On Halloween cemetery tours, the dead come to life
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[October 30, 2019]
By Barbara Goldberg
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Keith Bottum blames
his inner child when asked why a grown man was spending a recent
pre-Halloween evening wandering among the tombs of New York's Woodlawn
Cemetery, the final resting place of famous American celebrities, from
jazz great Duke Ellington to one of the most infamous spirits of the
silent film era.
It puts a little thrill in you when you're walking around at night to
see the spooky mausoleums and the headstones, said Bottum as he toured
the ornate burial ground in New York's Bronx borough. Im 35 going on
12.
Guided excursions through historic graveyards such as Woodlawn, home of
the Moonlight Illuminated Mausoleum Tour, have become a hot ticket
across the United States around Halloween, celebrated on Oct. 31. The
tours are a small slice of what has grown into a multi-billion dollar
holiday industry - ranging from food and drinks to costumes and
entertainment - designed to excite and amuse adults as much as their
children.
On the cemetery circuit, celebrity spirits are the big draw. Beer baron
Frederick Pabst lies in Milwaukee's Forest Home Cemetery, and "Gone With
The Wind" author Margaret Mitchell is a highlight of Atlanta's Oakland
Cemetery.
Rich in history and stunning in architectural detail, all three
cemeteries are listed on the U.S. National Park Service's National
Register of Historic Places.
Woman's rights activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton is among the many famous
people interred at Woodlawn. But tour guide Nestor Danyluk says perhaps
the most intriguing soul who inhabits the graveyard is Olive Thomas -
hardly a household name today but a silent film starlet in the early
1900s who was known as "Everybody's Sweetheart."
Thomas was a one-time Ziegfeld Follies chorus girl whose ghost is said
to haunt the New Amsterdam Theatre, current home of the Broadway musical
"Aladdin."
Thomas was married to actor Jack Pickford and died at age 25 in 1920
after drinking poison at a Paris hotel. It was never determined whether
her death was an accident, suicide or murder, said cemetery historian
Susan Olsen.
"She's a very flirtatious ghost," Danyluk told his audience of 20 at
Thomas' granite mausoleum, adding that her spirit is said to appear at
the Broadway theater, where she once danced in shows.
"She loves to sneak up behind men and tug on their shirts or put her
hand up their pants legs. If you're feeling an odd sensation on your
calves, it could be Olive," he said.
'ENLIGHTEN, NOT FRIGHTEN'
Despite the Halloween trappings, tour organizers say their aim is to
share local history and cultivate pride in the community.
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The Dunlop family mausoleum at Woodlawn Cemetery in Bronx in New
York City, New York, U.S., October 25, 2019. Picture taken October
25, 2019. Picture taken October 25, 2019. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon
"Our tours are designed to enlighten, not frighten," said marketing
manager Angie Wynne in Atlanta, where tickets for "Capturing the
Spirit of Oakland Halloween Tours" sold out months ahead, in July.
Julia Griffith, program director at Historic Milwaukee, said
volunteer guides wear Victorian-era clothing on evening tours at the
1850 cemetery where beer mogul Joseph Schlitz is interred.
"It's not a spooky theme but they act as the various movers and
shakers of Milwaukee who are buried there," Griffith said.
Woodlawn, a 400-acre cemetery in the Bronx that opened during the
American Civil War in 1863, is the final resting place for such
American legends as Ellington, trumpeter Miles Davis, bandleader
Lionel Hampton, songster Irving Berlin and "Moby Dick" author Herman
Melville.
It also houses the stately tombs of department store moguls Frank
Winfield Woolworth, James Cash Penney Jr. and Macy's co-owner Isidor
Straus. His wife's refusal to leave his side for a rescue boat
during the sinking of the Titanic was a memorable scene in films
about the 1912 tragedy.
The Woodlawn tour, which invites guests to bring their own
flashlights, has sold out annually since it was first offered in
2016, with more than 250 tickets snapped up this year at about $25
each, said Barbara Selesky, Woodlawn's marketing director.
On a recent tour, Eugene Zongrone, 75, a retired banker, and his
wife Theresa, 71, a retired bookkeeper, gazed at the Tiffany glass
windows inside one of many marble and granite crypts that were
opened for the tour.
The ornate architecture notwithstanding, the real draw for most
people is to celebrate ghosts and goblins in the spirit of
Halloween.
"It's a little on the mysterious side," said Eugene Zongrone. "It's
fun."
(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Frank McGurty and Dan
Grebler)
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