This area of Elmwood Cemetery has changed very little from 1915 (above) to today (below).
Dear T.R.: Ever since I identified a view of overgrown gravestones as an early view of Calvary Cemetery, I fear that I’ve become the “go-to” guy for unusual, and I might add, rather challenging queries like this. This is a rather curious photograph, too, because it shows a man (barely visible at far right) apparently gazing down at an open area between other gravestones. What was he looking at, I wondered?
I’d like to say that my explorations of our region’s graveyards have provided me with a photographic memory of their imposing markers and monuments, and so it was only a matter of minutes before I was able to determine, with absolute certainty, that this blurry, tilted image was taken in Elmwood Cemetery.
But the truth is that I would have been stumped if I had not been able to read a single name — Sarah Wilson Weiner — on a larger marker pictured here, the one at the far left. Armed with that information, I was able to review Weiner’s death certificate, which told me she had been buried in Elmwood in 1928. Her husband, Frederick, was struck and killed by an automobile in 1936, but for some reason, his name isn’t carved on the gravestone; perhaps he isn’t buried here.
Elmwood, sprawling over 80 acres, is a rather large cemetery, so I sought the help of cemetery historian Kelly Sowell, who searched through their records — an amazing treasure trove that goes back more than 150 years. She directed me to the precise location of your photo in the Turley section of Elmwood, close to the intersection of McKellar and Wellford Avenues.
As you can see from the “now” photograph, it is the same view. The main difference is the lack of stone borders that once separated the various family lots; these were often removed over the years because they made mowing the grass difficult. And I hope you’ll notice another, rather important difference. That open area in the older image is now occupied by a modest gravestone for a young woman named Susie Bell Parker, and in fact, this is who I’d like to talk about.
This grave, I believe, was the main purpose of your old photograph, and her death records allowed me to date the image. Parker, identified as a housewife, died in 1915. She and her husband, Arthur, lived on the finest street in Memphis (by that, I mean “best-named”); they shared a home at 649 S. Lauderdale. Arthur worked for years as a machinist for one of this city’s earliest automobile manufacturers. According to old city directory ads, his employer was “the Memphis branch of the White Company of Cleveland, Ohio, builders of gasoline cars and motor trucks.” He is apparently not buried here, and I was not able to turn up his death certificate. I often wonder if he is the man looking at his wife’s grave in the old photo.
The somewhat unusual tombstone at the far right, which looks like blocks of stone topped with crossed logs, marks the graves of W.E. and Mattie Tate. The wife passed away in 1911; the husband’s death date is, curiously, left blank on the tombstone. The smaller marker, just to the left of that one in the old photo, guards the last resting place of Jennie Firth Bell (1859-1909), who was Susie Bell Parker’s mother.
Were all these people related in some way? I can’t say. It was hard enough tracking down the location shown in the old photo.
