famous Père-Lachaise cemetery.

And those are just two more examples of a very common fear.

Over the years, inventors removed the need for waiting periods and pickled organs by creating a variety of safety coffins meant to stop premature burials.

According to historians, Central Europe was ground zero for the safety coffin craze during the 1790s.

Most of the devices included some element to allow the not quite dead to activate a signal on the surface.

Bells were common, but some even allowed the trapped person inside to raise a flag or set off a firecracker as a message to the living.

Shovels and ladders were also incorporated, you know, so someone could dig their way out if they needed to.

And many safety coffins were equipped with a built-in breathing tube that could carry food, water, and fresh air from the surface above down to the person below.

Thankfully, advancements in medical science have stopped most premature burials, although they do still happen from time to time.

And yet, the coffin industry is still stubbornly innovating.

Some recent patents have even incorporated audio playback into their designs.

None of these inventions have removed our fear, though, and so we'll keep asking ourselves the most terrifying question of all: what would we do if it happened to us?

If you're like me, graveyards have always been a fascinating place to visit.

From the names and dates upon the stones to the beautiful headstones and decorations, honestly, I love being inside a cemetery.

But of course, today's tour of some of the most unusual burial sites has been far from exhaustive.

Thankfully, my team and I have one more grave to tell you about.

Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.

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Most graves tell a story.

Sometimes that story is just a name and a pair of dates.

Frequently, it also tells us who their beloved spouse was, or their children, or both.

Sometimes, though, a grave can tell us more.

What kind of person were they before they died?

Did they leave their marks on the lives of those around them?

And on rare occasions, was their death celebrated?

And why?

Well, out west, there is a grave that tells such a story.

And in many ways, this burial site has done something even more.

Its legend has outgrown the person that it commemorates.

To find it, we have to head to Lafayette Cemetery, which is in the mining town of Lafayette, Colorado.

Coal was discovered on a farm there back in 1884.

Four years later, two mines were in full operation, along with a pair of general stores, a few boarding houses, and even a stable.

People came from all over the world to work in Lafayette's mines, and Eastern European immigrants were especially sought after by the mine owners.

As you'd probably guess, they worked grueling hours in dangerous conditions for meager pay.

And one of those Eastern European miners was a man named Fodor Glava, from the country of Transylvania.

Now, we don't know much about Glava and his life.

Sadly, most of the details we do know come from his tombstone in Lafayette Cemetery.

He died in December of 1918 as a result of the flu pandemic that was sweeping the nation at the time.

He only lived to be 41 years old and was survived by a wife back in Europe.

He was buried alongside others from Europe too, including John Trandifer from Romania, who died from the same sickness on the same day.

Both men were buried in the Potters Field Field section of the cemetery.

Their burial site is marked by a simple, crudely fashioned stone lying down flush against the ground.

Eventually though, rumors started to swirl that Glava was not just a miner.

The story said that there was something more, something sinister about him.

According to the whispers, he was a vampire.

Some people claim that these rumors started before his death.

Local historian Krista Berry though believes that the folklore surrounding Glava began in the 1950s and 60s by high school students because vampire culture was in vogue.

The legends became so irresistible, in fact, that the locals allegedly took matters into their own hands.

They dug up Glava's grave to see for themselves whether the rumors were true.

And what they found shocked them.

According to the stories, his teeth looked larger than normal and his nails had continued to grow.

But it was the blood around his mouth that really set them on edge.

So they drove a wooden spike through his heart and covered him up with dirt again.

Remember though, this is all hearsay.

There's no historical evidence backing up this particular piece of lore.

It's just a legend.

Over time, Glava's grave continued to collect stories.

According to Claudia Lund, the curator of Lafayette's Miners Museum, a tree had grown over the grave in the exact spot where his heart would have been.

How would it have gotten there?

The stake, right?

And then there are the blood-red rose bushes growing alongside his stone.

Their rumored source are his fingernails, naturally.

It's even said that you can see a dark, mysterious figure stalking around the cemetery at night.

It's been described as tall and thin, wearing a dark coat with long, claw-like nails extending from its fingers.

And of course, some folks think that figure is Glava himself.

Other paranormal thrill seekers claim to have seen strange lights, heard disembodied voices, and experienced malfunctioning batteries while passing by the graves.

Some even leave small trinkets and flowers as a gift for Glava in a vain attempt to save their necks.

This episode of Lore Legends was produced by me, Aaron Mankey, with writing by Harry Marks and research by Cassandra Day Alba.

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