Ever had one of those spur of the moment ideas that you just ran with and later wished you had prepared a bit for? That’s just what happened to J and I yesterday. J mentioned going to the Bellefontaine Cemetery to take photos, something I’ve always wanted to do ever since I’ve lived here but never had the chance to do. One of my favorite things to do with camera in hand is go to a local cemetery. While living in Memphis, I visited Elmwood on a regular basis. I’d always find something new when I went, and enjoyed photographing headstones, statues, and the occasional ghost each time I went.
Outside of the Lemp family, I’d done very little research before on who was buried at Bellefontaine, but for some reason I thought that Tennessee Williams was buried there. Instead of checking my facts before we left, I figured he’d be listed on a map and maybe we’d run into him. Well, he wasn’t on the Bellefontaine map and isn’t buried there, but lots of other famous locals are including our beloved Lemps. Adolphus Busch, the famous beer brewery founder; Henry T. Blow, whose daughter was the founder of kindergarten; the Wainwright tomb which is on the National Register of Historic Places; William S. Burroughs, the inventor of the calculator; Sara Teasdale, the first Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winner; and of course General William Clark best known as part of the Lewis and Clark duo. We stopped at Clark’s tomb first…
Clark’s tomb was amazing and definitely celebrated the expedition of Lewis and Clark with many famous quotes.
If you look close, you’ll see lots of tiny dots all over the monument. It was literally covered in hundreds of orange lady bugs, and was the only tomb we came across covered in the tiny critters. Strange…
Despite all the magnificent mortuary art and sculpture, the first day of November was a pleasant sunny day and perfect for enjoying the fall colors. The tour guide brochure we picked up pointed out that the seasonal foliage is indeed noteworthy.
With Thanksgiving fast approaching, I know where the turkeys seek refuge. We came across three wild turkeys amongst the stones. Look in the upper left corner of this photo. I caught a snapshot of them as they were running away…
More photos of statues. Check out those autumn colors in the background…
This one is called “The Girl in the Shadow Box” and is the Luyties Monument. The sun was peeking through the trees quite right when we passed by and I was able to capture some fantastic and mysterious photos of her…
The Lemp Family was our next stop. Obviously, the door to their mausoleum was locked, but I did capture some interesting shots through the glass windows of the front door.
Here’s the Wainwright tomb which is on the historical register…
These dried flowers laying at the door to one tomb caught my eye…
More of various plots….
One of my favs was this sweet little girl feeding a lamb. From the back she looked like a ghost in the distance….
The Busch mausoleum had a very impressive stained glass window visible through the doors, and someone had left nice patriotic flowers in the handle of the door…
Here’s a statue that adorns the founder of “kindergarten” tomb…
A bramble of dead vines in an urn that fascinated me…
One last angel and one last colorful tree…
Like I said, Tennessee Williams wasn’t on the map and I would later discover he isn’t even buried in Bellefontaine. It was 4pm and the gates were locked promptly at 5, so with one hour left we ventured across the street to another cemetery known as Calvary. I’ll post pictures of it in my next post.
November 1st, 2009 → 5:06 am
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