Dead men to tell tales on cemetery stroll

• Cemetery stroll

Julie Buntjer/Daily Globe Jane Wildung-Lanphere, director of the Luverne Area Chamber of Commerce, stands next to the gravestone of Roby Parriott. The front plate on the stone removable, and the compartment was used for bootlegging.

Talk about it

LUVERNE — Maplewood Cemetery in Luverne has its share of fascinating tombstones, some made of towering chunks of quarried rock, while others are quite old and ornate. Now, a Sunday afternoon cemetery stroll, Stories from the Graves, will shed more light on a few of the people buried beneath the markers.

The event, from 1 to 4 p.m., is a fundraiser for the Rock County Historical Society, and involves the collaboration of a Luverne High School English class, a retired cemetery sexton, the Luverne Area Chamber of Commerce and more than half-a-dozen re-enactors who will be dressed for Sunday’s event in period clothing. It’s the first-ever cemetery stroll in Luverne and has been nearly two years in the planning.

Jane Wildung-Lanphere, Chamber director, said the idea for the stroll came from a Luverne woman who attended a similar event in a Minneapolis cemetery with family and friends.

The planning started to fall into place after Lanphere and local historian Betty Mann visited with Vance Walgrave, the former Maplewood Cemetery sexton and owner of Those Blasted Things and Luverne Monuments.

“He started telling us some tales,” Lanphere said. “Then we worked with Elaine Harms’ advanced college English class and challenged those students. We identified the stories we wanted to do, and those students did the research. They found the newspaper articles that were the basis for the stories. Since then, we’ve talked to people who might have heard little things.

“We gathered all those tales, and then we embellished them,” she added with a laugh.

Seven re-enactors will either stand or sit by the gravestones Sunday afternoon as visitors stroll through the grounds to hear the stories. Another six locations in the cemetery will be marked and people can refer to maps and booklets containing the stories, both of which will be provided at the cemetery’s chapel — the starting point for the tour.

“Some of the stories aren’t really about the person, but about what happened after they died,” said Lanphere.

One such example of that is the story of Minnie Meloy, a 14-year-old girl who died suddenly on Oct. 4, 1908. Because there was no known reason for her death, it was customary to conduct the burial within a day.

As the casket containing Meloy’s body was carried down the wooden plank sidewalk, it slipped from the hands of the pallbearers and fell to the ground. The jarring knocked the cover from the casket and before it was put back in place, significant scratch marks were noted on the inside of the cover.

“The family immediately called out the doctor,” Lanphere shared.

The doctor listened for a pulse and, finding none, took out a scalpel and slit the girl’s wrists. When no blood appeared, the lid was reattached and the girl was buried.

Other stories shared during the cemetery stroll tell of Baby Unknown, discovered by three young men in the Magnolia city dump in February 1939; and Transient, a male who was decapitated after falling from a train north of Hills. The transient was found with seven slices of bread wrapped in oil paper, a toothbrush, safety razor, some matches and cigarette papers, a lady’s colored handkerchief and a dime. Nothing was found to identify him.

One re-enactor, George Langford, will portray a bootlegger as he shares the tale of the tombstone marking Roby Parriott’s grave. Parriott was an upstanding resident of the community, but his marker, made of metal, allowed for some shady activity to be conducted in Maplewood Cemetery during and shortly after the days of prohibition.

“There’s a plate on it you can unscrew, and back during Prohibition, they used to put $5 and an empty flask in there,” Lanphere said.

The next morning, the person would return to find the flask filled with moonshine.

“One guy used to tell my mom that he bought his booze there during Prohibition,” Lanphere said. “It carried on after Prohibition because they didn’t have to pay tax.”

The plate on Parriott’s marker can no longer be removed —it was soldered shut years ago.

Mann will stand by the grave of Inez Isabella Drew Smith, the first female undertaker in Minnesota; while Knute Oldre, a recent attendee of the Montana-based Missoula Children’s Theater Acting Camp, will portray Harold Hanson, whose wife went out of her mind and killed all five of the couple’s children on Jan. 24, 1919, at their home in Sherman, S.D.

There will also be a story shared about the history of the sidewalks and cemetery plots — one that pitted the all-female cemetery sidewalk association against the all-male cemetery association. The case went all the way to the Minnesota Supreme Court, and the women came out the victors.

Sunday’s cemetery stroll is free to the public, and will include live Celtic music performed by Trefoil from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Following the event, homemade ice cream and pie will be served for a free-will donation to the Rock County Historical Society.

Lanphere said the stroll is a “healthy” walk, and people who may need assistance can be taken from site to site with golf cart shuttles.

“You can just come and go,” she said. “It’s going to be fun and it sounds like it’s going to be a beautiful day.”

To reach Maplewood Cemetery, take U.S. 75 north from Interstate 90 to West Warren Street, then turn left and follow West Warren to the cemetery.

Daily Globe Reporter Julie Buntjer may be reached at 376-7330.

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