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Taphophilia (dot) Com...
A repository of morbid curiosities:
Thanatology and Taphophile Issues, Cemetery,
Funeral Industry and Death Related News.
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By Matt Hucke And Ursula Bielski. Discover a Chicago That Exists Just Beneath the Surface - About Six Feet Under! Take a tour of Chicago's permanent residents! Please visit the Lake Claremont Press website to purchase your copy of Graveyards of Chicago today!
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Guardians of the Soul: Angels and Innocents, Mourners and Saints, Indiana's remarkable cemetery sculpture
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West Springfield Massachusetts: Stories Carved in Stone by Rusty Clark features information on early New England gravestone carvers with more than two hundred photos and illustrations. Please visit the Dog Pond Press website.
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Pets rest disrupted, Sale of land uproots cemetery |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Friday, 04 November 2005 |
Published: Oct 24, 2005
Pets' rest disrupted, Sale of land uproots cemetery
By JOSH SHAFFER, Staff Writer
News & Observer
RALEIGH, NC -- Five years ago, Candi the wiener dog went to her grave with an elaborate pink marker and warm wishes for the afterlife.
Last week, Blase Kaauamo dug up her plastic casket and set it on the grass. The dachshund's body is just one of 500 buried animals that Kaauamo must transport out of Pet Rest Cemetery.
"I think she was brown," mused the gravedigger, brow sweaty.
After 35 years, the Pet Rest Cemetery in far northwest Raleigh has succumbed to development -- perhaps a Hampton Inn, owner Steve Rogers said.
That means a new home for Yogi, Sniffy and a pig named Arnold.
By mid-November, Kaauamo must disturb the rest of Puddles Eggleston, Capt. Nick Danger Myers and Sir Timothy Flash of Skye.
"At least I'm not having nightmares," he said. "Yet."
When it opened, Pet Rest sat on a grassy hill on a then-bucolic stretch of Glenwood Avenue.
But now the animals rest alongside Brier Creek, with its shopping and country club golf. Rogers' father, Jerry, recently sold his two acres to American Asset Corp. for $750,000, with the understanding that all critters would be moved to a new spot on T.W. Alexander Drive.
Rogers cringed a little when he sent out the notices. It isn't the happiest chore.
"Every day, you come out expecting to see a picket line, and you just hope they haven't chained themselves to something," Rogers said. "But for the most part, people have been really understanding."
Thus notified, some pet lovers chose cremation. Most were satisfied to see their animals moved free of charge.
This was the case for Penny Vitacco, who laid to rest Paco the cockatiel in 1999 with an elaborate stone and a poem -- "As long as there is love, as long as there is time ... ." Moving his feathered remains suits her fine.
"As long as he's treated respectfully," Vitacco said, "which I'm sure they will be."
About two dozen people, though, opted to pick up their own animal remains and arrange a new burial.
Rogers has the remains stacked in the cemetery office, wrapped in brown paper, along with their headstones.
Fluffy. Ginger. Nicki. Tillie. The office bears a pungent odor of the grave.
"This is Arnold," Rogers said, holding up one of the packages. "He was buried in a coffee can."
The Rogers family bought the cemetery in 1990, but the oldest graves date to 1970. This can make identification tricky.
"This one I dug up this morning was buried in 1974," Rogers said. "We found a collar and a rusty dog tag, so we bagged that up with the stone. There's really no remains there. There was a tennis ball and a blue blanket."
There is also the matter of the monkey. A grieving owner sent it via United Parcel Service about 10 years ago, but its whereabouts are unclear.
There is a grave with "Monkey" chiseled on the stone, but Rogers suspects it was a dog named Monkey. It died too long ago, and had it been a monkey, the owner surely would have thought up a better name.
No one from American Asset Corp. returned calls, so the company's plans are unclear.
Rogers notes that relocating human remains from a cemetery, although more common, is difficult legally. Buy a plot, and you've bought some real estate.
Not so with pets. The average burial costs $300, the high-end $1,200, but either way, you don't own the hole in the ground.
To Kaauamo, whose name means "the lifter" in his native Hawaiian, the process of excavation is bittersweet. He can recall burying every animal since he started working there in 1990 -- a list of more than 250 beasts.
"I buried him," he said, pointing to a departed bird and recalling the casket. "It's like a small little hamburger box, but it's wood."
Kaauamo passes a pair of sheepdogs, Sniffy and Alfie.
"We'll pick you up at the rainbow bridge," says the stone. "Then we will be together forever."
He passes Lassie, a guide dog who died in 1973. "Whither goest thou," says the stone.
Hundreds more remain for Kaauamo and his shovel, all creatures of infinite jest.
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Taphophilia?
taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)
ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"
DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries
Quote Repository
“The good he scorn'd Stalk'd off reluctant, like an ill-us'd ghost, Not to return; or if it did, its visits Like Those of angels, short, and far between.” Robert Blair (1699-1746) from
Shirtless and Sculpted
The Men of Mortuaries 2008 Calendar is now available! All sale proceeds benefit KAMMCARES, a breast cancer foundation.
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