Thursday, February 25, 2010
Mysteries Mystery Cemetery — Is It Calvary?
Posted by Vance Lauderdale on Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 5:09 PM
- Old Cemetery - Detail
- Calvary Cemetery - Today
Last week I posted an old Poland photograph showing a cemetery in Memphis, and I wondered just where it was. Something about the image made me think of Calvary Cemetery, and so I drove over there one day recently and tried to find the exact same location in the old photograph.
I wasn't entirely successful, but I might be very close. Take a look at the two pictures here. In the background of the old photograph (shown here on the left), I noticed a rather unusual white concrete retaining wall (the image is fuzzy but you can see it) with an undulating top and posts at each end surmounted by large concrete (or stone) balls. There's also apparently a post close to the center of this little wall, also topped with a somewhat smaller ball.
Well, my recent journey to Calvary turned up an almost identical formation, as you can see in the second image (on the right). The center ball is missing, but you can tell that one was once mounted here. The roadway in the background also looks similar to the roadway in the original photo (you'll have to scroll down a bit to see the original photo in its entirety).
Now keep in mind, as I've said, that the original photo could easily have been taken as long as 100 years ago, so lots of other elements in the photo — the number of monuments, the size or shape of the trees — would have changed drastically.
At the same time, you get a vague impression that the view in the old photograph is looking UPhill, whereas I'm looking DOWNhill in the current photograph. So maybe I need to get over there again and walk all around this particular wall and see if I can find a downward angle on it.
The location of the middle ball also seems just slightly off-center in the newer photograph, while it's almost exactly centered in the old photo. Though that could be because of the camera angle. It's too bad the original image is so blurry!
Or maybe I'm in the wrong place entirely, and am going completely insane.
What do you think? About the cemetery part, I mean. Am I getting warm?
Comments (12)
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I definitely think that if you were on the other side of the wall and took an upward shot, it might prove or disprove your sanity. However, that being said, you might not want to prove or disprove anything.
I'm just sayin'.
Gotta be the right place. I'd like to see a photo from the front looking up - like in the older photo.
On a side note, I've got Poland photos of one of the old Southern Motor Co. sites. You'll want to see these to update your Southern Motors info.
Now I'm discouraged. I actually took a magnifying glass to the original photo, and discovered that those large concrete "balls" perched along the wall I've mentioned are, in fact, resting rather precariously on four much smaller balls. The walls at Calvary aren't like this. They look VERY similar, but the balls there are mounted directly to the top of the wall.
It's especially frustrating that, even with a magnifying glass, I can't make out a single name on any of the monuments in the picture. It seems odd that the photographer managed to position himself so that you can see only the blank BACKS of every single gravestone, but that seems to be the case.
The irony is that the photo was presumably taken so that this person's burial would be remembered, but they left no clues behind for us to remember who, or where, this took place.
Upon closer inspection from a naked eye, the wall in the older photograph does slope down too. Balls could have been replaced. But the slope of land ... mmmm ... not buying the Calvary site.
Oh, this is horrible ... it might not even be in Memphis. Most of my folks are buried in Sunflower Co. over in Mississippi. This could be anywhere. Egads!
What's REALLY weird is that those blooms on the left of the old photo ... aren't blooms, they're the faces of ghost babies! Babies who weren't even born until 20 years after the photo was taken!
I'm not helping, am I?
I had an idea, so I flipped the old photo. Sometimes photos like this would be printed in reverse. Doing this didn't help much, but it does make it obvious they aren't the same monuments. The one in the new photo has a different silhouette. It has two curving surfaces on top, while the older one is curved on one side and straight on the other, much like the similar monument slightly downslope in the new photo.
Also, as you say, the old photo is looking uphill.
I noticed something odd in the old photo (other than the baby faces). If you look just above the taller of the two ball-topped posts, in the distance beyond the trees there appears to be a rather steep-sides mound or hill, topped by some kind of rectangular structure, perhaps a vault of some sort.
I say we divide and conquer. Let's turn the tri-state area into a grid and each take a section to scout out all the graveyards.
Greg, you go to the fortune teller on Beale St. and try to communicate with the live/dead/future/past baby ghost heads. Bring some beer.
jeff, you have excellent eyes. I had already scrutinized every inch of this photo (the original is almost 9 x 12 inches) and far in the background (almost impossible to see) are actually TWO structures which seem to be on top of mounds. And closer to the camera are also some odd, smaller mounds.
Calvary has gentle, rolling hills, but it's just not as "lumpy" as this, and the monuments are arranged more neatly. As I've said, a lot can change in 50, 75, or maybe even 100 years, but this just doesn't seem to "fit." I drove around Forest Hill, but that didn't seem to be the right place either.
I know the old photo is signed "Poland Memphis" but I guess they could have gone anywhere in this area.
Okay. I am hanging on to this like Mama's last Xanax.
I made a list of cemeteries in Memphis. I want to rule them out first before moving to other cemeteries in the region.
I went to Google Earth and am ruling out the ones that could not possibly be the right place.
I am putting the black cemeteries on hold until I rule out the others. I still think this could be Calvary. I found a spot using Google Earth that could match up. And Elmwood is a possibility too. In the bigger photograph there is what looks like the roof of some sort of structure in the distance at 11 o'clock behind spray of flowers directly in front of the naked tree in the center of the photograph.
Between that, the wall, and Google Earth I am on this till the end.
I have to get a job soon. I have way too much time on my hands :)
julie noir (and anybody else who is becoming as obsessed with this as I am), if you'll give me your email address, I will send you a high-resolution scan of the original photograph. The original is 8 x 10 inches, so a larger image may give you more details to work with.
I like your new avatar, by the way. Mr. Cravens did a fine job with that. Now why would Vance Lauderdale have anything — anything at all, really — to do with the "best comments" section of the Flyer? Hmmm ...
Oh, yes, please. I am completely obsessed.
Thanks for the spell check by the way. I'm "hooked on phonics" more than the drug companies apparently .
I'll send you an email with my email ASAP.
