Backroad Odyssey : Travel, Van Life & Lost Locations
Traveling America's backroads, history and road trip enthusiasts - Noah and Noodles - unearth fascinating locations overlooked while traveling.
Living out of a van, they research and visit each story location to share the (often shocking) secrets held within.
If you love travel, history and thoughtful storytelling - join us on the road!
Backroad Odyssey : Travel, Van Life & Lost Locations
The Black Angel - Iowa City's Cursed Oddity
Explore the darker side of Iowa City ...
A somber statue - once a golden bronze - is now the subject of countless curses, hauntings and general misfortune.
Few dare to meet it’s soot embalmed gaze; those that due invite sickness, dreadful curses and even death.
This - at least - is the reputation of Iowa City's Black Angel.
Works Cited:
https://www.iowa-city.org/weblink/0/doc/1481292/Electronic.aspx#:~:text=There%20are%20also%20a%20few,re%2D%20minder%20of%20her%20sins.
https://notebookofghosts.com/2023/07/08/the-black-angel-of-iowa-fact-fiction/
https://vocal.media/horror/iowa-the-black-angel
https://adventuresincemeteryhopping.com/2024/03/29/iowa-city/
Noah and Noodles here!
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Cruisin' down the street. I wonder where this road would lead. So many possibilities. Care to share what you think. Oh moon dolls, what do you see? Back road odyssey.
Speaker 1:A solemn figure lurks in the shadows of Oakland Cemetery. Few dare to meet its soot-embalmed gaze. Those that do invite sickness, dreadful curses and even death. This, at least, is the reputation of the Iowa City Black Angel. To the solemn graves near a lonely cemetery, my heart, like a muff muffled drum, is beating funeral marches. Charles Baudelaire.
Speaker 1:Long ago the Black Angel was not the menacing, shadow-laden presence its modern reputation suggests. In fact it was beautiful, emitting its shining gold throughout the comparatively rustic Oakland Cemetery in Iowa City. Sitting here, 102 years after the placement of the statue to its now iconic location, what happened? What is the real story behind Iowa City's haunted Black Angel? My dog Noodles and I investigate. I'm driving to the statue now. From what I've heard from the people that I've driving to the statue now, from what I've heard from the people that I've talked to, most people who go to Oakland Cemetery see it as a kind of pilgrimage, not to see loved ones, not to walk around in a beautiful cemetery, but to stand in front of the black angel statue to see it in person. So many stories often reallyid stories, if you really look into the story have sprung up around this statue since its placement in this cemetery in 1912. I've got so many questions going through my head right now but, as always, let's start simple.
Speaker 1:Looking past the many reported deaths, curses and hauntings now associated with the statue, how did the Black Angel come to exist? What's the human story behind its sculpting? I am not supernatural, I am just myself, andre the Giant. Anything supernatural is usually grounded in some degree of normality, some seed of humanity. The very supernatural story of the Black Angel is no different. Our story begins with a grieving mother.
Speaker 1:Teresa and her dear son, eddie, moved to Iowa City from their native Bohemia in 1887. Their time together is, by all accounts, wonderful, wonderful, but brief, brief. Eddie dies of meningitis in Iowa City at 18 years old. His body is laid to rest in the then sparse Oakland Cemetery. A singular cement stump is placed above his body, a sign to all passing that a life below was cut short. The quote Teresa chooses to be inscribed upon her son's memorial reflects this idea. To bid adieu. Do not weep for me, dear mother. I am at peace in my cool grave.
Speaker 1:The loss of a son is so often tied to the site of that loss. With the death of Eddie, iowa City, its people, small buildings and nearby farms become a dark reminder, both of what was taken away and what could have been, a reminder too close and too constant for a grieving mother. So Teresa leaves town in search of relief, distraction, hoping to forget In time. She settles in Eugene, oregon, and marries Nicholas Felderbert, who was, by most accounts, incredibly nice and seems to have kept the memory of her lost son hidden, or at least suppressed, deep within her mind, but in a continuing trope throughout the life of this grieving mother. Good things never last, neverlast Nicholas, her new husband dies suddenly in 1911. And with this death a cold reality seeps back in my boy, he got sick and die. My husband, he got sick and die. Now I am sick and soon I too shall die. Now I am sick and soon I too shall die.
Speaker 1:Teresa, in an interview to Blanche Robertson of the Des Moines Register. Where, then, after the death of her husband, is Teresa to go, except back to the remains of her son, which she'd neglected for years? Once back in Iowa City, the site that brought her such grief years ago, her thoughts turn where else? But to death, not only of her own fast-approaching departure, but the deaths of her son and now her husband. One can imagine her standing above the small tree stump marking her son's body, thinking morbid thoughts as the rain quickens. His life was short. She might whisper, but his memory must not die with me. She would commission a grand statue amongst the modest graves. There is no exquisite beauty without some strangeness in the proposition Edgar Allan Poe. Teresa then hires a Chicago-based bohemian sculptor to erect this grand monument. She makes only one request to this sculptor to erect this grand monument. She makes only one request to this sculptor the stump now marking Eddie's grave must be incorporated into the finished sculpture. And so time passes. Teresa waits, so time passes, teresa waits, the sculptor scopes On November 21st 1920, a flat car hauls in an eight-foot massive statue depicting a pondering angel pointing towards the sky.
Speaker 1:It's beautiful to all that see it, but it's peculiar. You see where most angel statues are positioned with their heads and wings uplifted, symbolizing an ascent to heaven. The angel sculpture in this case has a face that looks downwards towards the ground, with its wings not uplifted. Oddities aside, the statue arrives slowly to its plot of land in Oakland Cemetery. The angel, then, encased in a beautiful golden bronze, looms above the surrounding gravestones and memorials, including, to Teresa's horror, her son's entirely unincorporated stump, which had stayed far away from the shining statue. It's this day, marked by disappointment, that festers in Teresa's mind until her death on November 18th 1924. It is this day again that marks the beginning of what would become the Black Angel.
Speaker 1:The stories of curses, deaths and ailments around the statue all begin when Teresa's ashes are buried underneath the angel statue. She was so displeased with. That very night. After Teresa's ashes are scattered underneath the statue and her sparsely attended funeral disperses, a storm rages throughout Iowa City. The next morning, residents near the statue wake to see, among the fallen tree branches, leaves and debris, a single solemn figure, once so beautifully golden, cloaked in black. That is at least one of what would become many origin stories behind the statue's mysterious transformation.
Speaker 1:All right, I am at the cemetery. It's a nice day, a beautiful day, some would say. So I'm going to walk around a little bit before we get to the statue. Anyone that knows me knows I'm not a big fan of scary situations, but this story was too interesting to pass up With. That said, here's my question when it comes to curses, hexes, hauntings, the supernatural in general, is it the belief in these things that make them a reality? Is it the very reputation of anything supernatural that makes them more likely to seem supernatural? Let's say I go with my friends to the Black Angel statue at night, half expecting for something to happen. Am I more likely then to experience something out of the ordinary because I'm looking for it? Or if I have a sickness later, a weird feeling later or during my visit to the statue, is it only because of my expectation for that to happen? Or is it, as a lot of people believe, that there's something to the rumors of any supernatural object or place it's interesting to think about? For now, as I make my way to the Black Angel, it'll be good for us to know at least some of the wild stories and beliefs that have for so long shaped this statue's eerie reputation. If I am an angel, paint me with black wings and rice. Angel, paint me with black wings and rice.
Speaker 1:We start with the seemingly primary reason for its reputation Its sudden change of color from a brilliant gold to a matted midnight black. Some say Teresa was throughout her life an evil woman and that her sins once buried tainted the statue, changing the statue's hue. Some say a single lightning bolt struck the statue, turning it black. Yet others, as time passed, offer alternative, seemingly unrelated tales explaining the color change. A popular story tells of a priest burying his own son beneath the statue. The angel then turns black because the priest himself had committed the murder leading to his burial. Another report describes the day a man erects the statue over his recently deceased wife. It then turns black because of her continued infidelity. Whatever the case, the black angel quickly becomes a beacon for many myths, rumors and curses that extend far beyond a simple color change. Anyone who kisses the angel, it's said, will die instantly. Any girl kissed below the statue at midnight will die within six months. Touching the angel at midnight on Halloween means death in seven years.
Speaker 1:To truly know, it's often said, you have to be there. I'm standing in front of the black angel. I'm not one to tempt fate, even if I'm hesitant to believe in most things that can't really be proven. So I'm standing a good five feet away from its base as I'm talking right now, and let me describe what I see. So my first reaction is that it's large. It's a big statue, but also it's weathered. You can see the stump that had since been moved, along with Teresa's son from its original location and, yeah, there's a solemnness to it. And the surrounding area. And, yeah, there's a solemnness to it and the surrounding area.
Speaker 1:Here's my question. Standing in front of the Black Angel, it's going to seem basic, but stick with me. How do things acquire reputations? Is it how interesting the story behind it is? Is it where it's located? When it was made? Is there a grain of truth to any of these stories told? All I know and all I can say here now, looking at the statue, however it got here, whatever reputation it has today, accurate or not, the Black Angel started with something deeply human A mother and the death of her son. Most will insist, including myself, that the color of the once golden black angel is caused by nothing more than the oxidation of bronze being exposed to the elements. But here's the core of this story. Does this fact take away from the allure of the statue? The thousands of curious pilgrims visiting Oakland Cemetery, the many stories of curses and very real accounts of the unexplained around the statue suggest otherwise. Of the unexplained around the statue, suggest otherwise. As for me, I walk away from my personal visit to the Black Angel in Iowa City's Oakland Cemetery entirely convinced of the statue's normalcy it is not cursed, hexed or otherwise supernatural in any conceivable way. Right, it's Noah here.
Speaker 1:Hey everybody, thank you for listening to Backroad Odyssey. I appreciate every minute you spend listening to the show, so obviously when you go to visit the Black Angel you won't spend that much time there. I'd recommend it. It's a very cool story. The statue itself is cool, but that'll take an hour and Iowa City has so much more to offer. Just like Iowa in general, the Black Angel inspired a restaurant of the same name. There's many breweries. I might do a Van Life Diaries just about Iowa City and what you should do there. So stay tuned for that. But otherwise, if you enjoy the work that we put into the show all of the research taking a minute to rate, review and maybe subscribe if you enjoy Really, really helps Noodles and I continue to put the work that we'd like to in, so really appreciate that. Be good to each other. Where to next?
