Adventures in Grave Hunting by Lisa Burks

Wordless Wednesday ~ April 1, 2009

Snapped at Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery (Los Angeles, CA) 2/28/2009

Wordless Wednesday ~ March 18, 2009

Wordless Wednesday* is another posting theme that I've enjoyed following on other Graveyard Rabbit blogs. This theme has had more of an emotional impact on me than Tombstone Tuesday because the pictures that I've seen other Rabbits chose are inspirational, and truly are worth a thousand words.

Here is my first offering.

Snapped at historic Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery (Los Angeles, CA) 2/28/09

* Future Wordless Wednesday posts will actually be wordless.  This first wordy post serves only as an introduction to the theme.

Tombstone Tuesday ~ March 17, 2009

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Tombstone Tuesday is a posting theme that I've enjoyed following on other Graveyard Rabbit blogs, so this week I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon.

 

Snapped at historic Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery (Los Angeles, CA) 2/28/09

Historic Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery

I've been grave hunting in Los Angeles for 20 years and there's still one or two metro area cemeteries that I've yet to explore.  I finally crossed one park off that list on Saturday, Feb. 28 when I joined the Studio For Southern California History's walking tour of historic Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery, conducted by my good friends Steve Goldstein and Joe Walker.

Steve (author of L.A.'s Graveside Companion) and Joe (a crime expert who also chronicles the lives and deaths of police officers and firemen) love what they do and it shows. Both shine when it comes to giving the best informed tours of area graveyards around.

Not only do they know where everyone who was anyone is buried, they also know a lot about the people behind the headstones. Steve and Joe consistently offer up an insightful, verbally illustrated sense of history through personal stories of the dead, which is an aspect of their tours that I most enjoy.

Three graves on this tour that were of particular interest to me were my hometown founder Dr. David Burbank, famous Burbank murder victim Mable Monohan and Oscar-winning actress Hattie McDaniel.

With my hometown founder Dr. David Burbank (Photo by Kelsey McHale)


Dr. David Burbank (Courtesy of Wes Clark)

According to The Burbank Historical Society, the town of Burbank came into being during the 1880 Southern California land boom. Dr. David Burbank was a major landholder in the area.  His original ranch house and sheep farm was located on the land that is now home to Warner Bros. studios. 

In 1886 he sold his property to land speculators who developed the area into a business district, smaller farms and residential districts and named the new town Burbank. By 1911, with a population of 500, it became incorporated as the first independent city in the San Fernando Valley.

So why is Dr. Burbank buried in the West Adams District of Los Angeles instead of his namesake city?  One reason could be that Burbank passed an ordinance in the early 1920s banning cemeteries within the city limits, so none were ever developed.

Another famous Burbank resident buried at Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery is Mable Monohan, a 64-year-old widow who was savagely beaten and strangled in 1953 by three intruders who ransacked her home looking for $100,000 that was supposedly hidden there by her Vegas gambling operator son-in-law.

Murdered Mabel and husband George Monohan's grave marker

 

Mable Monohan a few years before her death in 1953
(Courtesy of The Daily Mirror by Larry Harnisch)

The ensuing trial made big headlines and the trial was a three-ring circus. All three accused, one woman and two men, were convicted and sentence to death. The female, drug addict and prostitute Barbara Graham, died in the gas chamber of San Quentin in 1955.  Three years after Graham's execution, Susan Hayward won a Best Actress Oscar for her portayal of Graham in the film I Want To Live!

See photos of the crime scene home as it looked when I photographed it in 2007 on this Flickr photo album.

Speaking of Academy Award-winning actresses, it was an honor to finally visit the final resting place of  Hattie McDaniel after visiting and photographing her cenotaph at Hollywood Forever for the past ten years. (I can't believe it's been ten years since the dedication. Time flies!)

Hattie originally wanted to be buried at Hollywood Forever (then Hollywood Memorial Park) located next to Paramount Studios, but at the time of her death in 1952 segregation was still rearing it's ugly head in California.  The cemetery was considered "whites only" territory, and an exception wouldn't be made for even barrier-breaking Hattie, the first black performer to ever receive an Oscar.
 

Academy Award winning actress, Hattie McDaniel's grave marker


1944 candid photo signed by Hattie (Courtesy of Autogramy)


Hattie's cenotaph at Hollywood Forever Cemetery

The cenotaph was placed in 1999 in a gesture to right the wrong, although her surviving relatives chose not to disinter and move her from her original grave.

It was especially nice to visit Hattie for the first time because back in 2007, when I spent my lunch hours from work hunting around Pierce Bros. Valhalla in North Hollywood, I located her brother, actor Sam McDaniel. It was rewarding to finally now pay respects to his sister, too.

There are many, many notable people buried at Angelus-Rosedale who were pointed out by Steve and Joe, too numerous to mention. For another perspective of the tour, visit author Allan Ellenberger's post on his Hollywoodland blog.  To see a list of the people we saw and learned about, check out the famous listings for this cemetery at Findagrave.com.

Our post-tour group shot

Thanks to Steve and Joe, the good people at Studio For Southern California History and all my fellow grave hunting friends who turned out on this spectacularly sunny Saturday to share the moments, take photos and remember those buried in this beautiful, historic Los Angeles cemetery!

More photos from our adventure may be viewed at my Flickr Photo Album of the tour.