Tell me your favorite graveyard in the comments below and win a paperback copy of Wish You Were Here: Adventures in Cemetery Travel. I’ll pick one winner at random on Halloween.
Almost every tourist destination has a graveyard. You go to Yosemite National Park: there’s a graveyard. You go to Maui: graveyards everywhere you look. The Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park: both graveyards. The number one tourist destination in Michigan has three cemeteries. America’s best-preserved Gold Rush ghost town has five. Gettysburg is a National Park because it has a graveyard. Some graveyards are even tourist destinations in themselves: the Old Jewish Cemetery of Prague, the colonial burying grounds of Boston, and Kennedy’s eternal flame in Arlington National Cemetery. Jim Morrison’s grave in Père Lachaise Cemetery ranks in the top five tourist sites of Paris.
Wish You Were Here: Adventures in Cemetery Travel contains 35 graveyard travel essays, which visit more than 50 cemeteries, churchyards, and gravesites across the globe.
The book trailer:
Praise for Wish You Were Here:
“Lovingly researched and lushly described, Loren’s essays transport you to the graveyard, where she is quite a tour guide. Curiosity and compassion burn at the heart of these essays.”—Paula Guran, editor of Dark Echo magazine
“Rhoads is particularly adept at finding deeper meanings in what she sees, and the questions she puts to the reader about the places she visits can gently guide us in our own search for meaning in the places we encounter. If you’ve struggled to explain your love of burial grounds to others, this may be a great way to help them understand.”—LisaMary Wichowski, The Association of Graveyard Rabbits Online Journal
“Loren Rhoads started visiting cemeteries by accident. It was the start of a love affair with cemeteries that continues to this day. In Wish You Were Here, Rhoads blends history with storytelling and her photos accompany each essay.”—American Cemetery magazine
“Wish You Were Here captures well why many of us find cemeteries fascinating: because of the history and stories of so many interesting people buried there!”—Richard Waterhouse, Waterhouse Symbolism Newsletter
“‘It’s good to be a card-carrying member of the Association for Gravestone Studies,’ Loren writes. I agree. After half a lifetime of guided and self-guided tours, Loren observes, ‘What I’ve learned from cemeteries is that limestone melts, marble breaks, slate slivers, and sandstone cracks.’ That is what draws some of us to graveyards.”—Christine Quigley, Quigley’s Cabinet
“With her dead-on honesty and her fascination for the dark side of life in all its complexity, Loren’s writing never fails to make me think.”—Thomas Roche, Loren’s editor at Gothic.Net
Ordering information:
Wish You Were Here: Adventures in Cemetery Travel was published by Western Legends Press in May 2013. Autographed and inscribed copies can be ordered directly from me via PayPal from my bookshop. To request inscriptions, use the Contact Me form above.
My favorite cemetery is located right here in Des Moines, Iowa; Woodland Cemetery. It’s the city’s oldest burying ground established by 1850. All the founding families of Des Moines are buried there. Woodland is known for it’s park-like setting with large tombstone,interesting mausoleums and massive old trees. It also has a dark side; grave robbing and murders.
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Without doubt, my favourite cemetery was the one featured in the 1976 Gregory Peck movie THE OMEN.
Violent thunder storms and wrought-iron gated cemeteries are a match made in hell and this movie served up the pièce de résistance for both elements.
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My favorite cemetery to visit is lake view cemetery in Cleveland Ohio. It is home to many beautiful headstones and the final resting place for a number of famous people including President Garfield, Rockerfeller, and many more. The cemetery is very large with many very unique tombstones my personal favorite is the angel of death also known as the Haserot angel. She is absolutely stunning! Due to weathering it appears as if she is crying. This is only one of the magnificent headstones in this massive cemetery.
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I love that place! I was lucky enough to see it in November a couple of years ago.
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Highgate Cemetery was an absolute pleasure to explore. I loved the way some graves dovetail into the meager spare spaces near others. The natural aging of the grave markers—be it by water and wind erosion or vegetation growth—contribute to the beauty of this cemetery.
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Highgate may be my favorite cemetery in the world.
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My favorite cemetery to explore, so far, is Hollywood Forever. I’ve been visiting it since the 90s, and it was in shambles when I first started exploring. Thankfully, it was purchased by Tyler Cassity who has done an amazing job of bringing it back to life, pardon the pun. It has everything from interesting graves, interesting tenants to beautiful mausoleums and grounds.
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I love that place, too! I remember going when the statues were all broken and all the plants seemed to be dying. It’s amazing now.
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Woodlawn Cemetery right here in Elmira, New York! One of the last Garden Cemeteries around, believe there are only 42/43 left in the U.S.. It’s great to sit and chat with Samuel Clements, or should I say Mark Twain, and his lovely family. It is also a wonderful experience to sit and watch The Little Rascals with Hal Roach or see how many touch downs Ernie Davis just scored! Yes, definitely Woodlawn Cemetery!
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