Day in History 30 November – Oscar Wilde – Patrick Kavanagh – Tiny Tim – Evel Knievel – Paul Walker – Jim Nabors – Christine McVie

Posted on 29 NovamThu, 30 Nov 2023 00:24:00 -06002023-11-30T00:24:00-06:0012 2011 by MacGregor

On this day in 1900, writer, playwright, poet, aesthete, Oscar Wilde died in Paris at the age of 46.  Born Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde on 16 October 1854 in Dublin, Ireland.  One of my favorite writers.  Notable works:  The Importance of being Earnest and The Picture of Dorian Gray. Wilde is also well known for his witty quotes.  For example:  “A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.”  “A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.”   “Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.”  “Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing.”  “I always like to know everything about my new friends, and nothing about my old ones.”  “I am not young enough to know everything.”  “I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability.”  “If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you.”  “Illusion is the first of all pleasures.”  “A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone’s feelings unintentionally.”  “In married life three is company and two none.”  “Life is too important to be taken seriously.”  “One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.”  “Women are made to be loved, not understood.”  “I’m not saying we should misbehave, but we ought to look as though we might.”  There are literally hundreds more.  Wilde was married to Constance Loyd (1898 her death).

The Final Footprint – Wilde was initially buried in the Cimetière de Bagneux outside Paris.  In 1909 his remains were disinterred and entombed in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.  His large rectangular granite tomb was designed by Sir Jacob Epstein, commissioned by Robert Ross, who asked for a small compartment to be made for his own ashes which were duly transferred in 1950.  The modernist angel depicted as a relief on the tomb was originally complete with male genitalia which have since been vandalised; their current whereabouts are unknown.  In 2000, Leon Johnson, a multimedia artist, installed a silver prosthesis to replace them.  The epitaph is a verse from The Ballad of Reading Gaol:

And alien tears will fill for him
Pity’s long-broken urn,
For his mourners will be outcast men,
And outcasts always mourn.

Père Lachaise is the largest cemetery in Paris and one of the most visited cemeteries in the world.  Other notable Final Footprints at Père Lachaise include; Guillaume Apollinaire, Honoré de Balzac, Georges Bizet, Jean-Dominique Bauby, Maria Callas, Chopin, Colette, Auguste Comte, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Max Ernst, Molière, Jim Morrison, Édith Piaf, Camille Pissarro, Marcel Proust, Sully Prudhomme, Gioachino Rossini, Georges-Pierre Seurat, Simone Signoret, Gertrude Stein, Dorothea Tanning, Alice B. Toklas, and Richard Wright.

Patrick_Kavanagh_by_Patrick_SwiftOn this day in 1967, Irish poet and novelist Patrick Kavanagh died at the age of 63 in a Dublin nursing home.  In my opinion, one of the foremost poets of the 20th century.  Perhaps his best known works include the novel Tarry Flynn and the poems Raglan Road and The Great Hunger.  Born in rural Inniskeen, County Monaghan on 21 October 1904.

The Final Footprint – His grave is in Inniskeen adjoining the Patrick Kavanagh Centre.  His wife Katherine died in 1989; she is also buried there. His epitaph…

AND PRAY FOR
HIM
WHO WALKED APART
ON THE HILLS
LOVING LIFE’S
MIRACLES

On this day in 1996 singer (“Tiptoe Through the Tulips”; “Livin’ in the Sunlight, Lovin’ in the Moonlight”), ukulele player, musical archivist, Tiny Tim died from a heart attack at Hennepin County Medical Center, Minneapolis, age 64. Entombed ay Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis

Evel_KnievelOn this day in 2007, stunt performer Evel Knievel died from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in Clearwater, Florida at the age of 69.  Born Robert Craig Knievel on 17 October 1938 in Butte, Montana.  In his career, he attempted more than 75 ramp-to-ramp motorcycle jumps between 1965 and 1980.  In 1974, he attempted and failed a jump across Snake River Canyon in the Skycycle X-2, a steam-powered rocket.  He suffered more than 433 bone fractures in his career, thereby earning an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records as the survivor of “most bones broken in a lifetime”.  Knievel was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 1999.  Knievel said; “You can’t ask a guy like me why I performed. I really wanted to fly through the air. I was a daredevil, a performer. I loved the thrill, the money, the whole macho thing. All those things made me Evel Knievel. Sure, I was scared. You gotta be an ass not to be scared. But I beat the hell out of death.”  Fanfare Films produced Evel Knievel, a 1971 movie starring George Hamilton as Knievel.  Knievel married twice; Linda Joan Bork (1959–97 divorce) and Krystal Kennedy (1999–2001 divorce).

The Final Footprint – Knievel was buried at Mountain View Cemetery in his hometown of Butte on December 10, 2007, following a funeral at the 7,500-seat Butte Civic Center presided over by Pastor Dr. Robert H. Schuller with actor Matthew McConaughey giving the eulogy.  Prior to the Monday service, fireworks exploded in the Butte night sky as pallbearers carried Knievel’s casket into the center.

On this day in 2013, actor Paul Walker died from injuries sustained as a passenger in a single-car crash alongside friend and driver Roger Rodas, on Hercules Street near Kelly Johnson Parkway in Valencia, Santa Clarita, California, at the age of 40. Born Paul William Walker IV on September 12, 1973 in Glendale, California. Perhaps best known for his role as Brian O’Conner in The Fast and the Furious franchise. Walker first gained prominence in 1999 with roles in the teen films She’s All That and Varsity Blues. In 2001, he gained international fame for his role in the street racing action film The Fast and the Furious (2001), a role he reprised in five of the next six installments.

Walker began his career guest-starring on TV shows such as The Young and the Restless and Touched by an Angel. He later starred in films such as Joy Ride(2001), Timeline (2003), Into the Blue (2005), Eight Below (2006), and Running Scared (2006). He also appeared in the National Geographic series Expedition Great White (2010 and in ads for Davidoff Cool Water cologne. He founded the disaster-relief charity Reach Out Worldwide (ROWW) in response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

The Final Footprint

His body was cremated and his cremated remains were buried in a non-denominational ceremony at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Hollywood Hills. His life was later chronicled in the documentary I Am Paul Walker, which was released on August 11, 2018. Other notable final footprints at Hollywood Hills include; Gene Autry, Bette Davis, Sandra Dee, Lee Van Cleef, Ronnie James Dio, Carrie Fisher, Bobby Fuller, Al Jarreau, Lemmy Kilmister, Strother Martin, Ricky Nelson, Bill Paxton, and Debbie Reynolds.

Walker was working on three films at the time of his death which were released posthumously: Hours (2013), Brick Mansions (2014), and Furious 7 (2015). The Wiz Khalifa song “See You Again”, featuring Charlie Puth, was commissioned for the Furious 7 soundtrack as a tribute to Walker. It was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Original Song in 2015 and was the number-one song in the United States for 12 weeks.

Site of Walker’s death on Hercules Street in Santa Clarita (photo taken 2015)

On this day in 2017, actor, singer, comedian Jim Nabors died at his home in Honolulu, at the age of 87. Born James Thurston Nabors on June 12, 1930 in Sylacauga, Alabama. Perhaps best known for his signature character Gomer Pyle.

Nabors was discovered by Andy Griffith while working at a Santa Monica nightclub, and he later joined The Andy Griffith Show, where he played the good-natured, unsophisticated Gomer Pyle. The character proved so popular that Nabors was given his own successful spin-off show, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.

Nabors also became a popular guest on variety shows that showcased his rich baritone singing voice in the 1960s and 1970s, including frequent appearances on the Carol Burnett Show and two specials of his own in 1969 and 1974. He signed a recording contract with Columbia Records in 1965 and subsequently recorded numerous albums and singles, most of them containing romantic ballads. He recorded for Ranwood Records during the late 1970s.

Nabors was also known for singing “Back Home Again in Indiana” before the start of the Indianapolis 500, held annually on the Memorial Day weekend. He sang the unofficial Indiana anthem almost every year from 1972 to 2014, except for occasional absences due to illness or scheduling conflicts.

The Final Footprint

Nabors was cremated and his cremated remains were scattered in Honolulu.

The United States Marine Corps released a statement on Nabors: “Semper Fi, Gomer Pyle. Rest in peace Jim Nabors, one of the few to ever be named an Honorary Marine.”

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Carol Burnett paid tribute to Nabors saying they were “close friends for 52 years. … My heart is heavy. I’m grateful he was a large part of my life. I miss him. I love him.

#RIP #OTD 2022 singer, keyboardist, songwriter of Fleetwood Mac (“Don’t Stop”, “Everywhere”, “Little Lies”) Christine McVie died of a stroke in London aged 79. Cremation

Have you planned yours yet?

Follow TFF on twitter @RIPTFF

Posted in Day in History, Extravagant Footprints, Film Footprints, Literary Footprints | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Day in History 29 November – Claudio Monteverdi – Giacomo Puccini – Natalie Wood – Cary Grant – George Harrison

Posted on 29 NovamWed, 29 Nov 2023 00:15:00 -06002023-11-29T00:15:00-06:0012 2011 by MacGregor

On this day in 1643, composer, string player and choirmaster Claudio Monteverdi died in Venice at the age of 76. Baptized Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi on 15 May 1567 in the church of SS Nazaro e Celso, Cremona. A composer of both secular and sacred music, and a pioneer in the development of opera, he is considered an important transitional figure between the Renaissance and the Baroque periods of music history.

Monteverdi developed his career first at the court of Mantua (c. 1590–1613) and then until his death in the Republic of Venice where he was maestro di capella at the basilica of San Marco. His surviving letters give insight into the life of a professional musician in Italy of the period, including problems of income, patronage and politics.

Much of Monteverdi’s output, including many stage works, has been lost. His surviving music includes nine books of madrigals, large-scale sacred works such as his Vespro della Beata Vergine (Vespers) of 1610, and three complete operas. His opera L’Orfeo (1607) is the earliest of the genre still widely performed; towards the end of his life he wrote works for the commercial theatre in Venice, including Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria and L’incoronazione di Poppea.

Largely forgotten during the eighteenth and much of the nineteenth centuries, his works enjoyed a rediscovery around the beginning of the twentieth century. He is now established both as a significant influence in European musical history and as a composer whose works are regularly performed and recorded.

The Final Footprint

Monteverdi’s tomb in the church of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari

On this day in 1924, composer, Giacomo Puccini, died in Brussels, Belgium at the age of 65 from complications of throat cancer.  Born Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini on 22 December 1858 in Lucca, Tuscany, Italy.  Puccini’s operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire.  Some of his arias, such as “O mio babbino caro” from Gianni Schicchi, “Che gelida manina” from La bohème, and “Nessun dorma” from Turandot, have become part of popular culture.  I fell in love with a pretty woman during a performance of La bohème.  In the autumn of 1884, Puccini began a relationship with a married woman named Elvira Gemignani (née Bonturi) in Lucca.  Elvira became pregnant by Puccini, and their son, Antonio, was born in 1886.  Elvira, Antonio and Elvira’s daughter Fosca, began to live with Puccini shortly afterwards.  Elvira’s husband, Narisco, was killed by the husband of a woman that Narisco had an affair with.  Only then were Puccini and Elvira able to marry, and to legitimize Antonio.  The marriage between Puccini and Elvira was apparently troubled by infidelity, as Puccini had frequent affairs himself, including with well-known singers such as Maria Jeritza, Emmy Destinn, Cesira Ferrani, and Hariclea Darclée.

The Final Footprint –  News of his death reached Rome during a performance of La bohème.  The opera was immediately stopped, and the orchestra played Chopin’s Funeral March for the stunned audience.  Puccini was temporarily entombed in the Toscanini Private Mausoleum in the Cimitero Monumentale in Milan.  Puccini’s son arranged for the transfer of his father’s remains to a specially created chapel inside the Puccini villa at Torre del Lago, Toscana, Italy in 1926.

Natalie_Wood_publicity_1963On this day in 1981, actress Natalie Wood drowned under suspicious circumstances near Santa Catalina Island, California at the age of 43.  Born Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko in San Francisco on 20 July 1938.  Perhaps best known for her screen roles in Miracle on 34th Street, Splendor in the Grass, Rebel Without a Cause, and West Side Story.  After first working in films as a child, Wood became a successful Hollywood star as a young adult, receiving three Academy Award nominations before she was 25 years old.  Wood began acting in movies at the age of four and at age eight was given a co-starring role in the classic Christmas film Miracle on 34th Street.  As a teenager, her performance in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She starred in the musical films West Side Story (1961) and Gypsy (1962), and received Academy Award for Best Actress nominations for her performances in Splendor in the Grass (1961) and Love with the Proper Stranger (1963).  She was married to actor Robert Wagner twice, and to producer Richard Gregson in between her marriages to Wagner.  She had one daughter by each: Natasha Gregson and Courtney Wagner.  Her younger sister, Lana Wood, is also an actress.

The Final Footprint – Wood died while on a weekend boat trip with her husband Wagner and actor Christopher Walken, and the boat’s captain, Dennis Davern.  Many facts surrounding her drowning are unknown, because no one has admitted seeing how she entered the water.  Wood’s body was discovered by authorities at 8 am on 29 November 1981, one mile away from the boat, with a small inflatable dinghy found beached nearby.  Following an investigation, the Los Angeles County coroner’s office ruled her death an accident by drowning and hypothermia.  The case was reopened in November 2011.  After nine months of further investigation, the Los Angeles County Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Lakshmanan Sathyavagiswaran amended Wood’s death certificate and changed the cause of her death from accidental drowning to “drowning and other undetermined factors”.  Natalie Wood was buried in at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park and Mortuary (a Dignity Memorial® provider) in Los Angeles, California.  Scores of representatives of international media, photographers, and members of the public tried to attend Wood’s funeral, but all were required to remain outside the cemetery walls. Among the celebrity attendees were Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor, Fred Astaire, Rock Hudson, David Niven, Gregory Peck, Gene Kelly, Elia Kazan, and Sir Laurence Olivier.    Other notable final footprints at Westwood include; Ray Bradbury,  Sammy Cahn, Truman Capote, James Coburn, Rodney Dangerfield, Janet Leigh, Farrah Fawcett, Hugh Hefner, Brian Keith, Don Knotts, Burt Lancaster, Peter Lawford, Peggy Lee, Jack Lemmon, Karl Malden, Dean Martin, Walter Mathau, Marilyn Monroe, Carroll O’Connor, Roy Orbison, George C. Scott, Dorothy Stratten, and Frank Zappa.

caryGrant,_Cary_(Suspicion)_01_Crisco_editOn this day in 1986, actor Cary Grant died in St. Luke’s Hospital in Davenport, Iowa from a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 82.  Born Archibald Alexander Leach at 15 Hughenden Road, Horfield, Bristol, England on 18 January 1904.

Known for his transatlantic accent, debonair demeanor and “dashing good looks”, in my opinion, Grant is one of classic Hollywood’s definitive leading men.  He was known for both comedic and dramatic roles; perhaps his best-known films include The Awful Truth (1937), Bringing Up Baby (1938), Gunga Din (1939), The Philadelphia Story (1940), His Girl Friday (1940), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), Notorious (1946), The Bishop’s Wife (1947), To Catch a Thief (1955), An Affair to Remember (1957), North by Northwest (1959), and Charade (1963).  Nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Actor (Penny Serenade and None But the Lonely Heart) and five times for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, Grant was continually passed over.  In 1970, he was presented an Honorary Oscar at the 42nd Academy Awards by Frank Sinatra “for his unique mastery of the art of screen acting with the respect and affection of his colleagues”.  Any movie with Cary Grant is a good movie.

Grant was married five times: Virginia Cherrill (1934 – 1935 divorce); Barbara Hutton (1942 – 1945 divorce) (one of the wealthiest women in the world, the couple was derisively nicknamed “Cash and Cary”, although in an extensive prenuptial agreement Grant refused any financial settlement in the event of a divorce. Grant bristled at the accusation that he married for money: “I may not have married for very sound reasons, but money was never one of them”); actress Betsy Drake (1949 – 1962 divorce); singer Dyan Cannon (1965 – 1968 divorce); and Barbara Harris (1981 – 1986 his death).

The Final Footprint – Grant was cremated and his cremains were scattered somewhere in California.

George_Harrison_1974_edited-150x150On this day in 2001, musician, singer and songwriter, lead guitarist of the Beatles, member of the Traveling Wilburys, George Harrison died at the age of 58 at a Hollywood Hills mansion that was once leased by Paul McCartney and was previously owned by Courtney Love.  The cause of death is listed on his Los Angeles County death certificate as “metastatic non-small cell lung cancer”.  The second Beattle to pass away after John Lennon’s murder.  Born in Liverpool, Lancashire, England, on 25 February 1943.  Among the songs he wrote or co-wrote include; “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, “Here Comes the Sun”, “It Don’t Come Easy”, and “All Those Years Ago.”  Harrison married twice, first to Pattie Boyd (1966 – 1977 divorce), and Olivia Trinidad Arias (1978 – 2001 his death).

The Final Footprint – Harrison was cremated at Hollywood Forever Cemetery and his ashes were scattered at Varanasi, India, in the Ganges, Saraswati and Yamuna Rivers by his close family in a private ceremony according to Hindu tradition.

Have you planned yours yet?

Follow TFF on twitter @RIPTFF

Posted in Day in History, Extravagant Footprints, Film Footprints, Musical Footprints | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Day in History 28 November – Gian Lorenzo Bernini – Washington Irving – Richard Wright – Rosalind Russell – David Prowse

Posted on 29 NovamTue, 28 Nov 2023 00:36:00 -06002023-11-28T00:36:00-06:0012 2011 by MacGregor

Bernini, self portrait

On this day in 1680, artist, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, died in Rome at the age of 81.  Born 7 December 1598 in Naples.  Bernini was a student of Classical sculpture and is considered the successor of Michelangelo.  Bernini was also a leading figure in the emergence of Roman Baroque architecture.  At the age of only twenty three, he was knighted by Pope Gregory XV.  Among Bernin’s many sculptures in marble is David, which shows the young David about to slay the giant Goliath with a stone from his slingshot.  The original is in the Galleria Borghese in Rome.  A replica in white Carrara marble resides at Sharon Memorial Park in Charlotte, North Carolina in Section 19, David. 

The Final Footprint – Bernini is entombed in the Basilica Papale di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.

On this day in 1859, short story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat Washington Irving died of a heart attack in his bedroom at Sunnyside at the age of 76. Born on April 3, 1783 in Manhattan. Perhaps best known for his short stories “Rip Van Winkle” (1819) and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1820), both of which appear in his collection, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works include biographies of Oliver Goldsmith, Muhammad, and George Washington, as well as several histories of 15th-century Spain dealing with subjects such as Alhambra, Christopher Columbus, and the Moors. Irving served as the U.S. ambassador to Spain from 1842 to 1846.

The Final Footprint

Legend has it that his last words were: “Well, I must arrange my pillows for another night. When will this end?” He was buried under a simple headstone at Sleepy Hollow cemetery on December 1, 1859. 

Irving and his grave were commemorated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his 1876 poem “In The Churchyard at Tarrytown”, which concludes with:

How sweet a life was his; how sweet a death!
Living, to wing with mirth the weary hours,
Or with romantic tales the heart to cheer;
Dying, to leave a memory like the breath
Of summers full of sunshine and of showers,
A grief and gladness in the atmosphere.

#RIP #OTD in 1954 physicist, the creator of the world’s first nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1, member of the Manhattan Project, “architect of the nuclear age”, Enrico Fermi died of stomach cancer in his home in Chicago aged 53. Oak Woods Cemetery, Chicago 

Richard_Wright-150x150On this day in 1960, author of novels, short stories, poems, and non-fiction, Richard Wright died in Paris from a heart attack at the age of 52.  Born Richard Nathaniel Wright on 4 September 1908 near Roxie, Mississippi.  Perhaps best known for his novel Native Son (1940).  Wright married twice; Valencia Barnes Meadman (1939 – 1940 divorce) and Ellen Poplar (1941 – 1960 his death).

The Final Footprint – Wright was cremated and his cremains are inurned in a columbarium in Cimetière du Père Lachaise in Paris.  Père Lachaise is the largest cemetery in Paris and one of the most visited cemeteries in the world.  Other notable Final Footprints at Père Lachaise include; Guillaume Apollinaire, Honoré de Balzac, Georges Bizet, Jean-Dominique Bauby, Maria Callas, Chopin, Colette, Auguste Comte, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Max Ernst, Molière, Jim Morrison, Édith Piaf, Camille Pissarro, Marcel Proust, Sully Prudhomme, Gioachino Rossini, Georges-Pierre Seurat, Simone Signoret, Gertrude Stein, Dorothea Tanning, Alice B. Toklas, and Oscar Wilde.

#RIP #OTD in 1976 actress (His Girl Friday, Auntie Mame, Gypsy, Mourning Becomes Electra), screenwriter, singer Rosalind Russell died of breast cancer in Beverly Hills aged 69. Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California 

#RIP #OTD bodybuilder, weightlifter and actor (A Clockwork Orange, Darth Vader in Star Wars) David Prowse died in London, aged 85. Cremation

Have you planned yours yet?

Follow TFF on twitter @RIPTFF

Posted in Artistic Footprints, Day in History, Extravagant Footprints, Literary Footprints | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Day in History 27 November – Horace – Alexandre Dumas, fils – Eugene O’Neill – Lotte Lenya

Posted on 29 NovamMon, 27 Nov 2023 00:42:00 -06002023-11-27T00:42:00-06:0012 2011 by MacGregor

On this day in 8 BC, Roman lyric poet, Horace died in Rome at the age of 56.  Born Quintus Horatius Flaccus on 8 December 65 BC in the Samnite south of Italy.  The rhetorician Quintillian regarded his Odes as just about the only Latin lyrics worth reading: “He can be lofty sometimes, yet he is also full of charm and grace, versatile in his figures, and felicitously daring in his choice of words.”  Horace also crafted hexameter verses (Sermones and Epistles) and iambic poetry (Epodes).  The satirist Persius commented: “as his friend laughs, Horace slyly puts his finger on his every fault; once let in, he plays about the heartstrings”.  His career coincided with Rome’s momentous change from Republic to Empire.  An officer in the republican army defeated at the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC, he was befriended by Octavian’s right-hand man in civil affairs, Maecenas, and became a spokesman for the new regime.  For some commentators, his association with the regime was a balance in which he maintained a strong measure of independence (he was “a master of the graceful sidestep”) but for others he was, in John Dryden‘s phrase, “a well-mannered court slave”.  (Drawing of Horace, as imagined by Anton von Werner.)

The Final Footprint – Horace is entombed near his friend Maecenas in Rome.

On this day in 1895, French author and dramatist, the son of Alexandre Dumas, père, Alexandre Dumas, fils died at Marly-le-Roi, Yvelines, at the age of 71.  Born 27 July 1824 in Paris.  When he was 20 years old, Dumas moved to Saint-Germain-en-Laye to live with his father.  There, he met Marie Duplessis, a young courtesan who would be the inspiration for his romantic novel The Lady of the Camellias (La Dame aux camélias), wherein Duplessis was named Marguerite Gauthier.  Adapted into a play, it was titled Camille in English and became the basis for Verdi’s 1853 opera, La Traviata, Duplessis undergoing yet another name change, this time to Violetta Valery.  Dumas married Nadjeschda von Knorring (1867 – 1895 her death) and Henriette Régnier de La Brière (1895–1895 his death).

The Final Footprint –  Dumas was interred in the Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris.  His grave is only some 100 metres away from that of Duplessis.  The film Pretty Woman (1990), starring Richard Gere as Edward Lewis and Julia Roberts as Vivian Ward, has a similar plot as La Traviata and Lewis takes Ward to see the opera, her first.  Other notable final footprints at Montmartre include; Hector Berlioz, Dalida, Edgar Degas, Marie Duplessis, Théophile Gautier, Gustave Moreau, Henri Murger, Jacques Offenbach, Stendhal, François Truffaut, Horace Vernet, and Alfred de Vigny.

On this day in 1953, playwright and Nobel laureate in literature, Eugene O’Neill, died in room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel on Bay State Road in Boston, Massachusetts, at the age of 65.  Born Eugene Gladstone O’Neill on 16 October 1888 in The Barrett Hotel in Times Square.  Perhaps best known for his masterpiece Long Day’s Journey Into Night (1957), which waqs published posthumously and won the Pulizer Prize in 1957.  In addition to that play I like Mourning Becomes Electra (1931) and The Iceman Cometh (1946).  O’Neill married three times; Kathleen Jenkins (divorce), Agnes Boulton (divorce) and Carlotta Monterey (his death).  His sons, Eugene Jr. and Shane, both died by suicide.  His daughter Oona married actor, director, producer Charlie Chaplin.

The Final Footprint – O’Neill’s reported last words were; “I knew it.  I knew it.  Born in a hotel room, and Goddamnit, died in a hotel room.”  O’Neill  is interred in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood.  The Barrett hotel where O’Neill was born is now a Starbucks, surprise, and there is a commemorarive birth plaque on the outside wall.  A statue of the young O’Neill was installed on the waterfront in Boston.

#RIP #OTD in 1981 singer, diseuse (songs of first husband Kurt Weill), actress, (The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, Rosa Klebb in the James Bond movie From Russia with Love) Lotte Lenya died in Manhattan of cancer in 1981, aged 83. Mount Repose Cemetery, Haverstraw, New York aged 83

Have you planned yours yet?

Follow TFF on twitter @RIPTFF

Posted in Day in History, Literary Footprints | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Day in History 26 November – Isabella I of Castile – Sojourner Truth – Tommy Dorsey – Stephen Sondheim

Posted on 29 NovamSun, 26 Nov 2023 00:42:00 -06002023-11-26T00:42:00-06:0012 2011 by MacGregor

Isabel_la_Católica-2On this day in 1504, Isabella the Catholic, queen of Castile and León (Crown of Castile), Isabella I died in Medina del Campo at the age of 53.  Born in Madrigal de las Altas Torres, Ávila, to John II of Castile and Isabella of Portugal on 22 April 1451.  She and her husband, Ferdinand II of Aragon, brought stability to the kingdoms that became the basis for the political unification of Spain under their grandson, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.  After a struggle to claim her right to the throne, she reorganised the governmental system, brought the crime rate to the lowest it had been in years, and unburdened the kingdom of enormous debt.  Isabella’s reforms and those she made with her husband had an influence that extended well beyond the borders of their united kingdoms.  Isabella and Ferdinand are known for completing the Reconquista, ordering conversion or exile of their Muslim and Jewish subjects in the Spanish Inquisition, and for supporting and financing Christopher Columbus’s 1492 voyage that led to the opening of the New World.  Isabella was granted the title Servant of God by the Catholic Church in 1974.

isabellaCatholic_Monarchs-CoffinsThe Final Footprint – Isabella is entombed in Granada in the Capilla Real, which was built by her grandson, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (Carlos I of Spain), alongside her husband Ferdinand, her daughter Joanna and Joanna’s husband Philip; and Isabella’s 2-year-old grandson, Miguel (the son of Isabella’s daughter, also named Isabella, and King Manuel I of Portugal).  The museum next to the Capilla Real holds her crown and scepter.

On this day in 1883, abolitionist and women’s rights activist Sojourner Truth died at her Battle Creek, Michigan home, at the approximate age of 86. Born Isabella (Belle) Baumfree; c. 1797 into slavery in Swartekill, Ulster County, New York. She and her infant daughter escaped to freedom in 1826. After going to court to recover her son, in 1828 she became the first black woman to win such a case against a white man.

She gave herself the name Sojourner Truth in 1843 after she became convinced that God had called her to leave the city and go into the countryside “testifying the hope that was in her”. Perhaps her best-known speech was delivered extemporaneously, in 1851, at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. The speech became widely known during the Civil War by the title “Ain’t I a Woman?,” a variation of the original speech re-written by someone else using a stereotypical Southern dialect; whereas Sojourner Truth was from New York and grew up speaking Dutch as her first language. During the Civil War, Truth helped recruit black troops for the Union Army. After the war, she tried unsuccessfully to secure land grants from the federal government for former slaves.

The Final Footprint

On November 28 her funeral was held at the Congregational-Presbyterian Church officiated by its pastor, the Reverend Reed Stuart. Some of the prominent citizens of Battle Creek acted as pall-bearers. Truth was buried in the city’s Oak Hill Cemetery.

The calendar of saints of the Episcopal Church remembers Sojourner Truth annually, together with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer and Harriet Ross Tubman on July 20. The calendar of saints of the Lutheran Church remembers Sojourner Truth together with Harriet Tubman on March 10.

A larger-than-life sculpture of Sojourner Truth by artist Tina Allen, was dedicated in 1999, which is the estimated bicentennial of Sojourner’s birth. The 12-foot tall Sojourner monument is cast bronze.

The U.S. Treasury Department announced in 2016 that an image of Sojourner Truth will appear on the back of a newly designed $10 bill along with Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Alice Paul and the 1913 Woman Suffrage Procession. Designs for new $5, $10 and $20 bills will be unveiled in 2020 in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of American women winning the right to vote via the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Tommy_dorsey_playing_tromboneOn this day in 1956,  jazz trombonist, trumpeter, composer, bandleader of the Big Band era, younger brother of Jimmy, “The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing”, Tommy Dorsey, died at his Greenwich, Connecticut home at the age of 51.  Born Thomas Francis Dorsey, Jr. on 19 November 1905 near Shenandoah, Pennsylvania.  Dorsey married three times, Mildred Kraft (divorce), Pat Dane (divorce), Jane Carl New (his death).

The Final Footprint – Dorsey is interred in the Dorsey Private Hedge Estate in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.  The estate is marked by a large upright granite marker.  His grave is marked by a full ledger granite marker inscribed with a picture of sheet music and a trombone and his nickname, The Sentimental Gentleman.

On this day in 2021 composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim died of cardiovascular disease at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut, at the age of 91.  Born Stephen Joshua Sondheim on March 22, 1930, in New York City

One of the most important figures in twentieth-century musical theater, Sondheim is credited for having “reinvented the American musical” with shows that tackle “unexpected themes that range far beyond the [genre’s] traditional subjects” with “music and lyrics of unprecedented complexity and sophistication.”  His shows address “darker, more harrowing elements of the human experience,” with songs often tinged with “ambivalence” about various aspects of life.  He was known for his frequent collaborations with Hal Prince and James Lapine on the Broadway stage.

Sondheim’s interest in musical theater began at a young age, and he was mentored by Oscar Hammerstein II. He began his career by writing the lyrics for West Side Story (1957) and Gypsy (1959). He transitioned to writing both music and lyrics for the theater, with his best-known works including A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), Company (1970), Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979), Merrily We Roll Along (1981), Sunday in the Park with George (1984), and Into the Woods (1987).

Sondheim’s numerous accolades include eight Tony Awards (including a Lifetime Achievement Tony in 2008), an Academy Award, eight Grammy Awards, a Laurence Olivier Award, a Pulitzer Prize, a Kennedy Center Honor, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom.  He has a theater named after him both on Broadway and in the West End of London. Film adaptations of his works include West Side Story (1961), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), Into the Woods (2014), and West Side Story (2021).

The Final Footprint

Collaborator and friend Jeremy Sams said Sondheim “died in the arms of his husband Jeff”.  On December 8, 2021, Broadway theaters dimmed their marquee lights for one minute as a tribute.  A trust managing Sondheim’s estate included the Smithsonian Institution, the Library of Congress, and the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts as beneficiaries.

Have you planned yours yet?

Follow TFF on twitter @RIPTFF

Posted in Day in History, Extravagant Footprints, Musical Footprints | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

On this day 25 November – Malcolm II King of Scots – Abbé Prévost – Bill “Bojangles” Robinson – Upton Sinclair – Laurence Harvey – Flip Wilson – Fidel Castro – Diego Maradona

Posted on 29 NovamSat, 25 Nov 2023 00:36:00 -06002023-11-25T00:36:00-06:0012 2011 by MacGregor

http://thefinalfootprint.com/2020/11/25/day-in-history-25-november-malcolm-ii-king-of-scots/(opens in a new tab) http://thefinalfootprint.com/2020/11/25/day-in-history-25-november-malcolm-ii-king-of-scots/

http://thefinalfootprint.com/2020/11/25/day-in-history-25-november-malcolm-ii-king-of-scots/(opens in a new tab) http://thefinalfootprint.com/2020/11/25/day-in-history-25-november-malcolm-ii-king-of-scots/

Flag of Scotland

 

17th Century depiction of Malcolm II

On this day in 1034, King of Scots from 1005 to 1034, Máel Coluim mac Cináeda (Modern Gaelic: Maol Chaluim mac Choinnich), Malcolm II, died at Glamis, a small village in Angus, Scotland (the location of Glamis Castle, the childhood home of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother).  The son of Kenneth II King of Scots.  He was succeeded by his grandson Donnchad mac Crínáin, Duncan I.

19th Century engraving of King Malcolm II’s grave stone

The Final Footprint – Malcolm II is interred in what is now the ancient burial ground, the Rèilig Odhrain (Oran’s burial place or cemetery) of Iona Abbey.  None of the graves are now identifiable; their inscriptions reportedly had worn away by the end of the 17th century.  Iona rose to prominence in Scotland following the establishment of the Kingdom of Alba, Gaelic for Scotland, in the later 9th century.  The ruling dynasty of Alba traced its origin to Iona, and the island thus became an important spiritual centre of the new kingdom, with many of its early kings buried there.  Tradition knew the Pictish stone now called “Glamis 2” as “King Malcolm’s grave stone”.  The stone is a Class II stone, apparently formed by re-using a Bronze Age standing stone.  Its dating is uncertain, with dates from the 8th century onwards having been proposed. While an earlier date is favoured, an association with accounts of Máel Coluim’s has been proposed on the basis of the iconography of the carvings.

On this day in 1763, author Abbé Prévost died at the age of 66 in Chantilly, France.  Born Antoine François Prévost d’Exiles on 1 April 1697 at Hesdin, Artois.  While living in the Hague, he engaged on a translation of De Thou’s Historia, and, relying on the popularity of his first book, published at Amsterdam a Suite in three volumes, forming volumes v, vi, and vii of the original Mémoires et aventures d’un homme de qualité.  The seventh volume contained the famous Manon Lescaut, separately published in Paris in 1731 as Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut.  The book was eagerly read, chiefly in pirated copies, being forbidden in France.  Puccini‘s opera, Manon Lescaut is based on the novel.

The Final Footprint – unknown

On this day in 1949 tap dancer, actor, and singer, the best known and the most highly paid African-American entertainer in the United States during the first half of the 20th century, “Bojangles” Bill Robinson died from heart failure in New York City, aged 71. Cemetery of the Evergreens, Brooklyn.  His long career mirrored changes in American entertainment tastes and technology. His career began in the age of minstrel shows and moved to vaudeville, Broadway theatre, the recording industry, Hollywood films, radio, and television.

Cemetery of the Evergreens, Brooklyn

On this day in 1968, writer Upton Sinclair died in a nursing home in Bound Brook, New Jersey at the age of 90. Born Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. on September 20, 1878 in Baltimore, Maryland. Sinclair’s work was well known and popular in the first half of the 20th century, and he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1943.

In 1906, Sinclair acquired notoriety for his classic muck-raking novel The Jungle, which exposed labor and sanitary conditions in the U.S. meatpacking industry, causing a public uproar that contributed in part to the passage a few months later of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. In 1919, he published The Brass Check, a muck-raking exposé of American journalism that publicized the issue of yellow journalism and the limitations of the “free press” in the United States. Four years after publication of The Brass Check, the first code of ethics for journalists was created. Time magazine called him “a man with every gift except humor and silence”. He is also well remembered for the line: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” He used this line in speeches and the book about his campaign for governor as a way to explain why the editors and publishers of the major newspapers in California would not treat seriously his proposals for old age pensions and other progressive reforms.

Writing during the Progressive Era, Sinclair describes the world of industrialized America from both the working man’s and the industrialist’s points of view. Novels such as King Coal (1917), The Coal War (published posthumously), Oil! (1927), and The Flivver King(1937) describe the working conditions of the coal, oil, and auto industries at the time.

The Flivver King describes the rise of Henry Ford, his “wage reform”, and the company’s Sociological Department to his decline into antisemitism as publisher of The Dearborn Independent. King Coal confronts John D. Rockefeller Jr., and his role in the 1913 Ludlow Massacre in the coal fields of Colorado.

Sinclair was an outspoken socialist and ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a nominee from the Socialist Party. He was also the Democratic Party candidate for Governor of California during the Great Depression, running under the banner of the End Poverty in California campaign, but was defeated in the 1934 elections.

In April 1900, Sinclair went to Lake Massawippi in Quebec to work on a novel. He had a small cabin rented for three months and then he moved to a farmhouse. Here, his future wife, Meta Fuller, and he became close. She was three years younger than him and had aspirations of being more than a housewife. Sinclair gave her direction as to what to read and learn. Meta had been a childhood friend whose family was one of the First Families of Virginia. Each had warned the other about themselves and would later bring that up in arguments. They married October 18, 1900. Meta and her family tried to get Sinclair to give up writing and get “a job that would support his family.” Around 1911, Meta left Sinclair for the poet Harry Kemp, later known as the “Dunes Poet” of Provincetown, Massachusetts.

In 1913, Sinclair married Mary Craig Kimbrough (1883–1961), a woman from an elite Greenwood, Mississippi, family. She had written articles and a book on Winnie Davis, the daughter of Confederate States of America President Jefferson Davis. He met her when she attended one of his lectures about The Jungle. In the 1920s, the Sinclair couple moved to California. They were married until her death in 1961. Sinclair married again, to Mary Elizabeth Willis (1882–1967).

Sinclair was opposed to sex outside of marriage and he viewed marital relations as necessary only for procreation. He told his first wife Meta that only the birth of a child gave marriage “dignity and meaning”. Despite his beliefs, he had an adulterous affair with Anna Noyes during his marriage to Meta. He wrote a novel about the affair called Love’s Progress, a sequel to Love’s Pilgrimage. It was never published. His wife next had an affair with John Armistead Collier, a theology student from Memphis.

Late in life Sinclair, with his third wife Mary Willis, moved to Buckeye, Arizona. They returned east to Bound Brook, New Jersey.

The Final Footprint

He is buried in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, DC, next to Willis. Other notable final footprints at Rock Creek include; Tim Russert and Gore Vidal.

************************************************************************************

On this day in 1973, actor Laurence Harvey died from stomach cancer in Hampstead, London at the age of 45. Born Laruschka Mischa Skikne on 1 October 1928 in Joniškis, Lithuania. In a career that spanned a quarter of a century, Harvey appeared in stage, film and television productions primarily in the United Kingdom and the United States. His performance in Room at the Top (1959) resulted in an Academy Award nomination. That success was followed by the role of William Barret Travis in The Alamo (1960), and as the brainwashed Raymond Shaw in The Manchurian Candidate (1962).

Early in his career, Harvey reportedly had a live-in relationship with actress Hermione Baddeley (who appeared in a supporting role in Room at the Top, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress). He left Baddeley in 1951 for actress Margaret Leighton, who was then married to publisher Max Reinhardt. Leighton and Reinhardt divorced in 1955, and she married Harvey in 1957 off the Rock of Gibraltar. The couple divorced in 1961. In 1968 he married Joan Perry, the widow of film mogul Harry Cohn. Her marriage to Harvey lasted until 1972. His third marriage was to British fashion model Paulene Stone. She gave birth to Domino in 1969, while he was still married to Perry. Harvey and Stone married in 1972. The wedding took place at the home of Harold Robbins.

After working in two films with her, Harvey remained friends with Elizabeth Taylor for the rest of his life. She visited him three weeks before he died. Upon his death, Taylor issued the statement, “He was one of the people I really loved in this world. He was part of the sun. For everyone who loved him, the sun is a bit dimmer.”

The Final Footprint

Domino, who later became a bounty hunter, was only four years old at the time of his death. She died at the age of 35 in 2005 after overdosing on painkillers. They are buried together in Santa Barbara Cemetery in Santa Barbara, California. Taylor and Peter Lawford held a memorial service for Harvey.

#RIP #OTD in 1998 comedian (The Devil Made Me Buy This Dress) and actor (The Flip Wilson Show) Flip Wilson died from liver cancer in Malibu, aged 64. He was cremated at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery and his cremated remains were scattered off Malibu Beach.

#RIP #OTD in 2016 revolutionary, lawyer, leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, Fidel Castro died in Havanna, aged 90. Cremation with cremated remains entombed in the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery in Santiago de Cuba.

#RIP #OTD in 2020 Argentine professional football player, manager, 3x World Cup Champion Diego Maradona died; cardiac arrest in his sleep at his home in Dique Luján, Buenos Aires Province, aged 60.

Jardín de Bella Vista cemetery, Bella Vista, Buenos Aires.

Have you planned yours yet?

Follow TFF on twitter @RIPTFF

http://thefinalfootprint.com/2020/11/25/day-in-history-25-november-malcolm-ii-king-of-scots/(opens in a new tab) http://thefinalfootprint.com/2020/11/25/day-in-history-25-november-malcolm-ii-king-of-scots/

Posted in Film Footprints, Literary Footprints, Royal Footprints | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Kensal Green Cemetery

Posted on 29 NovpmSun, 23 Nov 2014 16:48:03 -06002014-11-23T16:48:03-06:0004 2011 by MacGregor

Kensal_Green_Cemetery_view_December_2005Kensal Green Cemetery is a cemetery in Kensal Green, in the west of London, England, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.  Inspired by the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris and founded by the barrister George Frederick Carden, Kensal Green Cemetery was opened in 1833 and comprises 72 acres of grounds, including two conservation areas, adjoining a canal.  Kensal Green Cemetery is home to at least 33 species of bird and other wildlife.  This distinctive cemetery has a host of different memorials ranging from large mausoleums housing the rich and famous to many distinctive smaller graves and even includes special areas dedicated to the very young.  With three chapels catering for people of all faiths and social standing, the General Cemetery Company has provided a haven in the heart of London for over 180 years for its inhabitants to remember their loved one in a tranquil and dignified environment.

The area was immortalised in the lines of G. K. Chesterton‘s poem “The Rolling English Road” from his book The Flying Inn: “For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen; Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.”

Despite its Grecian-style buildings the cemetery is primarily Gothic in character, due to the high number of private Gothic monuments. Due to this atmosphere, the cemetery was the chosen location of several scenes in movies, notably in Theatre of Blood (1973).

Notable cremations at Kensal Green include; Ingrid Bergman and Freddie Mercury.

Have you planned yours yet?

Follow TFF on twitter @RIPTFF

Posted in Cemeteries | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Fictional Footprint – Gerald and Ellen O’Hara

Posted on 29 JanpmMon, 03 Jan 2011 21:52:43 -06002011-01-03T21:52:43-06:0009 2011 by MacGregor

In Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind, Gerald O’Hara founded the plantation Tara, located near Jonesboro, Georgia, after he won 640 acres of land from its absentee owner during an all-night poker game.  O’Hara and his brothers emigrated from Ireland to Savannah, Georgia.  O’Hara relished the thought of becoming a planter and gave his mostly wilderness and uncultivated new lands the grandiose name of Tara after the hill of Tara, once the capital of the High King of ancient Ireland.  He borrowed money from his brothers and bankers to buy slaves and turned the farm into a very successful cotton plantation.  At the age of 43, O’Hara married the 15-year-old Ellen Robillard, an aristocratic, Savannah-born girl of French descent, receiving as dowry twenty slaves (including Mammy, Ellen’s nurse, who became nurse to Ellen’s daughters and grandchildren as well).  His young bride took a very real interest in the management of the plantation, being in some ways a more hands-on manager than her husband.  With the injection of her dowry money and the rise of cotton prices, Tara grew to a plantation of more than 1,000 acres and more than 100 slaves by the dawn of the Civil War.  Unlike the homes of most of the O’Haras’ neighbors, Tara is spared the torch during the Sherman’s Scorched Earth march.  Upon the army’s withdrawal, the family and their loyal remaining slaves are left with a looted and dilapidated house, a ruined farm with no stock, work animals, or farm equipment, no food and no means to produce food. They are indigent and soon starving.  Ellen O’Hara dies soon after the Union evacuation, and her widowed oldest daughter Scarlett returns a day later.  The loss of his wife, combined with hopelessness, poverty, age, and an increasing reliance on whiskey (when it is available) is destroying Gerald O’Hara’s sanity, leaving him a demented echo of his former self.  Peace returns after the war, but not prosperity.  Scarlett manages to save Tara from being seized and the family from dispossession only by deceitfully marrying her sister Suellen’s fiance, Frank Kennedy, and using his savings to pay the $300 in taxes levied on the place.  Though Scarlett returns to Atlanta where her fortunes rise as she takes over and expands her second husband Frank’s business interests, she shares her new wealth with Tara.  Tara never achieves anything like its antebellum grandeur, but it does become self supporting as a “two horse” farm.  While far from rich, the O’Haras are at least in better condition than most of their neighbors.  O’Hara dies when he falls off his horse while chasing a carpetbagger off the property.  In the movie version, O’Hara is portrayed by Thomas Mitchell.  The Final Footprint – Gerald and Ellen are buried in the O’Hara Family Cemetery at their beloved Tara.

Have you planned yours yet?

Follow TFF on twitter @RIPTFF

Posted in Fictional Footprints | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Veteran’s Day Observance – Sharon Memorial Park

Posted on 29 NovpmThu, 04 Nov 2010 14:06:59 -05002010-11-04T14:06:59-05:0002 2011 by Tamela

Veteran's Day ObservanceCome join us for a Veteran’s Day Observance on Tuesday 11 November 2010, 10:00 am.  The location will be at the Garden of Honor in Sharon Memorial Park.  The Garden of Honor is dedicated to those who have bravely served our country and features a granite monument and a flag pole from which flies the Killed in Action Memorial Flag and the POW/MIA flag.

The program will include bagpipe music courtesy of Dave McKenzie, the Pledge of Allegiance and the placing of a memorial wreath.  VFW Post 9458 will provide Color Guard and Honor Guard and a 21-Gun Salute and Taps.  The featured speaker will be Mr. John Hodge U.S. Army World War II veteran.  Contact us for a free comprehensive Veteran’s personal planning guide>>>>>>Click Here!

Posted in Cemeteries, Special Events | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fictional Footprint

Posted on 29 SeppmTue, 21 Sep 2010 14:39:59 -05002010-09-21T14:39:59-05:0002 2011 by MacGregor

Today we pay tribute to a great romantic literary character, Francesca Johnson from the Robert James Waller novel, The Bridges of Madison County.  Francesca was born in 1920 near Naples, Italy .  Forever remembered as the woman who loved Robert Kincaid.  She died in January 1989 at home on her farm in Madison County, Iowa.  The Final Footprint – Francesca was cremated and her ashes were scattered from the Roseman Bridge in Madison County, Iowa.  She could not have Robert in life, so she gave herself to him in death.



Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Posted in Fictional Footprints | Tagged | Leave a comment