What's the deal with headstones?

makes everything. Okay. That's so nice of you. You're making me blessed. I know. So how are you doing? Oh I'm sleepy? Okay, well, well let's get this over with. So sucking. Let good ticking naps and I guess we have those like Japanese style nap rooms here. We're very forward. Thing. That would be wonderful House the Works. Yeah. I don't think i'd be able to do that at work take a nap, no, no way, No, I don't think I

would be able to either. But I would think it'd be wonderful just because it would show how progressive how Stuff Works is. We should have nap um cubbies that are like plexi, so you can just watch people nap. How uncomfortable would that be? Or yeah, it would be very uncomfortable. There's probably one or two weirdos here that would love to do that. Yeah. Jonathan Strickland sucks is thumb not a surprise. Um? Yeah, this was cobbled together, this one, which is unusual. Yeah. Where where did you

get some of the information? One was the International Southern Cemetery Gravestones Association, and the other was the U S Department of Veterans Affairs, definitive sources. You know all about headstones and grave markers and tombstones yea by any name. Yeah. I think the professionals who make headstones or grave markers or tombstones call them funeral markers, are grave markers. That's the lingo of the jargon of the industry. Yes, and this pairs nicely with our Coffins podcast. Dude, it pairs

nicely with a bunch of them. This is part of the Dying Suite. Will never end until we die. Here lies Josh and Chuck the death Swite. Um, So, Chuck, you want to talk a little bit about the history of this stuff. I've got a little bit of history. I don't know if you have or not about how long humans have been burying the dead. Let's hear it,

it's pretty old. As a matter of fact, there's evidence of like weird funeral rights kind of at least an assemblage of people acting differently, or an assemblage of primates acting differently, um around a recently deceased member of their group in bunabo um apes. So they'd like to poke it and think it's not moving. Um. I don't think they were poking it, but the way that they were interacting with one another, like those with the highest rank had the most access to the body. Um, they were

kind of guarding it from being disturbed. Uh, like early signs of respect. Interesting and apparently Neanderthals as well, UM used to as as as far back as two fifty years ago. There's evidence that parts of the dead Neanderthals were put away from the rest of the group in what you could consider like a resting place like a cave or something like that. I wonder if that started because of just obvious things like smell and rotting bodies,

or if it was just or maybe both. Well, I mean, we're hard wired for disgust to experience disgust, and disgust warrns is like, don't eat that poop unless it's a fecal transplant. Um, don't eat that vomit under any circumstances. There's a lot of stuff that you shouldn't do, like don't don't um eat that dead body. It's turned Um, it's not a nice fresh dead body. So I would guess that funeral rites grew out of the our sense of disgust. Like you're saying, um, the that's just kind

of ambiguous stuff. Though the Neanderthals like they they de fleshed bones and then place the bones in separate places. Some people are like, well, it's evidence of cannibalism. Other people are saying, that's a funerary practice. The unambiguous evidence of burials comes I think about eighty thousand years ago, between forty thousand and eighty thousand years ago in Egypt, child was buried um next to a cobble pit. What's that?

It's where you like, you excavate stone to like pave roads or something with although forty tho years ago they weren't making roads. I'm not sure what a cobble pit is nothing to do with it's an excavation pit. Um. I guess that they were excavating stones to make tools. I would guess rather them roade. But there was a child buried by anatomically modern humans between forty thousand and eighty thousand years ago, so we've been doing it for

a very long time. Yeah, but this is just burial. Right. Well, we're talking about our headstones and they didn't come along until far after that, right. Uh, Well, there weren't well let's go back and them further to Roman and Celtic times. Uh, they had headstones that there were kind of it seems like they were pretty advanced for the time. And then there was a period where they weren't so um detailed, but early on they were super detailed. They would have pictures.

They would describe things that happened, these battles that took place. If they died in battle and uh, Salmon's in Scotland, they would describe the profession maybe uh if sometimes it was pictorial, like if someone was a carpenter, they wouldn't say here lies a carpenter. They would just have a hammer maybe, um, like a saw. Yeah, that's a that giveaway that it was a carpenter. Uh. Scotland was very descriptive. Apparently in their early days of headstones too, they would

describe professions. So like early on it seems just like the profession was a big deal, right, like this is

what they did here on earth. And in other cultures too, there was this idea that you could erect a memorial to somebody by placing a stone or something, an upright stone, not necessarily at their grave, but like there's things called stella um that are basically just markers that say like this person did this um, or this person fought this battle in one or lost, or this person was great for some reason that makes us want to memorialize it by carving this into a stone and placing it upright

and never said this person didn't do so much. Not really, that came later in the twentieth century. But the idea of stones period was before gravestones even. I think the term headstone from what I gathered, is from the Jewish custom of marking graves with stones and then um. I think the other cultures did that too, like uh, supposedly to keep the dead from rising, they would I thought that was cool. But I've also heard and I think it makes sense that they didn't want the bodies to

be disturbed by, you know, packs of wild coyotes. Yeah, so to combat that, and if you were lazy and didn't feel like burying, or you lived in a place where the dirt was just too hard, you could make

something called a cairn or carn. Yes, c A I r n and right, yeah, I'm not sure I was pronounced, which is basically like you lay the body on the ground, maybe you dig out a little bit of a shallow pit, and then you place rocks around and on top of it so that no, not even like the hungriest coyote is not going to be able to get through this pile of rubble. And then you may also erect like a marker at the head of it. Sure, and these I think at this point pre nineteenth century, I don't

even think there were cemeteries. It was just you would be buried near your family plot, near your home with your family. Um, but they weren't all gathered together a bunch of dead people in one area. Uh well, it was the whole family, was there, Yeah, but not like a cemetery. And then depending um, on where how how many people lived in a village, say, eventually that morphed

into a churchyard. The graveyard was moved to the church because the church was so intertwined in people's everyday lives that it just made sense that that's where you would go to be buried. The thing is these were almost um, purposefully gloomy places. They were um reminders. Yeah, it was a reminder that you're gonna die a memnto maori. The churchyard itself was a reminder that you're gonna die. Um.

And they were not landscaped. They were usually they had a fence around him maybe, and there were the markers, but that was about it. It wasn't meant to be a place of solace or peace or meditation. Yeah, there's one over in my neighborhood. There's a churchyard. Uh cemetery, and it is it feels a little different than just your average cemetery. It is, it looks a little different, and it's does seem a little like I don't know. Well, the reason why is because you and I are used

to what's called the Rural Cemetery Movement, the the RCM. Right, you know, you have that T shirt but that that was that came out of the nineteenth century. The I think um the early mid nineteenth century where this idea.

As cities built up and people became further and further removed from nature, and you also had less and less space to just bury somebody in a churchyard, they started moving the dead slightly to the outskirts of the city and also put some thought into landscaping the area as well. So what you have is what you and I think of as a modern cemetery, very park like, nice shrubbery um paved roads that that allow people to go through

a nice place for visitors. So much so that very early on in the rural cemetery movement, for a while families would go picnic there on Sundays. It was like a park, but you also plant you're dead there too. It was a little bit of both, but it and also during this time that's not very surprising because during this time death was so much more fully intricate, integrated into the life of the average person that um having a picnic there on a Sunday it didn't seem at

least bit bizarre. Macaw. Yeah, there weren't the hang ups like we have these days. It seems like right, because nowadays it's sterilized and removed. Death is Yeah. Back to the headstones the Celts started using once Christianity came to Ireland, they started using the the Celtic cross, which was originally the I think called the sun cross, which was a

pagan symbol. But then um, I think St Patrick and put the Christian cross over the sun cross and we now had our Celtic cross and they started using that became kind of a common but again not um specific, just sort of like an unmarked grave still with the Celtic cross, no inscription, right right, Yeah, that didn't come

until later. But like you said, there was um, there was a lot of symbology or symbols attached, and then over time it evolved to include things like date of birth, date of death, the person's name, um, and then inscriptions later on. Yeah, and thanks also to the Irish um. They were the first ones I believed to get a little cheeky with their uh sense of humor um And

I don't know, but well they probably yeah. But one example that in the article I read said I think of me as you walk by where you now stay, and so once did I, which is you know for the eighteenth century. That's that's a big time funny, right because it rhymes yeah exactly. But again that's what's called the memento More. It's like a reminder that you're gonna die, so don't get too big for your breeches or don't forget to go live your life. There's all sorts of

reasons for that. Uh. And America and the colonies, um, colonial times, it wasn't super fancy um, and they used they started to use things like limestone and marble instead of wood, which would last longer in sandstone. But then in the eighteen sixties they moved to igneous rock. Which always want to say ignacious because of I always want to say because Confederacy dunces. I think was it the name of one of the characters. Yeah, the main guy,

Ignacious Riley was. It's igneous. What about saying ignacious who? I don't know who was? If there was ever a name for a saint, it's ignacious saying ignacious? But what was he? The saint? I don't remember, just his name always stood out to me like that is a saints name, patron saint of podcasting? All right, Um. In the six so they started using the igneous rock, which is underground cooled rock, and that was much more permanent because other

stuff crumbled and you know the sandstone. Yeah, let's talk about weathering, shall we. Um And in colonial times too, when they were using these markers and headstones. Um. So, symbology has been a part of headstones for a very long time, whether it was the Celtic cross or a saw to indicate a carpenter or whatever. And in the colonies, apparently, um they like to remind everybody that only the most pious select few we're going to go to heaven. The rest of you are going to hell. Like, no bones

about it, buddy, you are going to hell. Sorry, And um, I would like to use my headstone to remind you of it. So I'm gonna put a sculling crossbones on it, the death's head. They carved the death head, the death's head onto the gravestone to remind others that they were going to hell. That's what the Puritans did. Yeah. The Victorians were fancy and always so they had really elaborate headstones and tombs, and they were also big on like

the really nice park atmosphere. Well that's what that's what it grew out of, was the Victorian era. Yeah, and you sent a link to about some what some of the Victorian symbols mean, right, Yeah, they had some there's weren't quite as they weren't intended to be a reminder

that you're going to hell. They were a lot more hopeful and a lot of these you still see on tombstones today, headstones like modern ones and people who are buried today, Like you'll see a bundle of wheat gathered together, and that's the indicate that somebody lived a nice, long life and and they were harvested and they will go on and into the next life. A gateway might be nice because that means sure, that's the gateway to heaven. Yes, any kind of arch or gate Yeah, butterfly is the

symbol of resurrection. That's very nice. Um, if you have a broken column, it indicates that you were cut down in the prime of life, taken too young. Um. If you have a flower that's broken, have you ever seen that? Uh No, it's like it's it's it'll be like a rose or something and then it's like snapped into That indicates that, um, you were you died suddenly and if it's a bud, if it's not an open flower, it

indicates it was a child. So there's like all this code. Yeah, an hourglass is the transience of this life, right, or lamp, the light of truth. Clasped hands, you know where there's like somebody holding somebody else's hand that means like take care, I'll see you in a few years. Or the saddest maybe maybe the willow tree. That's just morning and that's just really sad. It is sad, but there's none of these are reminders that you're going to You're gonna go

to hell when you die. It's gonna be bad. The Victorians were a little more uplifting. If anybody had their finger on the pulse of death, it was the Victorians. They just knew what they were doing. Another thing human beings did in the eighteenth century was more safe. These cages, iron cages they would put over um. But the Victorians were like, no, that's really untoward. Well get rid of those. Part of the reason why is because there wasn't that need for it anymore. It was remember the cairns or

the carns me to stay carns. And it's probably wrong, but that was to protect from coyotes disturbing the grave. He also said Morls, yeahs and Kama Jacoma. Yeah, that's what I said, Laura said Jacama. The more safe were to protect the body from being dug up by people who were robbing graves to sell the body to anatomists. Yeah, or I imagine, you know, maybe loot the body as well. On your way, like here's your body. Um, disregard where that wedding gold wedding band was on the finger right?

Remember Mr Burns has um the suit that Charlie Chaplin was buried in in a shadow box on it. That's a good one. Uh. And that kind of you know, brings us I guess, I mean that's skipping forward though. But the modern era, the last hundred years has been um, I mean headstone. The headstone industry is a big deal. It's it's you know, people put a lot of thought into what goes on their headstone or their family's headstone,

and cost a lot of money. And you can be as ornate as you want to, or you can do like in Royal Tannin bombs and invent your own fake headstone, which is pretty good. You wanting to talk about some of these ones. Yeah, some of these epitats. We have the slide show on stuff you Should Know dot Com called the twenty one remark Coble Epitaphs, and it is definitely worth checking out. Um, and this one's my favorite. Chuck Charleskowski, Yeah, Fewkowski's don't try that on. Yeah, and

he has a little pugilist too. Yeah. Well, he was a huge boxing fan. I think he might have been a boxer himself. He died, yeah, crazy. Yeah, for some reason, I thought he was like in the eighties or something. No, he's still working in the eighties. Yeah. Boy, he didn't look good there at the end. Well, he pretty much drank him to death, I know, but he Yeah, he looked really bad. I remember seeing a documentary I think

from the eighties or not early nineties. Is that the one where he like kicks his wife off of the couch or something. He's like being physically abusive in the documentary. He wasn't a nice fellow. No, he really wasn't. No, he's not at all. You saw bar Flat, right, That's one of my all time favorite movies. I figured it's a good one. Who's that one? Mitchell's Oh, it's just a person. Yeah, these are just like no worthy. Well this sucks that awesome, Yeah, that seems like something I

might do. Actually, well this sucks on your grace stone. Yeah, because this got me thinking of what I would want, you know, um, And I mean I didn't come up with anything, but I think I would just want something sort of like humble, like, you know, he tried his best, but you know, maybe he didn't do such a good job all the time. Yet more, I wouldn't want to like flout, like to out anything or trump up in a life, you know, like he was a simple dude who tried to not be such a jerk. How's that?

That's a good one. What about mel Blanks? Yeah, that's all folks, that's a good one. Man. Of one thousand voices, that's very nice. Some of these are a little smallsey and sweet. This one was good. Robert Klay Allison his tombstone. He died in seven at the age of forty seven. His epitaph says he never killed a man that did not need killing. That's pretty good. That's a gun slinger right there. Did you know that only like four or five times in the history of the United States, where

was there an actual gunfight in the center of town. No, it sounds like a good don't be dumb. Oh yeah, make a mental note. I think it's verified like five times or something. It's very much a movie thing. I mean there were plenty of gun you know, people shooting in gunfights, but but like the whole like, hi, yeah, come out in the middle of town and draw your guns at the tick of the clock or whatever. You know. Whaticed was a surprisingly good movie Three o'clock High. Did

you ever see that Richard Tyson and Casey Samasco. Yeah. I saw that when it came out and thought, man, this is kind of a different movie. And then years later it's sort of a cult favorite. Uh. That guy what was his name in the movie The Bully but his real name, No, his name in the movie, I don't remember. It was like he had like a scary first name or something, and he went on to a sale. Arnold Schwartz and anger in Kindergarten Cop. I didn't see

Kindergarten Cop. Really, Yeah, you should see it? All right, you want to do anymore? We should we just tell everybody to go check these out. I think we should just near let's see this one more raised four beautiful daughters with only one bathroom, and still there was love. That's nice, It is nice. He wants to be morbid, you know, I don't know. I think there's something to be said. You're just gonna be some morbids. Mine will probably say boom, I'm coming to get you right and chuck.

One more thing about um epitaphs and gravestones before we move on. UM. There was this thing. Remember why two K y two K bug I wasn't sold on that to begin with, Well, there are a lot of potential problems. It wasn't just with computer programs. One of them was the grave marker industry. A lot of people by their headstones ahead of time, and they had nineteen and then nothing after the date because they expected to die in

the twentieth century. Well, a lot of people had to have this filled in and re etched because they lived into the two thousand's. There was a big problem, and apparently a lot of long standing UM gravestone makers around the sixties or seventies started really trying to persuade their customers did not etch that in. A lot of people didn't listen, some people did, some people didn't. Why would you get that done ahead of time? I understand picking out your plot and you're what you wanted to say,

but the actual etching, like who cares? I guess these people really didn't want their families that have to do almost anything. I get that, like, just put nine nine in there, like I'm alive, it's two thousand. I gotta call that guy. Yeah exactly. I mean, what a what a thing to have on your to do list. You need to get my epithelf filled in and recarve, drink

ovaltee and get epithets carve um. All right, So we'll move on here after this message break and talk a little bit about military graves and government funded headstone Okay, so government furnished headstones and this is from the Veterans Affairs website. But I thought that's pretty interesting. They also call them Obama stones. That was off the cup. That

was good originally. UM. I found it interesting that standard grave markers were even before the national cemeteries were established in eighteen sixty two, and they had, like you know, prior to the Civil War, they had all these frontier armies and they would just bury you in uh, don't bury me on the open prairie. Basically they would bury you if you died in battle, not a mass grave as in they would dump everyone in there, but um

a mass grave site. Yeah. Initially, like they would just bury everyone together, or and they wouldn't even market yeah, or you were just buried in battle like where you died if things were really tough, yeah, if yeah, if you were lucky. I'm quite sure there are plenty of soldiers who were not left on the frontier to basically be picked off by vultures sky burial sky burials on the on the American front here. Um, yeah, you're exactly right,

I'm sure. It wasn't until like the nineteenth century that they started even marking these mask grades. It was like, oh, a bunch of soldiers died here, let's take a pit, fill it in and just forget about it. Then in the mid nineteenth century, like the Crimean War, for example, they would raise a monument saying, there's a bunch of guys buried here who fell in this battle. And it wasn't until World War One that they started to really

try to individually bury men who fell in battle. Yeah. Initially, in the Civil War days, they would um used a wooden board, UM, and it would have a registration number and some sort of inscription. But they didn't keep any kind of records of burials at that point. That came along later as well. But once the Civil War happened after the Battle of Manassas, they were like, a lot of people are dying here. This is becoming a problem, Like we need to find a way to respect these soldiers.

And oh, the Quartermaster General Um from the General's Orders in September eighteen sixty one was directed to finally start keeping records and provide headboards headboards in blank forms to all of the commanders around the country so they could just keep track of everything at least, right, And this is the first time that anybody ever made a coordinated

effort to track burials ever. Apparently. Yeah, and after the Civil War they made an effort for the first time to relocate um people that were buried in battle and have them relocated to an official grave. Yeah. After the Civil War. Oh yeah, because they had a bunch of Confederate dead that the Southern States reclaimed and moved down south to bury so that they wouldn't have to be buried in any Yankee earth. Yankee dirt. Uh. In eighteen sixty five is when they started thinking, hey, these wooden

burial markers are not lasting very long. No, they were expected to last about five years. They each cost at the time a dollar twenty three, which is not cheap. And so when you suddenly multiplied that by the three hundred thousand expected dead from the Civil War that you had to bury and then maintain their their headboards every five years, they suddenly were like, this is gonna go well into a million dollars over the next twenty years. Maybe we should come up with something a little more

permanent than popsicle sticks. It was the economics of it, and the public sentiments started growing to um to hey, maybe we should memorialize these soldiers in a more permanent way. Yeah, because a little wood thing that's rotting after a few years is pretty kind of a disrespectful thing. And apparently there was a huge and um vigorous debate over what

we should use as a headstone. Should we use like something like marble, or should we use something like galvanized iron coated in zinc, which I wasn't even familiar that was the thing until today. Yeah, I've never heard of it either. And I guess over the course of like seven years there was a lot of debate and angry words flying, and and um, I'm sure the marble industry was like, yeah, yeah, Marble, and the galvanized iron industry was like, you better get in there and get this passed.

And then finally the marvel people won. Yeah. And in eighteen seventy three, Secretary of War William W. Bell nap Um said, you know what we're gonna design. These stones are gonna be in national cemeteries, are going to be permanent, but they're only gonna be for the known dead at this point. The unknown came about later as well. And not only that this is just for Union soldiers. Yeah, that we're not providing for the Confederate soldiers was a bit of a slap in the base. I believe they

reversed that position later on, and they did. And then anybody who'd ever fallen in battle in the United States got a marker, and they made different markers for the unknown dead. They were basically just blocks of stone, and then it had the grave the burial plot carved into the top of it. And then eventually they said we're gonna make all of them the same everybody gets the

same marker. Yeah, and they made it retroactive to and started started including past wars, Revolutionary War, War of eighteen twelve, Mexican War, and Indian campaigns, and then eventually the Spanish American War. So a lot of thought went into it. I thought it was just kind of never really think about that kind of thing. You just see like Arlington, and you don't think about all the behind the scenes work and decisions that need to be made on exactly

how to do that. Yeah. And they even did a study in nineteen two to find out how the the eighteen seventy nine markers were holding up, and they said, we need to change these a little bit. So if anyone ever asks you what the official military um headstone in the US dimensions are, this would be the most arcane piece of trivia anyone would asked. It's pretty arcane, but you could probably impress some weird uncle or your

grandpa or something like that with this one. Uh. The height of the stone is thirty nine inches tall, twelve inches wide, and the thickness is four inches and apparently the height extends twelve inches above the ground, so you have twenty seven inches Bury below the ground. You've been to Darlington, m hm, it's pretty neat. It is really something. You go to Oakland Cemetery here in Atlanta, Yep, I've been there too. Yeah, it's pretty nice. It is really something. Yeah.

And they Oakland even has and I've always felt I don't think I have death hang ups, but they have like concerts there and stuff like that. Yeah. And I think they show movies there, yeah, I think so. Like in the outside, um, there's some really neat mausoleums. There's like a miniature, uh, statue of Liberty. There's some really ornate, beautiful mausoleums. Bobby Jones, the famous golfer, is buried there, and there's a putting green on his graves. I've never

seen that one. Yeah, if you if you, there's usually golf balls there. I think if you bring your own putter you can just sit there and put on his grave. Interesting. Yeah, well I just recently saw Washington and Mrs Washington's grave at Um up there in d C. Which was cool. Um, but they were moved as well. That one's really kind of when you go there to Mount Vernon, you know

you see them Bury. Oh yeah, we saw that recently too. Yeah, you see, they were moved from their original one, but the original tomb is still there and they made a

nicer one. And then there's the slave burial ground, which is just a really kind of a sad place to visit because it's not I mean, they've done something now, but um, I don't know, it's just sort of a reminder, yeah, of what went on, which, um, you know, speaking of that Washington, it was like, you know, he's lauded for freeing his slaves, but it was after he he freed them after he died, and then in his will it was after Martha Washington was to die. Um, then they

would be officially freed. And you know that's that's great. Whatever, he still held slaves until he died. At least Martha Washington did something remarkable though. Um. She gave the slaves that she inherited from her husband their freedom within a year of his death. She didn't wait until she died. She was like, you guys, be free, and I mean in Washington's favor for sure. He also provided a substantial amounts of money for their for them to just start

a new free life. It wasn't just like your free good luck. It was you guys are free, like, here's here's a new life for you. Did you go recently? Yeah? Yeah, pretty neat it is. It's like really well done. I guess Living Museum. Yeah. I went last year with just my sister and then went again. Actually, you and I probably went within the last like a few weeks of each other. It's funny, yeah, because I went with my niece and Emily and um highly recommend going to melt Burnon.

It's and Monicello too. I still haven't been there. That's amazing. Both of them are just really great spots to go check out. It's pretty cool. I mean you can stand there and look at the bed where he died. Yeah, it's you're like five ft from it. Yeah. I try to get in and lay down, and they did. I got some. I got smacked on the wrist. Um. All right, after this break, we're going to talk a little bit

about unmarked graves. Chuck. Yeah, I am interested in learning the definition of an armarked grave, as per say someone named Joe len uh, Well, it means it's a great that's not march right. Pretty much, it's almost exactly what you think it is. Is if somebody is buried in a grave. And this is according from this article from

How Stuff Works. According to um Joelene Mason, who's the general manager of Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park, which is where a lot of celebrities are buried in Los Angeles, it's really one of the most useless quotes I've ever seen. She says, quote, if there's no marker, headstone, or nameplate and there's someone in the grave, it qualifies as unmarked. She was probably like, yeah, she hung up, just shaking her head. Uh, there are many reasons. There's a lot

of reasons why you might want your grave unmarked. Um man, that was so caddy of us. Just then to make fun of that lady, well, to make fun of the quote, the whole thing. Yeah, that's sorry. Sorry everyone. I didn't think it was that caddy. I was moved to say something, right, Um, Like I said, there's a lot of reasons you might want, uh or not want. There's all the reasons you might have an unmarked grave. Historically, you might have an unmarked

grave if you are a really bad person. Um like Himmler. Oh his grave isn't mark That makes sense, Yeah, pretty bad persons, bad person, good example of a bad person. Hey, thanks, you're welcome. Um executed criminals a lot of times have unmarked graves a lot of times the show like you know, contempt for what they did on Earth, but a lot of times too. It's also so it doesn't draw people there to you know, go do bad things to face the grave in any way, um, family victims or whatever.

It's also if families. If you die of pauper, you will be buried in what's called the potter's field. And Oakland Cemetery has a potter's field. Yeah, like one next to the theater to the drive in theater. Is there a potter's field there? Oh yeah, I know that right next to it. But basically it's just a plot of unmarked graves and the state still does that. Yeah. The one next to uh starlight drive in is um, like

a lot of bad stuff goes on over there. Apparently it's like prostitution and drugs and yeah, um, what else could you do? You could scatter the remains of a bad person and not even have a grave at all. And that's what some of the Nazi war criminals that was their fate. Like I commend and Guring were just scattered and like, so no one would know where they were.

You know, it wasn't around then, but today it would seem like if you came up against the Nazis again, the best way to dispose of their body would be something we mentioned in our episode, what are different ways to dispose of a body? And remember the auto licens one where you turned into a biscus goo that can be poured down the drain. That's what you should do with Nazis these days. Put it in the toilet and

flush it. Yes, yes, heads up Nazis. Yeah, but in some cities don't they treat waste water for eventual drinking water That the process of auto licens renders it um sterile, So you can just pour it down the drain. But would you want to drink it? Tho? I can't imagine the molecules that we drink, the things that we drink what they used to be. Yeah, that's still make it into our body on a molecular level. I'm sure it

would be revolting to know. As a matter of fact, if anybody out there does know, if you work in like wastewater treatment or something, share some stories. Yeah, that'd be a good podcast. I don't know if I want to know. Do you remember the story of that poor girl in Los Angeles who um went missing? She was on a trip there by herself for a few days from Canada in the last couple of years. Oh, the one in the tank. Yeah. They found her in the drinking and the hotel water tank on the roof after

like I think a week or two. Yeah, because people said the water tasted funny, yeah, and looked funny. Yeah. She was the one that did the strange stuff with the elevator, right, Yes, yeah, she was. She was mentally ill. That was really sad. Wasn't mental illness or was she on drugs? I don't believe she had a history of mental illness. Did Yeah she did? Oh she did. Yeah. It is sad. I mean it's sad either way. Yeah, But at first it's like, oh my gosh, it's the

creepiest thing I've ever seen, because her behavior was so weird. Yeah. If you look on line, there's a lot of sixteen year olds, they're like stoof that she was possessed by a demon, and they actually mean it, chuck, they mean it. Come on, sixteen year olds, get tracked together all right, And now to close, we're gonna go over some famous people with unmarked graves, because sometimes if you're famous, your family might want to unmark graves so your grave site

doesn't become a tourist stop. Um, that's one reason, I guess, because you've ever been to like, No, I haven't, but I've seen pictures. Yeah. I went, of course, because I was just out of college, way into the doors, and you didn't. No, I went and looked at it. You don't like the doors anymore, there, do you it? Um? It was a passing fancy, but I don't like dislike the doors. But I was like really into him for a while, and then I now I'm coming to Morrison

was not much of a poet. I bought his poetry books back then, and I was all into the Lizard King. I think it's something that happens when you're twenty. Yeah, what's good music. I still like him. Um. I was into Pink Floyd for a while too, but I don't listen to them much anymore. They have a new album coming out, from what I understand, Yeah, I did hear that old material that they've is gonna be awesome. Yeah, I still love Pink Floyd, but not like I did

when I was fourteen. Yeah, alright, Mozart, he's in an unmarked to him. Um, because even though we see him as a big shot, he at the time was not in the upper Echelona society. No, you had to be pretty high falutin in the eighteenth century in Vienna to get a grave marker. Yeah, so he's buried. They now have an In the eighteen fifties, they built a monument over where they think he was buried. Um. And then that was later moved to a space where they just

had honored various musicians that were buried there. And they put up another monument near his original assumed or prison grave site at Marks Cemetery St. Mark's m r x UM. And it has an angel leaning up against the broken column, which, as you remember, indicates someone who has cut down the prime of life. And Mozart died at age thirty five suddenly of rheumatic fever. The vapors he had the vapors, So that that's what I call the Enna's nice ever been there? Uh? No, lovely? Uh it is John Wayne.

He is buried in his family gives his reason for his unmarked grave for just not wanting to be uh, disrespectful to others that are also buried there, which I think is a pretty nice thing. That's kind of a I don't want to say a trend, but a lot of celebrities families do that they they're buried in unmarked graves either because they have the same thought that you have, Like you want to be humble. You can't be much

more humble than being buried in an mark grave. Yeah, I want to be marked at least, so like George C. Scott, Frank Zappa, they're both buried in on Mark graves. Roy Orbison. Roy Orbison is um because apparently his family never got around to putting a headstone on his grave. They were planning on moving him and never have, so he's been laying in on Mark Graves since Yah Bessie Smith famous

blue singer. She was big in the vaudeville scene in the nineteen twenties and like a lot of the siren singers of the day, I had a problem with alcoholism and died in a car crash in ninety seven. And she didn't have a grave because her husband apparently the rumors didn't want to pay for it, and years later Janice Joplin was such a fan she had moved to pay for and commission a headstone for her um and I didn't see if it was ever done. It says she died shortly thereafter, but I don't know if that

project was ever completed. It was okay, it went through all right. Mike Tyson did that too. His mother was died very poor and I think had an unmarked grave or a very small marker. And after he hit it big, one of the first things he did was get this huge, gaudy, elaborate headstone erected for Belushi has been uh. They've had some problems with fans of Belushi's partying at his grave, so they moved him from his UH grave and Martha's

vineyard to a spot that only the family knows. But they have two uh cinotaphs, which are empty tombs, one at Martha's vineyard, one at his family plot in Chicago where you can go visit, but apparently only like his family knows where he's truly buried. Now. Um, and you know, I hung out in the room where he died a couple of times. Yeah, and the in the Belushi Cabana at the Chateau Marmott. Oh yeah, I always think he was.

It was it was Chicago, but that was um Chris Farley, who died in exactly the same manner that Belushi did, just in Chicago. Yeah, it's a little weird. I mean you're sitting there and you're you know, I was having a good time and having a few drinks, and it's like John Belushi died right here where I'm standing, and um, yeah, bad way to go. What speedball? And then chuck out? Got one more? Remember the movie Peter Pan, the Disney movie The Cartoon. Yeah, a little boy who voices who

voiced Peter Pan. He is buried in an unmarked Popper's grave. That is sad. Yeah, he was in. His name is Bobby Driscoll. He was in not just Peter Pan, but also um Treasure Island movie called The Window. And he was a child star and after he hit puberty he was apparently discarded by Hollywood and hit the skids and he actually died. The guy who the kid who voiced Peter Pan died at age thirty one in an abandoned

apartment in New York City. Um, not even of a drug overdose, but of a whole bunch of drug overdoses that finally led to catastrophic heart failure. Um and his mother started looking for him a year after he died and found that he died because I guess the police printed him. He was just a John Doe until his mother started looking for him. But he's still buried in

an omark grave from what I understand. Yeah, and it's not just like, oh, he was famous, and it's so sad he died that way because thousands of people die every day in this country, homeless people that died with no family and no one that cares about burying them. Well, there's also a lot of people who have family, whose family don't have enough money to do anything. And I have no choice but to allow the state to handle the funeral. And it is not an elaborate funeral. State

state run funerals are not elaborate, I'm sure. Unless it's ahead of state, then there wizz bangs in salute. I got nothing else, I don't either. Go to our website Stuff you Should Know dot com and check out twenty one remarkable epitaphs. It's pretty good, if I say so myself. Uh, you can um read the let's see what is it? Ten famous people buried in unmarked graves that articles on how stuff works dot com? And since I said how stuff works dot com, it's time for listener now. I'm

gonna call this branical illusion, okay. And this is something that we hear about a lot, and UH as fans of radio and podcasting myself. If you've never seen someone that you've always heard, it's always jarring to see what they look like. And some people still don't even want to know what we look like, which you know, I get.

I don't blame you, man, I've seen Kiris Doll before. Yeah, it's just fun to look at the NPR people like Lois writes, as I expected to be three years old, And Lois writes, this looks exactly like I would have thought she did. She looked younger than I thought, Um, but not much. All right, Hey, guys, uh, Josh, Chuck and Jerry and again Jerry spelt correctly. People are really getting with it. Man. I've been an avid listener uh to your podcasts and the sister podcasts since two thousand nine.

Never thought I'd have anything interesting enough to write in about. But it finally happened, and it was so perception altering, so randomly odd. I thought you should know. All these years I had an inner podcast movie playing of YouTube bantering going through my head. All was good. I could see Chuck laughing, I could see Josh studiously explaining things, and I stayed in podcast land, never having ventured out to see your shows or videos. Yet I would enjoyed

them in time as well. But what turned my world upside down and seemed like a brainical illusion was that I finally did see a video of the two of you, and Josh's voice was coming out of Chuck's face, and Chuck's voice had a beard on it. All this time I had thought of each of you was the other person, and this is after he had already seen pictures, so that must be really weird. Um, seeing those voices coming

on different faces has done my head in. I think the culprit is how your pictures are situated on the podcast immans, with Chuck on the left and Josh on the right. But since Westerners read from left to right and the show always starts with Josh and Chuck and then Chuck, that's the order of my brain. Put you in I now have to fight with my inner podcast movie to correct which face the voices are coming from, and it causes constant bewilderment. Uh, you guys sent me

to my dreamland every night with your friendly voices. Thanks a lot. Perhaps I would just follow the advice of one of those funny T shirts, I reject your reality and substitute my own, because no matter how hard I try, I always see Josh with a beard and Chuck with a buzz cut. You got it wrong, pal, and that even though I did have a buzz cut recently. It's from Avalon. Thanks a lot of Avalon. We appreciate you writing, and we do hear that a lot. So for everybody

who that's ever happened to. Um, I'm sorry, I guess, but not really, because there's something we could do about. It's your brain. You look like what we look like. If you want to share something from your brain with us, you can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email to Stuff Podcasts at how stuff Works dot com, and as always, check us out at our home on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this and

thousands of other topics. Is it How Stuff Works dot com