September 20, 2016 — There’s a type of person in this world
whom I haven’t yet met, but whom I want to kiss full on the lips when I finally do: Those who pay
big money to adorn the final resting places of themselves and their loved ones
with the spookiest shit they can come up with. Like the Eternal Silence statue in Chicago’s Graceland Cemetery.
Unfortunately, by the time I learn about their creepy grave
statues, they’ve already been buried and lost their lips a long time ago.
Graceland Cemetery, at 4001 N. Clark Street, was established
in 1860. It’s 120 acres of excellent cemetery with plenty of fascinating
history, art, architecture, and famous burials. It’s also welcoming to
tourists, something not to be overlooked in calling a cemetery excellent. I rarely go into a cemetery office, but this
time we did, and they happily gave us a nice glossy map with all the cemetery’s
notable dead spots marked.
Like the grave of Augustus Dickens, the brother of Charles
Dickens. Or Cyrus McCormick, the inventor. Or Allan Pinkerton, the famous
detective. It has its oddball graves, like William Hulbert, whose role as president
of baseball's National League is memorialized with a basketball-sized baseball-shaped
marker. Mostly, there are lotsa rich people with extravagant death ornaments: Marshall
Field, the department store magnate, has a Daniel Chester French sculpture of
an enthroned goddess. Victor Lawson, who created the Chicago Daily News, has a statue
of a knight in armor standing atop him.
And then there’s the life-sized sculpture of a six-year-old
girl protected in a glass case. This is a weird enough story for me to put off
talking about Eternal Silence for another couple of paragraphs.
The base of the sculpture bears the name Inez. A stone below
the statue says that the girl is the daughter of J.N. & M.C. Clarke, and
that she died in 1880. The story goes she was hit by lightning. The story then
continues that during storms, her statue disappears from its glass case.
Sometimes, her ghost can be seen playing among the stones.
The best part of the story is that…there’s no such child by
the name of Inez Clarke in the cemetery. Imagine that line being said by
Jessica Fletcher, right before a lightning strike.
There are two theories around this. One is that the statue
is merely a showpiece by grave sculptor Andrew Gagel, whose name is on the
statue. That he placed it in the cemetery as an extremely targeted
advertisement and that, over the years, it just stayed there as people were
buried around it. I kind of dig this story the best.
The other story is that the girl buried beneath this statue
is actually named Inez Briggs, that she was a daughter from a pre-Clarke
marriage and that she died of diphtheria. The cemetery records show an Amos
Briggs to be buried thereabouts, which many surmise to be a clerical error for
Inez Briggs.
What I do know is that nobody would probably care about this
story if the little girl just got a small stone with a lamb lying atop it.
Anyway, all this to say that the cemetery is way worth going
to for all kinds of reasons.
But my number one reason was still Eternal Silence.
Eternal Silence is a life-sized cloaked figure cast in
bronze and set on a black granite pedestal. The statue was originally dark
itself, but has oxidized into its ghostly green over the years, except for most
of the dark face within its hood.
It was sculpted by Lorado Taft for a family named…dig this…Graves.
A plaque on the back of the memorial tells the story of Dexter Graves, one of
the “pioneers of Chicago,” who led 13 families to the area from Ohio in 1831.
He mortally uncoiled in 1844, a good decade and a half before Graceland was
established. He was moved here when the city’s original cemetery was
decommissioned for being an impediment to a growing city.
His son, Henry Graves, died in 1907…and that’s when Eternal
Silence was born, thanks to his will, which allocated about a quarter million
for the memorial to be made for his family to molder beneath. He’s the guy I’d
need to kiss, in other words.
The figure is tall, imposing, and obviously inspired by the
Grim Reaper. Were I a cemetery owner, I’d only let stuff like this in my
cemetery. It’d be like a Tim Burton set.
It has its various spook stories, the best one being you can
see your own death if you stare into the mouth of cowl for too long.
Lorado liked his design enough that he used the figure
again, as part of his Fountain of Time sculpture in Chicago’s Washington Park,
although there the figure is made of beige concrete and isn’t near as imposing.
It’s more like the urRU to Eternal Silence’s Skeksis.
The statue isn’t too deep in the cemetery, and we found it even before I went into the office for a map. To get there, take your first right from the main entrance, and Evergreen Avenue will loop you around to him.
The statue isn’t too deep in the cemetery, and we found it even before I went into the office for a map. To get there, take your first right from the main entrance, and Evergreen Avenue will loop you around to him.
Once you see it, I’m sure you’ll feel the same way as I: Every cemetery and graveyard should have at least one “boo” like this within its borders.
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