Spending time at Valhalla to see the Vietnam Wall Experience last month reminded me how I've been wanting to devote a few lunch hours a week there, fulfilling grave photo requests. So I got off my butt this week and started doing just that.
The office building that I work at is a hop-skip from Valhalla, and even though the weather is getting quite hot out now it still feels good to get out from behind my desk to walk the grounds and take photos.
One grave I've been wanting to find and photograph is that of Sam McDaniel, actor and brother of legendary Academy Award-winning actress Hattie McDaniel. He's been on my research/to-photograph list for a while now because he appeared in several Franchot Tone films.
Found him yesterday! :)
Sam's memorial page on Findagrave.com listed him in Block E, Section 2114, Lot 3. However, when I went to section 4114, he wasn't there and I feared he may have been unmarked.
Just as I was giving up hope, something told me to look across the road to the opposite curb in Section 4113, and there he was. This is when I also discovered that Block E stands for the area known as Evergreen, duh.
Anyway, something lead me across the road and, as we say in the grave hunting hobby, sometimes some folks just want to be found (or not!) I don't question it, I just go with the flow.
His headstone was in good condition for being 45-years-old (a year younger than me; interesting perspective) and needed very little grooming. I
submitted the above photos to Findagrave today, along with this wonderful family snapshot of Sam, Hattie and their
sister, actress Etta McDaniel (which I scanned from the excellent book, Hattie McDaniel: Black Ambition, White Hollywood
by Jill Watts.)
Hattie is buried at Angelus Rosedale Cemetery and there is also a gorgeous cenotaph for her at Hollywood Forever. Read more about how and why the cenotaph was place in 1999 from Hollywood Remains To Be Seen, by my friend, author Mark Masek.
There are other McDaniel family memorial pages on Findagrave: Etta, who is also buried in Los Angeles, at Calvary Cemetery; plus brother Otis, a vaudevillian, and their father Henry, a minstrel artist and Civil War veteran, both buried at Riverside Cemetery in Denver.
The McDaniel entertainment dynasty continues today with Henry's grandnephew, Reggie McDaniel. His program, "The Everyday People's Entertainment Guide," is heard on KOA Radio 850 AM in Denver.
