Jennie Johnson & Dianne Hartshorn

The Ordinary, Extraordinary Cemetery

History EN ↓ 284 episodes

The Ordinary, Extraordinary Cemetery is a podcast for cemetery lovers, preservationists, and even those who've never walked among the graves. Join hosts Jennie and Dianne as they explore old cemeteries and learn the stories of those buried within their walls. After all, every death had a life, and every life had a story.

Author

Jennie Johnson & Dianne Hartshorn

Category

History

Latest episode

Jul 9, 2026

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Episodes

Episode 34 - Interview with Tomb Guard Ruth Robinson for Tomb of the Unknown Soldier 27.05.2021

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. A very special Memorial Day episode! Jennie and Dianne are privileged and honored to interview Ruth Robinson a member of the Society of the Honor Guard for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery located in Arlington, Virginia. Ruth served as SGT Ruth Hanks from 2016-2018...

Episode 33 - Lone Graves 20.05.2021

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne explore lone graves throughout Australia and the United States. Graves of those seeking gold, those who died of broken hearts, and those who chose their own perfect final resting place. Come along and explore the ordinary, extraordinary lives of those buried in lone graves. Re...

Episode 32 - Cemeteries and the Law 13.05.2021

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Special guest Ryan Seidemann returns wearing his lawyer hat and joins Jennie and Dianne to discuss legal issues that happen in and around cemeteries. In this episode they talk about the law regarding photography and cemeteries, accessing cemeteries on private property, what happens when someone...

Episode 31 - Last Great Mining Boom Cripple Creek, Colorado and Mt. Pisgah Cemetery 06.05.2021

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne take a trip to the past to explore Mt. Pisgah the ordinary extraordinary cemetery located just outside of Cripple Creek, Colorado. Cripple Creek is where Colorado's last great gold boom took place in 1891. Mt. Pisgah is the final resting place of hundreds of hard rock min...

Episode 30 - Lone Fir Cemetery in Portland, Oregon 29.04.2021

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. In this episode Jennie and Dianne explore Lone Fir Pioneer Cemetery in Portland, Oregon. They share the tragic stories of victims from a steamship explosion, the heart-breaking story of the first woman charged with murder in the Oregon territory,  they share an article written in 1922 about the...

Episode 29 - Cemetery at Indian Hot Springs State Park, Georgia 22.04.2021

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Dianne and Jennie attempt to uncover the history surrounding a wooded cemetery located inside of Indian springs State Park in Butts County, Georgia. We are hoping this episode will encourage anyone who has more information on this cemetery to let us know. Perhaps your ancestors are buried there...

Episode 28 - A Visit with Kristen Allen Founder of BloomBridge 15.04.2021

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Kristen Allen, founder of BloomBridge, joins Jennie and Dianne this week to discuss how a promise to her grandmother led to building a business that helps to connect the living and the dead. BloomBridge believes there is something to be said for remembering your loved ones. Honoring someone aft...

Episode 27 - Old Cemetery & the Ghost Town of Bannack, Montana 08.04.2021

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne share the history of Montana's oldest and best preserved ghost town and its cemeteries: Bannack, Montana.  They tell of the discovery of gold, the tenacity of the residents and they share some of the obituaries of those who were there when the town was born and when it wa...

Episode 26 - Stonecutter W.E.Lindsey and the Genoa Cemetery in Genoa, Nevada 01.04.2021

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Special guest Karen Dustman tells the stories of stonecutter W.E.Lindsey who is credited with carving many elaborate headstones in Nevada, California, Illinois and many other states. She also shares the research she and her colleagues have done to publish the stories of the many ordinary, extra...

Episode 25 - The Mysterious Grave of Miss Princess Nucassee Maeeoniii Jahan Sun Bow Wootton 25.03.2021

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne are joined by special guest Jeff Levy to learn the mysterious story behind a unique, exotic and mysterious headstone located in Denver, Colorado's Fairmount Cemetery.  We learn that not everything carved in stone is as it seems in this ordinary, extraordinary cemetery.  S...

Episode 24 -Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin, Ireland 18.03.2021

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne honor their Irish heritage by exploring Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin, Ireland. This ordinary, extraordinary cemetery is the final resting place to more than 1.5 million souls including Irish revolutionaries, poets, musicians, and many more wonderful people. It is also the site...

Episode 23 - Riverside Cemetery in Denver, Colorado 11.03.2021

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne visit Denver, Colorado's oldest, continuously operated cemetery, Riverside. They will discuss how Riverside Cemetery replaced Denver's first cemetery, how it lost its water rights, and tell three ordinary, extraordinary stories of some of its permanent residents. Whi...

Episode 22 - The Historic Topeka Cemetery & It's Women Residents 04.03.2021

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Join Jennie and Dianne as they talk with Lisa Sandmeyer, Superintendent at Historic Topeka Cemetery in Topeka, Kansas. Lisa is a wonderful storyteller as she introduces us to several fascinating women who are permanent residents of the cemetery. Some of these women include: Dr. Harriet Adams, (...

Episode 21 - Old Clarkesville Cemetery - Clarkesville, Georgia 25.02.2021

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Lane Gresham and Brooks Garcia join Jennie to tell the stories of those buried in the Old Clarkesville Cemetery in Clarkesville, Georgia. They will introduce us to "the meanest man in Georgia", one of the first great photographers, a young man who lost his life in a tragic farming acc...

Episode 20 - Exploring Grover's Corner Cemetery in Act 3 of the Play "Our Town" by Thornton Wilder 18.02.2021

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie, Dianne and special guest Lara Maerz explore Act 3 of Thornton Wilder's play "Our Town". The entire act takes place in the town cemetery. Find out how the fictional cemetery of Grovers Corner, New Hampshire compares to many small town cemeteries across America and around t...

Episode 19 Love Beyond the Grave 11.02.2021

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Love is in the air! OR buried beneath the soil! Join Jennie and Dianne as they visit Layton Cemetery in the town of Blackpool in Lancashire, England and Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh, North Carolina. Both of these cemeteries hold the remains of star-crossed lovers and their stories are retold in...

Episode 18 - Special Guest Deborah Andres and Funeral Service Around the World 04.02.2021

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne talk with special guest Deborah Andres. Deborah has dedicated two decades of her life to the funeral profession with an enduring mission to elevate death care to serve grieving families with empathy and professionalism. She spent 5 years at Ang Chin Moh Group, one of the most...

Episode 17 - The Great Fire of Salem 1914 - Walnut Grove Cemetery and The Old Burying Point 28.01.2021

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. In this episode Jennie and Dianne travel back in time to experience June 25, 1914 in Salem, Massachusetts. On that day the worst fire Salem has ever known swept through much of the city destroying homes, churches, businesses and even part of its first and oldest cemetery, The Old Burying Point....

Episode 16 - America's First 10 Presidents and Where They're Buried 21.01.2021

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne virtually visit the gravesites of the first 10 presidents of the United States of America. They also share a bit of each of their inaugural  addresses based on what was happening at the time each of these men took the oath of office. By examining each of these addresses, we le...

Episode 15 - Cemetery Task Force - Natural Disasters, Restoration & Body Recovery 14.01.2021

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne are joined by Ryan Seidemann and Christine Halling of the Louisiana Cemetery Task Force to discuss what happens to cemeteries and their permanent residents when natural disasters such as floods and hurricanes strike. They share their experience and expertise on planning strate...

Episode 14 - The Old Burying Ground and the Wreck of the Brig Hattie Eaton off Kittery Point, Maine 07.01.2021

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. In this episode Jennie and Dianne pay a visit to the Old Burying Ground, also called the First Congregational Church Cemetery, in Kittery Point, Maine where lie the bodies of six sailors who lost their lives in a wintery sea accident in 1876. It is a tale of woe and one of a community joining t...

Episode 13 - Happy New Year and the Spoon River Anthology 31.12.2020

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Join Jennie and Dianne as they read select and rather juicy poems from The Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters. These poems are written from the perspective of those buried in the cemetery of the fictional town of Spoon River. Meet husbands and wives who drive each other crazy, the madam...

Episode 12 - Tilly's Christmas & Louisa May Alcott's grave in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, Massachusetts 24.12.2020

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Merry Christmas! In this episode Jennie and Dianne make a brief stop at the graveside of Louisa May Alcott and then retell one of her Christmas short stories, Tilly's Christmas. We wish you a very merry Christmas! Support the show

Episode 11 - Arctic Explorers of Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia 17.12.2020

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne travel back in time to explore the Arctic and the North Pole with three explorers who are buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia. Will they meet up with the jolly man in red on their journey? They also tell the story of how Wreaths Across America began an...

Episode 10 - Hanukkah and the American Revolution - Chatham Square Jewish Cemetery in New York City 10.12.2020

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Dianne and Jennie learn the story of Hanukkah and how it parallels to the American Revolution through the war heroes buried in Chatham Square Jewish Cemetery in New York City, New York. They will share the stories of Gershom Mendes Seixas, Jonas Phillips, Haym Salomon, and several others who fe...

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