The Ordinary, Extraordinary Cemetery

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 journey through the intertwining worlds of music, storytelling, history, and cemeteries. This week the ladies are joined by musicians Patrick Dyer Wolf and Avi Vinocur from folk rock band Goodnight, Texas. Together they explore the connection between music and...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne conclude their series on fraternal organizations in this episode, where they explore a distinctively American fraternity formed with the purpose of assisting veterans of the Union army after the American Civil War. Known as the Grand Army of the Republic, or simply G.A.R., it...

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 dive into the origins of the Knights of Pythias, a fraternal organization founded on the values of Friendship, Charity, and Benevolence. Discover how the story of Damon and Pythias inspired Justus H. Rathbone to create this organization and how it became the first...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Fraternal organizations have a long and rich history throughout the world and especially in America. This week Jennie and Dianne begin a new series of episodes dedicated to the many fraternal organizations whose symbols often grace headstones and who even have cemeteries of their own. In this e...

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Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. This week Jennie and Dianne stray from the cemetery to explore the gruesome and shocking details of the Burke and Hare murders that gripped Scotland in 1828. These two notorious murderers are responsible for one of the most infamous killing sprees in history. Learn about how they lured their vi...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. With Easter just a few days away, Jennie and Dianne dive deep into the mysterious and controversial subject of the Shroud of Turin. This ancient piece of cloth is believed by many to be the burial shroud of Jesus Christ himself, but its authenticity has been the subject of much debate and scien...

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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 celebrate Women's History Month as they explore the lives and legacies of two women who helped to tame the Wild West.  First we'll meet Margaret Tobin Brown, more famously known today as Molly Brown. She was a socialite and philanthropist known for h...

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 explore the aftermath of the Salem Witch Trials in part three of their series. Discover what happened to the victims and accusers after the trials, including the difficult lives many faced, as well as the memorials and tombs in cemeteries dedicated to them. Reflec...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. In this week's episode of The Ordinary Extraordinary Cemetery, Jennie and Dianne continue their series on the infamous 1692 Salem witch trials. Last week, they talked about how Tituba's confession triggered a chain of events that shaped the course of the trials. This week, they explor...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne discuss the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 in part one of a two part series. The Salem witch trials were a dark moment in American history that resulted in the execution of 20 people accused of witchcraft. The hysteria began in 1692 in the small Massachusetts town of Salem, when y...

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 share heartwarming stories of love for children. The first story takes us back to the Great Depression era, where a family relies on the kindness of their neighbors to provide a burial place for their baby. The second story tells of a group of men who rediscov...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." Happy belated Valentine's Day! In this episode Jennie and Dianne are continuing a month of love by featuring three Ordinary Extraordinary love stories, two of them all the way from New Zealand's Karori Cemetery! The final story is...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne kick off a month of love as they delve into the fascinating bond between humans and their beloved equine companions. From the majestic thoroughbred racehorses to the reliable mules, these creatures have captured our hearts and imaginations for centuries. And in this episode, t...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. "This is one time where television really fails to capture the true excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather.​" Phil Conners, "Groundhog Day" - For the past 136 years at 7:20am on February 2nd 15 men dressed in tuxes and top hats gather round a chubby, brown-fur...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Whitehall cemetery, also called Whitehall burial ground or Whitehall graveyard, is the oldest burial ground in Mystic, Connecticut being set aside for the purpose in 1644. This cemetery contains many excellent examples of 17th and 18th century stone carving tradition including death's head...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Dianne and Jennie continue to answer your questions in this second Q and A installment of the Ordinary Extraordinary Cemetery podcast. They discuss an old-wives tale regarding burial of those who die by suicide, answer questions about how they do their research for each episode, and share some...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne kick off 2023 by answering many questions posed by their listeners over the course of the previous year. They begin this two-part episode by covering the legal definition of an abandoned cemetery and how this definition determines either the survival or removal of a burial gro...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne have made a tradition of sharing classic Christmas stories each year and have chosen an especially lovely to share as we say goodbye to 2022 and hello to the new year. This year the ladies pay a quick visit to the grave of Harriet Beecher Stowe whose novel "Uncle Tom&apos...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. "Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse." Opening lines to one of the most well-known and well-loved Christmas poems of all time, but how did they come to be? In this episode Dianne and Jennie have a delightful chat wi...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Hanukkah has become a part of the Jewish-American experience that was essentially brought about by two Rabbis who worked tirelessly during the mid 1800s to improve Jewish life and beliefs in America. Dianne and Jennie pay a virtual visit to Walnut Hills Jewish Cemetery in Evanston, Ohio where t...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne pay homage to a man whose legacy has held much sway over the world for more than 150 years when he stipulated in his will that his fortune was to be "deposited in a fund, the interest of which should be divided into five parts and to be used for Prizes in Physics, Chemist...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne continue to explore Old Burial Hill cemetery in Plymouth, Massachusetts. They recount a love story that took a very long time to come true. They also visit the grave of the first American casualty of a foreign war, and they clear up some myths and misconceptions about two of t...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Happy Thanksgiving! Dianne and Jennie explore Old Burial Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts. This is Plymouth's second oldest burial ground and the possible final resting place to some of the Mayflower passengers as well as many of their descendants. They delve into the true story of the rela...