It was another humid day that felt like we were vacationing on a swamp on the sun. Just thick dank air. Still, it was cloudy so maaaaybe we could get away with being outside. MAYBE.
We decided not to go too far and found Fort Barton and the Fort Barton Woods only a few minutes away. It was apparently the spot of the Battle of Rhode Island. Never heard of it? Don’t worry, this was news to me too, maybe because it was ultimately a battle we lost… to the British. I guess we were trying to protect Newport and the whole island from this strategic point but when that didn’t work the British came in and occupied the city instead.
There aren’t really any remnants of the fort left, at least not that I could see, but there was a nice observation tower you could climb and gain a really nice view of the bay and the island beyond and there was ample parking for such a little-known gem.
There were several trails here and maps to help guide the way. We chose the shortest loop path because after getting out of the car we were starting to realize how oppressive and sticky it was out there. We basically raced at a very brisk walk, up and down craggy little hills. It wasn’t the most challenging but at the same time the last thing either of us wanted today was to be fighting against the gravity of various hills. Still, the path was nice. It seemed as if a lot of people had been through here even if it looked at times quite hairy and overgrown. To the side we were even lucky enough to find a wee little cemetery nestled in the woods, protected by stone walls. Most of the monuments seem to have been missing to time but a small handful still stood wearily looking over what appeared to be a farm of some sort. A rooster crowed in the background and melted my heart. I forgot how much I loved that sound.
I was doing pretty good even though I almost immediately started overheating. I was able to make almost the whole loop (which was less than a mile) before I had to sit down. By then I could feel the heat coming off my face like a burner. I was dizzy, disoriented, and knew I was in trouble — yet again. I sat on a cold rock, my feet propped up on another rock. I didn’t have any water so this would have to do. Luckily by then we were really close to the car and I cranked up the AC and went home after recovering for a few minutes.
Despite these difficulties it was very pretty! The overgrowth gave it a sort of fairy like charm. I snapped a few shots with my phone and decided to come back on some cooler day to take the longer loop path.
All and all we learned some history, enjoyed a lot of greenery, somehow avoided a plague of ticks (seriously, take bug spray) and managed to not die of heat stroke. I’d call that a win!
Of all the free little libraries I have visited throughout New England the one at Pickety Place has the most endearing back story and dare I say it’s also by far the most whimsically beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
The story starts in 1786 when this sweet little cottage was built in what I can only guess was wilderness. I don’t have any idea how it’s managed to stay standing (and so loved!) throughout all these years but it still there proudly in the middle of nowhere. It is such a charming and unique setting that Elizabeth Orton Jones used it as the model for her illustrations in Little Red Riding Hood (Little Golden Books, 1948).
Currently it stands as a restaurant and museum surrounded by the most delightful little flower and herb gardens. It has remained burned into the memories of locals because it’s not just a restaurant, it’s an experience. When I went to find it (looking for the library on the grounds) I was wound down a series of increasingly sketchy dirt roads until I was sure the Prius and myself were going to be eaten by bears. And then out of nowhere appeared this property and it’s weird Byzantine parking lot amongst the trees. Seriously the parking lot was the strangest I’d ever seen.
I did not go on a day the restaurant was open because I was only looking for the library and… well to be frank, I’m way to poor for this sort of thing. I can’t even afford McDonalds on my own much less an experience, but that being said I am told the food is out of this world. I’ve literally never heard anything bad about this place which brings us to the library – that sweet, ornate, library just bursting with love.
The library is made from the stump of a very old and very beloved tree which succumbed to the forces of nature and split in twain during a particularly egregious snowstorm. The tree could not be saved but the mourning process brought forth an idea – what if what remained could somehow be repurposed and given a new sort of life? And that’s how this stunning little library came into existence. The stump was deprived of its bark, stained, hollowed out, and artists were commissioned to create exquisitely carved doors, a stained-glass window for the back, and a roof. I can’t tell you how mesmerized I was by this creation. And I was so honored to leave a signed copy of my book Achilles in Heels in it! But you know what was even more amazing? Someone “caught” my book and left a wonderful review on BookCrossing before “releasing it into the wild” to be captured by someone else. I have donated signed copies of my books to dozens of libraries at this point and this was the first one someone publicly claimed through the Book Crossing program. Can you say my heart nearly exploded in warmth and joy? Because it totally did.
Today started with delightful little detour. It’s not like we hadn’t already talked about going to check out the synagogue but it really wasn’t on the agenda until we started walking past it and realized tours were open today. They were $14 per adult and included a self-tour of their little museum which had some lovely audio/visual displays upstairs relating to the colonial history of the local Jewish community. I found them kind of cute in a way. A frail but intense child stood at each display soaking in every drop of information she could. I smiled. I used to be much like her.
We still had a few minutes before the tour began so we wandered around Patriot Park outside which was small but very well-manicured and full of gorgeous flowers. An oddly peaceful plot in the middle of so much traffic. In one corner there was two historical plaques – one was a letter written to George Washington from the Hebrew Congregation here at the time and the response of George Washington was on the other. In it he basically assured these people they’d be free from persecution here in this brand-new country.
The group before us had quite a few people. Our group was just us two and the intense child’s family. I think we were in there for about a half an hour but WOW, the lecture we received from the tour guide was VERY information dense. She didn’t just tell us about the synagogue she told us about the Jewish community who fled actual persecution, fleeing several countries in Europe, Africa, and South America before ending here in Newport, as well as who was around them – who were their allies, how many of them were here, who was their leader, what was the town’s response to them, what was their role in the revolutionary war? And the history of the building, its architecture, and history. We learned it was more or less built for free as someone went down to NYC on trade ships and requested free broken bricks to use as ballast which were then brought back to Newport and used to build the building. I loved the ingenuity of this!
I learned not just about the history of the Jewish community here but also about the entire political climate. I didn’t have any idea that the Pilgrims and Puritans were separate groups of people! Or that Baptists are American grown and came from the Puritans. It was explained Puritans were people who were formerly attendees of the Church of England who felt their religion needed to be tweaked to suit their standards while the pilgrims were former members of the Church of England who were like no, we can’t live with a little tweaking, we need to completely separate from the church, found our own and settle our new colony so we can ramp up the level of religious fervor to our content without the state (The Church of England) telling us no. So, the first people for a separation of church and state weren’t people looking for a place where people could practice any religion, they were looking for a place that people would only practice their religion by their far stricter rules. They sound like the most insufferable kind of know it alls… but whatever. This is America.
Then came this group of refugees that happened to be Jewish, around 200 of them, who settled in Newport and apparently impressed themselves upon the established population as not a threat. Somehow. Honestly don’t know how they managed but I guess they got along OKish by befriending Christian religious leaders at the time. Then the American Revolution came and Newport was so heavily occupied that British soldiers more or less destroyed the entire town – but the synagogue still stood because someone had suggested it should be used as a hospital for said soldiers in an attempt to keep it safe. The bid worked. But the congregation didn’t last much longer. Over time they dispersed or died off. It wasn’t until the modern era where it was reclaimed by a different Jewish population who still run it today as a synagogue.
Obviously, the lecture had a lot more details about specific people and their roles as well as more precise dates and whatnot but that was the gist of it. My brain was reeling, but that’s what I like about going to different places like these. This is a story I would have never known otherwise. I would highly recommend checking this place out if you’re into local history, colonial history, or Jewish history, it checks off all these boxes and was well worth the visit!
Candy’s Curiosities was A TRIP. We had NO IDEA what we were walking into and quite frankly I don’t think anyone would. Earlier on that morning my navigator and travel companion had come up with the idea to go to Candy’s to which I giggled, “I hope it’s better than Cookie’s” (which was such a hilariously unnerving experience that it’s gone a little viral this week.) Anyway…
The word oddities could mean anything especially when it is in a shop’s title. That’s more or less bait for weird looky-loos like yours truly. Even better it wasn’t that far away so off we went! It was an easy shop to find but from the outside it looked tiny. I parked in an equally cramped parking lot and skipped inside where we found ourselves deep deep down the rabbit hole.
I’m not going to lie, this shop is not much bigger than a walk-in closet but it was totally worth it! This place is PACKED with weird trinkets, old horror movie memorabilia, vintage Halloween decorations, a Gothic clothing rack, some dubiously strange used books. It was a little bit of everything and every nook was filled which meant that we were stuck like flies on a sticky trap just staring. Under domes there were sculptures made of bones and googly eyes, there were dried chicken and raccoon feet, and some dried toads for good measure. My companion found himself lost in a bucket of vintage humor postcards while I looked through black and white photos of funerals and natural disasters in the area. Eventually I’d find myself wrist deep in a tub of pins and well… I came home with one that was of a conjoined skeleton.
I also brought home a magnet that was an actual casting of a design on a one of the local slate cemetery stone’s – a death’s head (winged skull) which are my favorite! I was DELIGHTED when I got home and found out that it came with a business card from The Gravestone Girls who created it and on the back of that a whole history of the stone the image was taken from. So neat!
The shop owner was friendly too and packaged my new treasures in a laboratory sample bag. What a clever idea! Anyway, I would highly suggest this shop to other fellow freaks, geeks, and goths. It was absolutely goddamn delightful.
Fort Wetherill was another one of those finds that I kept having suggested by search engines and AI but nothing online made it look that impressive. Still, it was only a few miles away from where I was staying that day so it made sense to go check it out.
To get to this place you have to wind through a bunch of sweet little neighborhoods reminiscent of European villages. There’s more trees though. And by the time you get there it’s a big park with a ton of parking and no one there. There was literally one other car.
I was not expecting this place to be so massive! Or so taken over by trees. It’s not that old – at least not compared to some of the other forts I have visited for this blog. Fort Wetherill was commissioned during World War II to protect the bay and as a sister fort to Fort Adams – which I haven’t gone to yet but I am sure I will at some point. It’s in complete disrepair now. For the most part it looks like it’s being eaten by a jungle of weeds. Many areas are fenced off from going inside but there are parts you can still go inside or even on top of the fort for some spectacular views of the property and the ocean.
We spent a good chunk of time just wandering around the structure like lost rats. The graffiti was something else. Hilariously someone commented to me that they love the graffiti in New England because you can always read it. And it’s true! We lack the highly stylized fonts of the west coast. In addition to this it was oddly cerebral. Although there were the usual tags there was also some pretty decent art – including a chimp dressed in a gnome cap. And someone had taken the time to hang bizarre vaguely medical looking paper flyers like they may have done in the early 1900’s. It added a certain… ambiance.
I really enjoyed this place. It was a great place to spend the afternoon and probably had some hiking trails too – we just didn’t go that route on this particular day. I don’t know why this isn’t a more known destination although maybe it is and we were just there on an off day. Hard to say as I did also get some responses about other people having loved this place in the past. All and all it was well worth the trip and I think would make a fantastic outing for photographers.
Back at the North Burial Ground it was my companion’s turn to pick a tour and he decided upon the HP Lovecraft tour. HP Lovecraft did indeed live in Providence RI but he is buried elsewhere, in the Swan Point Cemetery, so what this tour had to offer was a bit of a mystery. Still, we parked in our usual spot and ambled in – this time finding ourselves behind the visitor’s center where there was a HUGE memorial to the Armenian Genocide. How we had missed this before… is just testament to how much we weren’t paying attention because I mean this thing is MASSIVE and definitely worth a look if you are already here.
After that distraction was put aside we finally got to business. First up was finding the stone of Clara L Hess who was a classmate of HP Lovecraft although she apparently had quite the illustrious life all on her own as a reporter and editor of the Providence Journal and Evening Bulletin.
Next up was Chester Pierce Munroe – who likely bonded with HP Lovecraft when they were both pups, daring each other to eat paste. OK, so you can’t prove the latter part of that but that’s how I’d like to imagine it. Truth be told they met when they were very young at school and remained chums throughout the rest of their days. Munroe was a working class man and although there’s rumors of him writing a book or several he was unable to get anything published. Not really surprising considering the politics of the day.
Addison P Munroe was another childhood friend although information on him seems a little scarce. Good news is if I remember right his stone was really close to the last one and also had his wife’s name on it who I guess also garnered a small acquaintance with Lovecraft.
James Tobey Pyke was apparently a big influence on his neighbor, a 14-year-old Lovecraft, whom he encouraged to write poetry. Pyke was a poet himself as well as a minister at one point. He apparently had pretty frail health but still insisted on working for his income despite being from a fairly well to do family. Eleanor Francis Pyke was James’ wife who also adored poetry and managed to raise a poet son, growing up alongside the neighbor’s boy Lovecraft.
Samuel Brenton Mumford was a successful local businessman that was one of the first investors to own a part of the Providence Athenaeum which would later become a favorite haunt of Lovecraft’s. In addition to this it was his former home which HP Lovecraft would later spend the last few years of his life.
Cyrus Butler was the Providence’s own Scrouge McDuck kinda character. In life he was obscenely wealthy and really not terribly keen on sharing that but even so he was one of the original investors helping to build the Providence Athenaeum – an institution that he also gave a large donation to after his death. He also bequeathed 30K to build The Rhode Island Hospital for the Insane post humorously. It still exists although it’s called the Butler Hospital and has nothing to do with Lovecraft as far as I can see. Also isn’t it wonderful millionaires can get redemption even after death?! Must be nice!
So ended the Lovecraft Tour. Below are photos of the stones mentioned and a bunch of others that distracted me with thier uniqueness or beauty. It’s a lovely cemetery to explore!
*Scroll to the bottom for photos or enjoy a good read below.
A few weeks ago I heard a book calling out to me as I strolled haplessly through a Barnes and Noble. It was titled Over my Dead Body and it was all about the evolution of the garden cemeteries starting in Paris and working their way over here to the United States. It was a very informative (and often funny) read which mentioned a lot of cemeteries here in New England, one of which I’d never been to before. So that’s how I ended up at the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord Massachusetts last week. It’s the home of Author’s Ridge which is where Lousia May Alcott author of Little Women, Henry David Thoreau author of Walden or Life in the Woods, Ralph Waldo Emmerson the poet, essayist, and philosopher, and Nathaniel Hawthorne the author of the Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables are all buried quite close to each other.
Honestly it was weird I didn’t know about this place before seeing as I am constantly enamored with authors, cemeteries, and history. Still. Sleepy Hollow is a large cemetery with clearly marked signs leading to Author’s Ridge and scant parking so keep that in mind if you visit.
So how did all these icons of their era end up buried in a row? Simple, they weren’t. Back in the day the cemetery more or less bought their remains so they could put them here to drive-up tourism. Capitalism at its finest. Nothing is off limits. Not even celebrity corpses. But it worked! And people are STILL flocking here. Although oddly enough there were remarkably few pennies. Alcott had the most. I wonder if they weren’t being cleaned up or if this bunch just wouldn’t be fond of having pennies left for them. They seem the type…
I’d been accidentally stalking the life of Lousia May Alcott for some time weaving in and out of the strange and wonderful landmarks they had something to do with and I have been coming to learn they were a fascinating individual, possibly even a trans or non-binary icon as in their own words they declared, “‘I am more than half-persuaded that I am a man’s soul, put by some freak of nature into a woman’s body.” And they liked to be referred to as gentleman, like a boss! They were buried in a family plot with their author mother Abigail May Alcott and author sisters Elizabeth Sewell Alcott and Abigail May Alcott Nieriker. Their last remaining sister wasn’t a writer but she was inspiration for Meg in Little Women and she also resides in the family plot. Her name was Anna Bronson Alcott Pratt. Pretty hard-hitting literary family there.
Admittedly I don’t know much about Emerson, he’s flown under my radar for some reason. Though I did previously visit the former resting spot of Henry David Thoreau’s cabin in the woods aside Walden Pond. I could appreciate his deep and intense need to be one with the wilderness. However, my knee jerk reaction since childhood was to not have any real fondness for Nathaniel Hawthorne. I decided at 12 he was whiny, and my opinion has only gotten bleaker with age. He wrote The Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables which is a real place and a delight to visit. He’s buried with his likely more talented writer and artist wife Sophia Amelia Peabody Hawthrone who was relocated from her original burial in London in 2006! THAT POOR DEAR.
I will note now there are other authors buried here who are not on author’s ridge. They include but may not be limited to:
Novelist, poet, and screenwriter Millen Brand known for his 1937 novel The Outward Room and his 1948 screenplay The Snake Pit.
Prominent transcendentalist, poet, and dear friend of Thoreau: William Ellery Channing whose books include “The Woodsman” (1849), “Near Home” (1858), and “The Wanderer” (1871)
Intrepid journalist Irene Agnes Dolores Corbally Kuhn who was the first woman to broadcast on the radio in China and whose career spanned a great many interesting topics from interviewing Charlie Chaplin and Margaret Sanger to covering the Lindbergh baby kidnapping.
Robin Moore – the author of The Green Berets and The French Connection
Franklin Benjamin Sanborne – Writer and one of the “Secret Six” who funded John Brown’s Raid on Harper Ferry sparking the Civil War. Gotta love a trouble maker!
Margaret Sidney – Children’s book author of The Little Peppers and How They Grew series under a penname.
Not be outdone there are other people of historical note here. In fact many of them are written up on a board near the entrance of the cemetery that also has a little map and I think a QR code for an audio tour. We decided to wander around like cracked out squirrels looking for whatever took our interest in any particular second weaving in and out of some areas several times, talking to other lost cemetery goers, and getting distracted by beautiful monuments and really ornate slate stones. So much diversity here!
As we wandered we found slates with ornate carvings – sometimes whole family crests, as well as a number of modern stones that had the deceased’s signature on them. I’ve never seen either of these before or a slab of green granite being used instead of marble. There was also Edward Nealy’s memorial which was an old indigenous mortar being currently used as birdbath. A slate stone commemorating a woman who was a teenager when the British came into the tavern she lived atop of and announced their occupation of the colonies. There was even a few Asian stones with characters on them but my two favorites were a fairly recent burial who had A TON of rocks set on top of his stone. He must have been loved by SO MANY people to have acquired that many rocks! On the complete opposite side of the spectrum I found a husband and wife drama from the 1800’s. They were in a family plot and the husband had practically his whole obituary on his stone – totally mental amount of words and aside him his wife had a matching stone that literally only ready her name, date of birth, and date of death. WOW, what happened there?! Upon closer inspection she didn’t have the same surname so I am guessing she remarried after her husband died and then came back to be buried awkwardly in the family plot. Ooooo the scandal!
But I suppose I should get back to the other famous people buried here… My favorite I think was a very unassuming one. Her name was Anne Rainsford French Bush who was the first woman to get a driver’s license! I left her a penny (as there were none there and if I am thankful for anything in this life it’s that I, as the owner of a pair of tits and a twat, have the freedom to drive a car. VERY UNDERATED RIGHT.) Not to be outdone there was also Katherine K Davis who wrote the lyrics for The Little Drummer Boy. Her stone was the hardest to find as it was a flat ground level stone and there were soooooo many ground hornets in the area. Thousands. I tried taking a photo but they were too small to pick up. You’ll just have to believe me this was the biggest swarm of ground hornets I have ever seen in my life. This cemetery is known for bird watching as migrating birds seem to love it here – I suspect many will get eaten by them in a month or two.
Daniel Chester French, the sculptor responsible for the seated Lincoln in Washing DC also shares a residence here with the other authors and artists. And in a quieter but no less important role we also found Mary Lemnist Titcomb – the creator of the first bookwagon (or bookmobile,) Elizabeth Palmer Peabody who helped create the kindergarten system in the US, William Monroe Spencer – the first man in America to manufacture graphite pencils, and Ephraim Wales Bull – who bred the first Concord grapes, and Marc and Emily Daniels – a married couple working in television as a director and camera coordinator respectively. Marc’s resume is impressive including episodes of I Love Lucy, Hogans Heros, and Star Trek and Emily was one of the first women to work behind the scenes with the cameras on shows such as I Love Lucy. Their stones were the only ones we did not find. I don’t know where they were hiding but we looked a good long time for them – with a terrible map, a confused GPS, and a broken gut instinct.
We didn’t bother to try and find the oodles of politicians and famous gun makers. Suffice to say we’re both a little weary of such things at the moment.
All and all this cemetery has soooo many historically interesting people, especially women of note as well as authors. It was on some beautiful grounds and aside from the lack of parking and the thousands of hornets it was actually really pleasant! I would highly suggest it to any cemetery or literary lover.
I have driven by this cemetery hundreds of times but only recently noticed it because it’s tucked away on its own little road and not something you’re likely to notice unless you’re like me – constantly on the lookout for stones. I had noticed there were a few at the top of the hill all tucked away when the leaves fell off the trees and I have been waiting all winter for the snow to melt so I could go check it out properly.
Ashby is the same town with the grave of a black revolutionary war soldier named Prince Estabrook who is literally just down the road a little bit. Very close. So I was hoping for something else cool here.
As I drove down the little dirt road that ends in the cemetery I noticed there was a house on my right and a turnoff on my left. Was the turn off parking for the cemetery? There weren’t any signs and it looked kinda sketchy ahead so I decided to park there anyway and save the Prius an embarrassing moment stuck in the mud or needing to reverse or something.
There was an old man at the entrance fixing the little fence and dealing with the egregious number of tree limbs that had come down during this past winter. He seemed grumpy at first, or maybe confused why anyone was walking up, but I gave him a big smile and said hello and he warmed up instantly. Above him a big sign read no pets allowed which is bizarre for a cemetery in the middle of nowhere that already doesn’t appear to have any regular visitors but whatever, you do you.
I then walked into the older part of the cemetery which was near the gate. Almost all marble stones from the 1800’s. Not anything particularly remarkable about any of them. Similarly, a quick check with Find A Grave told me there was no one of note in this cemetery. No one?! That’s a first! Even the tiny cemeteries usually have some town contributor or local businessman of note. There were over two and a half thousand stones here, how could none of them have anything to say??
I continued to walk. It was a nice little setting surrounded by thick woods on all sides. Then I spotted the new part of the cemetery, the section that seemed to still be taking in new residents. And for the first time since the Weeping Angels found their way onto Doctor Who in 2007 I FOUND A WEEPING ANGEL! I’d been looking in every cemetery I visited for years and although I found tons of weeping women and lots of angels I’ve never found a weeping angel. It was on a new stone. In fact it was one of only a tiny handful of stones that showed any personality at all. I got up close to it (without blinking) and saw it was the stone of a young man. I don’t know what happened to him but it seemed obvious he probably got this special treatment due to his age and perhaps the sudden circumstances of his death. It was sad but I told him he had a beautiful monument before moving on (I talk to the ‘residents’ of these cemeteries all the time – best be nice and respectful so I don’t drag anything I don’t want home.)
It was only after the weeping angel I started to see a glimmer of personality elsewhere. There was a stone that was in the shape of a horse and then off in a corner with their backs facing the rest of the graveyard I found two slates and went to investigate. They were THICK slates and I was a little shocked to find they were modern. Real modern. Set in the 1990’s but with traditional crudely drawn Cherub head decals. never seen this before but I was intrigued.
I moved back into the older bits of the cemetery and was delighted to find some more modern slates from the 1920’s-1950’s, some with crude cherub heads some with exquisitely delicate carvings of flowers. They all looked like they’d been put up yesterday. Absolutely beautiful. And then I was back at the gate having explored the whole cemetery in a pretty short time.
This was the perfect little distraction for the day I was driving by and if you’re in the area, perhaps eating at the 823 Cafe & Tavern or checking out the Old Burial Ground just up the road this might be a fun little bonus. Otherwise, it probably isn’t worth the drive…. there really wasn’t much here.
I admit I haven’t been doing as much travelling lately. Somewhere between trying (and failing) to avoid covid and being completely burned out this blog has suffered a bit of abandonment but that’s not to say I didn’t want to be out exploring. Quite frankly I need to be for my mental health!
And that’s how we ended up at the Indian Hill Cemetery in Middletown Connecticut. We had both realized that neither one of us had made it to a garden cemetery in the great state of Connecticut yet and this one popped up on Google’s suggestions. So we packed up the cat who was equally stir crazy and went on a little day trip!
Indian Hill Cemetery was said to have over 6,000 monuments with a few famous ones mixed in including two journalists – Joseph Wright Alsop (a liberal political writer who penned Matter of Fact which showed up in over 200 newspapers and whose life inspired several novels and a Broadway play) and Stewart Alsop (who co-wrote Matter of Fact with his brother and also wrote for The New York Herald Tribune and The Saturday Evening Post as well as penning three political books.) As well as one scientist – Wilbur Olin Atwater – who was an agricultural chemist who was in charge of the Department of Agriculture’s experiment stations from 1873-1907, a world known liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith who advised presidents from Franklin D Roosevelt all the way through to Clinton! As well as a TON of congressmen and governors and a handful of Civil War veterans including Major General Joseph King Fenno Mansfield who fought and died in Antietam, and Civil War Medal of Honor recipients William Stone Hubbell and John Gideon Palmer.
It was a beautiful day for being in the middle of winter and since it was unseasonably warm there wasn’t a speck of snow around just a bunch of creepy trees which I think added to the ambiance. The cat seemed to enjoy it too with lots of open space and a vulture circling above she was cruising through that cemetery like she owned the place. So much so I wandered off on my own figuring they’d catch up.
Now Indian Hill isn’t as impressive as the other garden cemeteries I’ve been to but I might just be jaded at this point. It did have a bunch of increasingly tall monoliths and the tallest Celtic cross I’d ever seen. Plus it was situated in a hilly area behind the college that overlooked a good part of the city. I had fun taking pictures of the moon which was also out that day. It was during this time the cat got spooked and wanted nothing more to do with exploring so we were forced back into the car. Normally we would have found something else in the area to do seeing as we drove an hour and a half to get there but the cat was not settling down and growled and hissed the whole way home. What had got her knicker’s in a twist? We have no idea. But that ended our day…
I wouldn’t really go out of my way to go to this cemetery again but if you happen to be in the area or someone who is interested in the famous monuments by all means check it out! It’s not a bad cemetery it was just not as expansive or as elaborate as I’d hoped. It contained only one cherub, no angels or weeping women, and no slate either.
This antique store was a little different than our usual fair. It was super easy to find in a little plaza right off the highway. It was of moderate size and seemed to have more a thrift store feel to it. Like it wanted to be an antique store, and it did have some old stuff, but at least 40% of that was just outdated somewhat recent technology and entertainment. You know, the place to get your CDs and VHSs.
And initially it was kind of sweet and grandmotherly but then we started coming across the most racist shit we’ve found to date. First, I found an old Raggedy Anne and Andy children’s book with a mamie doll blatantly taking up the whole cover. Obviously, I had to paw over that and make my own judgements. The book was $15 and falling apart with every breath but I am glad I flipped through it because in the middle there was an absolutely terrifying illustration that sure looked like a lot like that same mamie doll drowning a clown in the sink. Now I’m not saying that’s what’s actually going on but damn, that’s what it looks like to me! I admit I almost bought it just so I could frame that one page and hang it up as a conversation starter. The only thing that stopped me was the fact it was super racist in addition to being morbidly hilarious.
But that was nothing. At some point we rounded a corner and in a glass display case was the most racist thing I have ever seen. Keep in mind in previous adventures we have seen hundreds of mamie dolls, dozens of super racist ad posters, Chinamen saltshakers, troubling depictions of American Indians, gypsy fortune tellers, but this… this took the cake. It was anti-Japanese. A magazine from World War II with a pinch-eyed and jaundiced chimpanzee wearing a swastika on the cover. Even worse it was placed rather carelessly next to a symbol clashing monkey. We both gasped. And then took photos to prove we’d actually seen such a thing.
Hilariously we accidentally ended up back at this store two or three weeks later and we had to go check in on that insane magazine. SOMEONE BOUGHT IT. I kid you not, it was gone!! The dilapidated mamie doll book was still there though — case you still need a good dose of racism.
