A field trip to the Green-wood Cemetery, nestled between bodegas and diners in Brooklyn NY, seemed timely as my own expiration date looms closer as the aging process inexplicably marches on despite my total commitment to sunscreen and healthy eating. Just days from Halloween, the compulsion to explore an iconic burial ground beckoned and detoured me from my previously decided upon destination having been the Brooklyn Museum and Botanical Gardens. My wife and partner appeared dubious. We boarded the Q train for Brooklyn at 72nd street. We disembarked at the Green-Wood Cemetery transit station. Our journey started somewhat inauspiciously upon emerging from the SW exit. I saw signs for the transfer train lines: The D, The N and The R (DNR). Was this a deliberate attempt at macabre humor by the NY Transit Authority? My wife, a fellow physician, recognized the DNR or DO NOT RESUSCITATE acronym in full display as we entered the cemetery from the 36th St. entrance and she chuckled to herself.
Green-Wood unrolled in front of us as we entered the gates and passed the guardhouse on our left. Bucolic best describes the 478 acre land that was dotted with multiple bodies of water, fountains, trees, rolling lawns, massive gravestones and individual family mausoleums constructed with stone, glass and marble. Breathtaking! I briefly stopped at an information kiosk and learned that this South Brooklyn cemetery had been established in 1838 as a burial site for the burgeoning city in which it lies.. As an amateur student of history, I was drawn to the celebrity names of the past promised in the self-guiding map provided. For these departed individuals, the splendor of the mausoleums and monuments of their burial sites broadcast their influence and importance in their past lives.
DeWitt Clinton, 6th governor of New York and father of the Erie Canal, is buried on a green covered hill with a life-sized statue of himself standing on an oversized marble sarcophagus. He gazes over all of Brooklyn with his left hand raised as if shielding himself from the sun to better his view. Commanding!
Boss William Tweed, head of the 19th century corrupt political machine known as Tammany Hall, was prominently interred on Battle Hill, a revered site at Green-wood cemetery because it was the site of George Washington’s battle with the British at the inception of the Revolutionary War. A world class rogue and huckster, Tweed siphoned millions of dollars from construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park and the Courthouse in Downtown New York.
Among the century old London Plane trees and Dogwoods lies Samuel Morse beneath a Greco-Roman inspired monument. The inventor of the telegraph, classical painter and Morse Code originator had a near perfect record until he advocated for slavery during the Civil War.
While the glamor of the granite palaces marking the famous and infamous in death never failed to impress, I realized that the essence of humanity was to be found in the more modest gravesites. Thousands of small granite tombstones marked those who had served in the Civil War and the World Wars. Rows and rows of tombstones lined the grassy knolls as if the stones were marching in a regimented formation.
Fighting on opposite sides of the Civil War, William and Clifton Prentiss were reunited after sustaining mortal wounds in the same battle and interred together in perpetuity at Green-Wood.
Louis Abel, an electrical engineer serving in the 112th Infantry was stationed behind enemy lines in France during World War I. He writes his brother a letter 13 days before his death:
My dear Brother Eugene:
As the war goes on and as I come out of each engagement still alive, I think often of those at home and wonder if I will ever see them again. You are all in my thoughts continually when I have time to think of other things besides the continual shellfire and fighting. My nerves have been sorely tried and many officers and men have lost out completely due to nervous strain making them useless. I sincerely hope all is well with you and yours. Love to all and may God who watches over us all bring us together again.
Lovingly your brother, Louis
Charlotte, a 17 year old girl on the verge of becoming a married woman, was accidentally killed in a carriage accident in 1844. She is interred next to her fiance who took his life in complete and utter grief over her unexpected death. Do-Hum-Me, an 18 year old Sac and Fox Nation Indian woman, was brought to the East in 1843 from her native lands in Iowa by her father to negotiate treaties with the federal government. She was hired by P.T. Barnum to perform Indian war dances in his New York theater. Without resistance to Western disease, Do-Hum-Me fell ill and died of an infectious disease. P.T. Barnum was so distraught he paid for her burial and tombstone. Two women, ill-fated for early deaths and thus virtually unknown during their lives, have become well-known and are frequently visited gravesites at Green-wood.
The sky darkens and a late October rain begins to fall. My wife and I open our umbrellas and prepare to depart the cemetery. We are headed back to the subway to return to Manhattan. We cannot help but to reflect on the beauty of the cemetery and the lessons it has taught us: it is the quiet lives of so many who are unsung in the world that reach out to us in the most unexpected places that remind us the importance and beauty of every life.
