All About Cemeteries

This podcast does not provide medical advice. Please listen to the complete disclosure at the end of the recording. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Everyone Dies, the podcast where we talk about serious illness, dying, death, and bereavement.

I'm Marianne Matzo, a nurse practitioner, and I use my 43 years of nursing experience to help you understand what happens at the end of life. And I'm Charlie Navarette, an actor in New York City, and here to ask the questions that you may have while listening to our broadcast. We are both here because we believe that the more you know, the better prepared you are to make difficult decisions.

And, let's face it, it's easier to make decisions when you are not under pressure. Right. So, please relax.

Get yourself something nourishing to eat, a drink, or... Hey, Charlie, I bought a pasta maker. So get yourself a big bowl of pasta if you're making pasta. I know we're going to look like big bowls of pasta when I'm done.

And thank you for spending the next hour with Charlie and me. In the first half, we have our recipe of the week and a report from Charlie about the queen and her corgis. In the second half, we're continuing our series about death with the talk about cemeteries.

And in our third half, our CEO, Major General David Gillette, is going to be joining us for a report about Neptune's Reef. So, Charlie, what's up for the first half? Well, the origins of Brown Windsor Soup are unclear. No one is quite sure where the recipe originates, but it is said to have been one of Queen Victoria's favorite soups and was often served at palace banquets.

There's just one little problem. Queen Victoria never heard of Brown Windsor Soup. As Eddie Gray writes... It doesn't sound very appetizing, does it? No, it doesn't.

I mean, you know, Brown Soup... Yeah, just the first images of that... Yuck. Yes. I mean, if you have to eat your food by the color of it, you know, it's like green eggs and ham.

Like, do you really want to eat green eggs and ham, Sam I Am? Oh, that Sam I Am, that Sam I Am. I do not like green eggs and ham. See, and Queen Victoria didn't like Brown Windsor Soup.

Okay, so there we are. So, you know, we would have gotten along very well. Now, as Eddie Gray writes in The Greedy Queen, eating with Victoria, Brown Windsor Soup, which is often cited as a favorite dish of the Queen, did not exist at all in the 19th century.

The soup seems to have been viewed in a comedic light in the second half of the 20th century and was featured in television and radio comedy. Comedy shows such as Fawlty Towers and The Goon Show with Peter Sellers. Brown Windsor Soup is a prime example of life imitating art.

A punchline turned into an actual dish. Once the reviled, but still largely fictional soup became a fixture on The Goon Show, it borrowed... It burrowed its way into the national consciousness and stayed there. Its terrible reputation goes a long way to explaining why the independent remarked, Occasionally heard of, but never seen, this traditional soup is distinctly out of favor these days.

According to Gastro Obscura, culinary myths are often surprisingly hard to dispel. The Singapore Sling existed well before the Raffles Hotel claimed to invent it. The legendary barman Jerry Thomas never came up with the Tom and Jerry.

And Elvis, like blueberry preserves, not bananas on his bacon sandwich. Oh, that's right, baby. Thank you very much for clarifying.

You're welcome, Elvis. Elvis has left the building. It was nice of him to drop by.

Charlie, you don't even need me here. You can just, you know, amuse yourself entirely. Oh, that's not true, baby.

I need you here, babe. I love when you call me baby. At some point, not about the baby, but back on script, origin stories simply feel true.

And in the case of a humble soup, too insignificant to question. It makes you wonder how many things do we believe that if we were to investigate them, we'd find they were complete nonsense. Does that stop us from our recipe of the week being brown Windsor soup? Of course not.

We are not letting reality interfere with our show. Of course not. And now for something completely different.

Where Her Majesty exhibits unconditional love to her many corgis. We offer this report about the queen and her corgis. In the depths of the Sangrium estate in Norfolk lies a small walled cemetery for the loyalist of the royals, the dogs.

Edward VII, it gets better. That's not nice. Yeah, but sadly true.

Edward VII began the royal kennels at Sangrium estate, which was acquired by the royal family in 1862 and became a country home for the monarch. In 1887, he added kennels to house hunting dogs. His daughter, Queen Victoria, liked collies, famously naming four of them noble.

I hope. Well, that way you don't forget their name. And what if it was all at the same time? These dogs must have gone nuts.

Her dogs were the first to be buried in a secluded corner of the estate. Many royal pets have been buried there over the years. Now, a corgi is a small type of herding dog that originated in Wales.

Not the big mammals in the oceans, but, you know, part of Great Britain. A dorgy is a dog which is a cross between a Dachshund and a Welsh corgi. A little history.

In 1933... I was going to say, how the heck did that happen? Let's look into that, shall we? In 1933, King George VI, father of Queen Elizabeth, gave Welsh corgi, Dukie, to the then seven-year-old Princess Elizabeth and her younger sister, Margaret. On her 18th birthday in 1944, Princess Elizabeth received a corgi of her very own, whom she named Susan. Susan became the origin breeding dog of the Queen's Corgi dynasty of 30 corgis.

And later, dorgies crossed her lifetime, linking all 30 back to Susan. Susan and the Queen were so close that accompanied Her Highness and the Duke of Edinburgh during their honeymoon. And then took pictures and sold them to the sun.

Well, that was an interesting threesome. Yes. Two of the Queen's corgis were actually killed by other members of the royal family's four-footed friends.

In 1989, the Queen's mother corgi, Ranger, killed Queen Elizabeth's chipper. And in 2003, when Princess Anne was being greeted to Sandringham for Christmas, her bull terrier killed the Queen's corgi, Farros, resulting in Princess Anne being put down. Sorry, Princess Anne's dog being put down.

I really need to be careful when I'm reading this. There's nothing quite like being home for the holidays. Yes, for sure.

Throughout the years, Susan was also a bit cheeky. Rather, teethy, as she bit a policeman, a sentry, a detective, and the royal clockwinder who wound up with a gash. It was love at first bite.

In 1955, Susan's descendants, Whiskey and Sherry, so far, these are my two favorite, Whiskey and Sherry, are given to the young Prince Charles and Princess Anne for Christmas. When Susan died in 1959, Queen Elizabeth realized... When Susan died in 1959, Queen Elizabeth revitalized the pet burial plot at Sandringham Palace. The Queen, in mourning, began sketching ideas for what she wanted Susan's grave to look like.

The initial inscription on her gravestone read, Susan died 26 January 1959, for 15 years the faithful companion of the Queen. The Queen continued to design the gravestones of Susan's descendants. In 1971, scandal.

The Queen's corgi... Not at the palace. Yes, and actually, this now gets to your question about what is a corgi? So, I mean, a dorgie, rather. So, the Queen's corgi, Tiny, mixes it up with a dachshund.

Ta-da! Now, imagine Lady and the Tramp hooking up. Six dorgies are born. Princess Anne was under suspicion because she was seen rubbing a sausage on the Queen's corgi, then let her dachshund, Pipkin, loose on Tiny.

And you thought following Shakespeare was difficult. In 2015, the Queen stopped breeding dogs because she did not wish any to survive her in the event of her death, stating that she didn't want to leave any young dog behind. Willow, Susan's last descendant, died in 2018.

Of the two remaining dorgies, Vulcan, not to be confused with Mr. Spock's home planet of Vulcan, died in 2020. You know, though, technically speaking, Mr. Spock's home planet of Vulcan also died. Leaving the last survivor, Candy, still alive as of this podcast.

But after Prince Philip's death in 2021, Prince Andrew and granddaughters Beatrice and Eugenie gifted the Queen two corgi puppies. The new puppies are the first not to be descended from Susan. The Queen's corgis and dorgies have lived a charm life.

They sleep in their own room, the corgi room, What about the dorgies? Do the dorgies not have their own dorgie room? Well, I think they do cohabitate. We'll have to look into that. So yeah, another royal scandal.

So let's just say everybody sleeps in their own corgi dorgie room and dine on chef-prepared steak filets. The corgis are intensely loyal and loving and they have never let her down. So says royal biographer Penny Junor as she said it to the sun.

And of course, corgis also seldom rush off to LA to give interviews. Queen Elizabeth is not alone in the death of so many pets. The death of a pet is devastating for many people.

Admitting this can be embarrassing, then hurtful when someone responds, you know, it's just a pet. Suggesting it's not worthy of the same grief as a human's death. We have a link to the death of a pet episode plus links for this story in our show notes.

So please go to our... That was really interesting. Yeah. Yeah, it really is.

Just, I mean, this... Of course, she loves her kids. But just when you see pictures of with her and the corgis and dorgies, and her poor children, I don't know, maybe it's a royal thing for presentation. She can't be all, you know, warm and gushy with the kids.

But those corgis and dorgies, they're her babies. And it's just a whole different, you know, affect, body language, just very different between... Well, plus, you know, with dogs, they do whatever the heck they want whenever they want. So they don't follow the royal rules of whatever those rules are.

So if they want to jump on her during a photo shoot, they're going to do it, right? Yeah, and it's crazy because also, you know, when you see pictures of her with the dogs, it's either, you know, they're all, you know, romping around the estate or they are posed. I don't know how they get those dogs to stand still and like sit next to her and look at the camera the way Her Majesty looks at the camera too, and there they are in sync. So with all that in mind, please go to our webpage for the recipe of the week and additional resources for this program.

We hope you will follow us on Facebook and Instagram and remember to rate and review this podcast. As a licensed nonprofit organization, we are dependent on the kindness of our beloved listeners and always appreciate your donations, which are tax deductible. Please go to our webpage to donate in support of our work, www.everyonedies.org. That's every, number one, dies.org. Marianne, what's up? Hey, como esta? So today I'm going to talk about, since you did a report about cemeteries for the dogs, I'm just going to talk about what the history of cemeteries are in the United States.

And I've always thought this was really interesting and I know I'm weird, but whenever I travel, I always, if there's a cool old cemetery, I like to go and walk around and look at the statues and the art and all of that. And I've done that in every country I've visited. When I was in Japan, they even have outdoor hibachis so that you can bring your lunch and grill your lunch right at the cemetery.

Yeah. Yeah, it's a family affair. And so we've gotten away from that, but I thought I'd give you a little bit of history about where we've been anyway.

The word cemetery implies that the land is specifically designated as a burial ground and it originally applied to the Roman catacombs. They're not associated with the church, so they're often larger because they can spread out beyond the land that's adjacent to a church. Both religious people and non-believers can be buried there.

The word cemetery dates back to the 14th century and its roots can be traced back to the old French word cemetery, which is itself derived from the medieval Latin cemeterium. Its literal translation is a place set aside for the burial of the dead. It can also be tied to the ancient Greek word chemoterium, which was a sleeping place or a dormitory.

Somewhere over the years, the term sleep and death kind of became blurred together. A graveyard, like a cemetery, is a place where people are buried after they die. It's not very good to do that before a person dies.

Graveyards are affiliated with the church and are typically located on church grounds. They tend to be smaller due to land limitations and only members of their religion and sometimes only members of that specific church can be buried in a graveyard. Originally in the United States, people were buried either in family plots or in churchyards.

Churchyards within urban areas and cities such as Boston, New York, or Chicago were as overcrowded as the cities themselves. Burying dead bodies became one of the biggest public health issues after the Civil War. Cemeteries were considered public health hazards because of concerns about the spread of disease.

Exposed bodies and epidemics such as cholera, influenza, and yellow fever were serious concerns to people. They were described at the time as, cemeteries were described as receptacles of putrefying matter. Well, who's going to want to go there? I do, I would.

The rural cemetery movement in America started in 1831 and lasted until about the 1800s. And this was a time when cemeteries or large burial grounds that were not affiliated with the church became the desired locations to bury the dead. They were described as a pleasure garden instead of a place for graves, which reveals how the cemetery was evoking beauty.

Founders placed the new cemeteries on the outsides of the cities to prevent health risks, as well as to take advantage of the expansive natural environments available. Cemeteries in the Victorian cemeteries focused on nature, the natural landscape, the peaceful surroundings. The locations for these cemeteries were not selected by accident.

The designer's goal was to ensure visitors could enjoy their experience while paying respect to those who have died. They're also filled with elaborate gravestones and monuments that either have or had symbolic imagery worn away by time and weather. Now, the first Victorian cemetery was the Mount Auburn Cemetery.

And this really signified the beginning of this rural cemetery movement in the United States. It was established in Cambridge and Watertown, Mass in 1831. Mount Auburn Cemetery was built with the idea that it should not be a graveyard, but an attraction and pleasure ground with picturesque landscapes, winding paths, and a variety of horticulture and sculptural art.

And did I ever take you to Lowell Cemetery when you'd come to visit in Lowell, Massachusetts? Um, I know we at least drove by it. I don't remember if we actually went in, but yeah. It's a beautiful cemetery like the Mount Auburn Cemetery, and it has carriage paths that wind your way through.

There's lots of places for picnics and to, you know, play games and to, you know, hang out. And it's just, it's a gorgeous cemetery. And this was the whole idea, is go visit your dad and have lunch and have a good time.

So I thought I'd give you some fun cemetery facts. Saying on gravestones are called epitaphs. So whatever is written on the gravestones called an epitaph.

Epitaphs in colonial America often administered warnings about the certainty of death or even gave hints of the person who may have caused the death. As attitudes toward death changed, epitaphs changed to convey hope and or grief. And some are even humorous, like I told you I was sick.

W.O.W. gravestones represent an association. So if you go to a cemetery and you see the word W.O.W. on a gravestone, you have found the burial place of a former member of the Woodsmen of the World, an American fraternal insurance company founded in 1883 that was said to have given widows a hundred dollars and a free gravestone if the company logo was put on the stone. Man, Charlie, talk about advertising, right? Well, you didn't have Facebook and you didn't have all these other things.

So for a hundred bucks and a free gravestone. Yeah, and at that time, a hundred bucks. Permanent.

That's a lot of money. So the W.O.W. emblem is a sawed off tree stump, often with a mallet or a beetle, an axe, and a wedge. These Woodsmen emblems are found throughout the United States, but the largest concentration is in the South and the Midwest.

Now you might notice that many gravestones face East. In an East-West orientation for gravestones is the most common throughout the world. Early American settlers wanted their feet pointing toward the East and their heads toward the West.

So they were ready to rise up and face the sun of a new day when they hoped to be reborn. When the rural cemetery movement became popular in the 1830s, graveyards were constructed with winding roads, hilly terrain, and stones facing in a lot of different directions. Another fact, carved motifs on gravestones carry meaning.

With Victorian culture came a romanticism of imagery that can clearly be found in Victorian cemeteries. Natural imagery, finding flora and fauna, is commonly seen throughout the grounds of the gravestones and monuments. These symbols communicate something about the deceased, yet they were also intended to comfort the living, providing them with a sense of solace in the face of death.

If you look closely at gravestones, you'll see symbols are everywhere. The winged hourglass tells us that time flies. The hourglass on a side indicates time stopping for the dead.

A broken flower or tree symbolizes a life cut short. Hands in a prayer position can signify devotion, and a hand pointing down can indicate sudden death. A handshake can reflect the clasped hands of a couple to be reunited in death.

Symbolism was an important feature in Victorian cemeteries. It was a poetic way to express regards for the dead, as well as to offer clues to who people were and what they were like. Now, carved figures of animals on gravestones all carry meaning.

Lambs are often found on the gravestones of children. Detailed carved figurines of family dogs are sometimes found atop graves of their human friends. There's something more uncommon, like roosters atop a stone are usually thought to be symbolic of Judgment Day.

And I've never seen a rooster, but now I'm going to have to start. And I don't make the association between a rooster and Judgment Day either. That's interesting.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know why.

I don't know why. I don't know why either. Look it up, Charlie.

Now? Obelisks are a common feature in many cemeteries. If you walk through a Victorian cemetery, there are definite signs of this Egyptian influence. There's pyramids, scarabs, and fences are all common sites, especially featured on private family mausoleums.

Obelisks can be found in varying heights and sizes. So an obelisk is Egyptian in origin and symbolizes the sun god Ra. Egyptian imagery often represents eternity.

Now, beginning in 1840, obelisk-shaped stones began appearing in American gravestones just as there was this renewed interest in Egyptian culture. Obelisks with uplifting lines could be placed in small areas, were thought to be patriotic, and were less costly than large and elaborate sculptured monuments. Lastly, graveyards are often multi-purpose.

Besides being a place to bury the deceased, cemeteries are gathering spots and places to honor and connect with the dead, whether it be a family person or a famous person. The rural cemetery movement allowed for an unprecedented level of reflection surrounding the ideas of life and death. As the visualization of death became more attractive and commonplace.

But if there's one thing the Victorians knew, it was that cemeteries were not just for the dead. They were also welcoming places for the living. When visiting a cemetery, we should not think about only of death and loss.

We should consider the living beauty around us and the lives of those who came before us. As long as we remember Charlie, we keep their memories alive. Yes.

Now for our third half, we have our executive director, Major General David Gillette, who is going to be continuing his series about interesting cemeteries, burial places. So without further ado, let me introduce David Gillette. Hello, everyone.

This is my second report in our cemetery series. And today I want to talk to you about Neptune Memorial Reef. Neptune Memorial Reef first opened to the public in 2007.

This artificial reef is created from cremated remains blended with natural concrete and marked by a memorial plaques. It's located three and a quarter miles east of Key Biscayne, Florida. Yep, it's under 40 feet of water.

Neptune Reef is the largest man-made reef ever conceived. And when completed, will cover over 16 acres of ocean floor. In addition to providing permanent legacy for those who love the ocean, the Neptune Memorial Reef is attracting recreational scuba divers, marine biologists, students, researchers and ecologists from all over the world.

The reef is free and accessible to all visitors. The reef is an artistic representation of the lost city of Atlantis. These structures have produced a marine habitat to promote coral and marine organism growth while creating the ultimate green burial opportunity.

A recent marine study conducted by the Department of Environmental Resource Management concluded that marine life around the reef went from zero to thousands in the first two years. Features of the memorial reef include cremains or cremated ashes and should be respected. The reef memorial begins by mixing cremated remains with cement to create a new placement and then positioning that placement in the reef.

Families are welcome to participate in mixing and molding process to create a reef placement. Small memories may be added as well. Families have added an angel, a hundred dollar casino chip, notes, and even mermaid bottle opener to the mix.

Also, children have left their handprints in the cement mold. Families are welcome to participate in deployments of the ashes and local families are known to visit the reef and their loved ones regularly. You may want to consider Neptune Reef as a unique and environmentally friendly option for burial of a loved one or yourself, or you may just want to visit a unique burial site and respect the dead and enjoy the marine life.

So, this is a good place to visit if, like Marianne and I, you are scuba certified. It's certainly on our list to visit sometime soon. If you're not, if you aren't scuba certified, there are lots of local dive shops that are anxious to help you get certified and open a whole new world of fun for you and your family.

To learn more about the Neptune Reef, click on the link in our resources section of this podcast. Great. Thank you for that, David.

Actually, I would, I would like to go and see that. That'd be cool. So, please stay tuned for the continuing saga of Everyone Dies.

And thank you for listening. Like sand through an hourglass, so are the days of our lives. This is Charlie Navarette and, like George Carlin, always relieved when someone is delivering a eulogy and I realize that I'm listening to it.

And I'm Marianne Matz. No? Yeah, when did you change your name? And I'm Marianne Matzo and we'll see you next week. Think about all the places that you could be buried and think about all the people that you could go visit.

And remember, every day is a gift. May have regarding your health. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard from this podcast.

If you think you may have a medical emergency, call your doctor or 911 immediately. Everyone Dies does not recommend or endorse any specific tests, practitioners, products, procedures, opinions, or other information that may be mentioned in this podcast. Reliance on any information provided in this podcast by persons appearing on this podcast at the invitation of Everyone Dies or by other members is solely at your own risk.

This podcast does not provide medical advice. All discussion on this podcast, such as treatments, dosages, outcomes, charts, patient profiles, advice, messages, and any other discussion are for informational purposes only and are not a substitute for professional medical advice or treatment. Always seek the advice of your primary care practitioner or other qualified health providers with any questions that you may have regarding your health.

Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard from this podcast. If you think you may have a medical emergency, call your doctor or 911 immediately. Everyone Dies does not recommend or endorse any specific tests, practitioners, products, procedures, opinions, or other information that may be mentioned in this podcast.

Reliance on any information provided in this podcast by persons appearing on this podcast at the invitation of Everyone Dies or by other members is solely at your own risk.