The Ordinary, Extraordinary Cemetery

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne delve into the spiritual beliefs of the Puritans and how those beliefs made them fear death, but also brought comfort in times of grief. We discuss how these beliefs affected their dress, daily living, death rituals and burial. These Ordinary Extraordinary were constantly prea...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. In honor of Veteran's Day, Jennie and Dianne sit down with the executive director of Wreaths Across America, Karen Worcester, to learn how a serendipitous mistake led to National Wreaths Across America Day, and the mission to Remember, Honor and Teach by coordinating wreath-laying ceremoni...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Dianne and Jennie are joined by special guest Janet Richardson from Fairbanks, Alaska who shares stories of those buried in Fairbanks's first cemetery and shares many of the details of the years of restoration and preservation that has kept this cemetery alive. Clay Street Cemetery, former...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Join Jennie and Dianne for this very special Halloween edition of the Ordinary Extraordinary Cemetery podcast. Grab your favorite warm beverage, turn the lights down low, and curl up with a cozy blanket as we visit the legendary village of Sleepy Hollow where rumor claims a Headless Horseman ro...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Dianne and Jennie are joined by not one, not two, but seven special guests on this episode to talk about Washington Irving, his life and his writings. Our guests are professor Tracy Hoffman who teaches Early American Literature at Baylor University and her  students who are specifically studyin...

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 Drifter and Gypsie of the Rebel at Large Adventure podcast for a special Friday the 13th...err... Thursday the 13th visit to the Hope Moravian Cemetery, located in Hope, New Jersey. This cemetery is featured in the movie Friday the 13th in which its high arched,...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. This episode should have been an episode with a group of very special guests, however, technical difficulties made that impossible so instead, join Jennie and Dianne for a trip down memory lane and enjoy the performance of our first ever Beyond the Grave event which featured Cemetery Wanderings...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. "Not far from this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little valley or rather lap of land among high hills, which is one of the quietest places in the whole world." This is how Washington Irving describes his imaginary village of Sleepy Hollow in New York, that over time was...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Dianne and Jennie chat with special guest Ahna Wolff. Ahna took a trip to Edinburgh, Scotland over the summer in order to study, but she made time to visit four of Edinburgh's most historic cemeteries: Old Calton Cemetery, New Calton Cemetery, Canongate Kirkyard, and most famously known, G...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Dianne and Jennie have often discussed cemeteries that have been moved, meaning the dead have been disinterred and moved to a new burial site. In this episode they cover just such a story that took place in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado on August 22, 2022 and caught the attention of many loca...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne look back through the first 99 episodes of The Ordinary Extraordinary Cemetery podcast. They discuss some of their favorite episodes, highlight clips from memorable moments with guests, and share comments and reviews from listeners. Many thanks to all those who have listened a...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. How have the people of Venice, Italy buried their dead over the centuries? Founded in the 5th century and spread over 118 small islands, Venice became a major maritime power in the 10th century. Some of these Ordinary Extraordinary Venetians were buried in a crypt beneath Basilica di San Marco,...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. New Orleans, Louisiana is famously known for its intricate above ground cemeteries, but what about the cemeteries that have been lost to time? In this episode Jennie and Dianne speak with returning guest, Ryan  Seidemann, about the Ordinary Extraordinary cemeteries that have disappeared beneath...

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 learn about some of the craziest phenomenons that happen in cemeteries, such as exploding casket syndrome and what happens when a body is too big for a casket. They also discuss how the American civil war transformed traditional coffins to the more ornate caske...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Dianne and Jennie chat about their upcoming fundraiser, Beyond the Grave: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Dianne also gives an update about the raising and resetting of many of the old military stones that have sunk at Evergreen Cemetery in Colorado Springs. A casual cemetery chat for cemetery lov...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne learn about Francis Scott Key and his gravesite at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Frederick, Maryland. Francis Scott Key was a complicated man who opposed war, but believed in the freedom of the nation. He fought for the freedom of black people while at the same time owning slaves h...

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 Jan MacKell Collins, author of The Good Time Girls book series to discuss the Ordinary Extraordinary lives of dancehall girls and ladies of the night who made their living during the days of the Wild West into the early 20th century. They visit the...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne explore Evergreen Cemetery in Juneau, Alaska. Founded in 1891, Evergreen Cemetery has become the final resting place to many of Juneau's pioneers. They share the ordinary extraordinary stories of two Tlingit women who were instrumental in preserving and continuing their n...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email.  "And those who have undergone [life in Alaska] claim that in the making of the world God grew tired, and when He came to the last barrowload, just dumped it anyhow, and that was how Alaska happened to be." - Jack London - Jennie is joined by special guest co-host Dave Johnson to disc...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne discuss the many cemeteries Jennie was able to visit while in Alaska. From the coastal town of Ketchikan to the center of the state in Fairbanks, learn about how life on the final frontier helped to create unique burial grounds and monuments to those ordinary, extraordinary so...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Dianne and Jennie share news of Oakland Cemetery in Little Falls, Minnesota, and how residents and the cemetery board are clashing when it comes to its care and maintenance. They also share some ordinary tales and extraordinary stories of Oakland's permanent residents: From relatives of Ch...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. In episode 87 Jennie and Dianne talked briefly about the Potter's Field that used to exist where a baseball field is now in Chicago's Lincoln Park. In this episode they delve deeper into the City Cemetery, why the city decided it should be dismantled and what happened to those who ori...

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 Jeffrey and Sarah, hosts of Salem the Podcast and two of Salem's best tour guides, to talk about the symbolism and other attributes of many of the cemeteries located in Salem, Massachusetts.  From the death's heads and full body skeletons on gravestones...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email.  Most cemeteries, both old and modern, contain a section often referred to as a Potter's field. In this episode, Dianne and Jennie discuss the history of Potter's fields and gravesites. From Lincoln Park in Chicago, Illinois to Hart Island in New York City, New York to quiet graves th...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. In this episode Dianne and Jennie learn about one man's heartache and how it led him to build a magnificent mausoleum and gorgeous Victorian mansion. John Bowman built his wealth owning several tanneries and selling leather goods to the Union army during the civil war. However, his true ha...