Gardens of Stone --- A Cemetery Blog by Alexandra Kathryn Mosca

  It's been some time since I've photographed the Roeder mausoleum. After Saturday morning's funeral, I took a walk through the cemetery grounds, revisiting --and photographing-- some of my favorite sites. It was a misty (even rainy at times) and cloudy day, which made for optimal photography. also got a decent shot of the interior. The sandstone mausoleum resembles a castle and it holds the remains of Rev. Dr. Charles W. Roeder, who served as the longtime pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church in Flatbush, Brooklyn. Roeder, who belonged to an old Dutch family, also served as the chaplain of a local army and navy post.

 I came across this tombstone on a recent walk through Green-Wood Cemetery's Public Lots., and share it here on Valentine's Day 

The weather today was superb for a cemetery walk, With fall colors illuminated by bright sun, I enjoyed visiting some previously photographed sites, to offer a new perspective.  In the mid-19th century, successful tobacco merchant, John Anderson, was one of the suspects in the murder of his employee, Mary Cecilia Rogers. And even though he was never convicted of the murder, his arrest derailed his ambition to become mayor of New York City. Anderson died in France, and was entombed in this grand mausoleum high upon a hill in Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery.

  Green River Cemetery, in East Hampton, is filled with out-of-the-ordinary styles of memorialization.  These film reels mark the grave of Stan VanDerBeek, an acclaimed independent film maker.  Talk about unique! Two of his major works were included in the exhibit 'The American Independent Cinema: 1958-1964'' at the Whitney Museum of American Art, in 1984, the year VanDerBeek died.

Green River Cemetery, located in East Hampton, is one of the cemeteries I included in a 2019 article I did for Newsday about tombstone tourism on Long Island, for Newsday. While only three acres, there is an eclectic group of people buried here, and for many of them, boulders serve as tombstones. The grave of actor Peter Boyle, of 'Young Frankenstein' and 'Everyone Loves Raymond' fame is one example.

 For May's  American Cemetery & Cremation , I interviewed 5 popular Instagram taphophiles. In the article they talk about why they photograph cemetery monuments, what they look for, and what they hope to impart to readers.

Among the 50,000 + people buried in Mt. Ararat in Lindenhurst, New York, are some of Long Island’s most recognizable names. Foremost among them is Fortunoff. In 1922, Max and Clara Fortunoff began the popular retail store in Brooklyn moving   to Westbury in 1964. What became a shopping mecca for Long Islanders closed in 2009. Max Fortunoff died in 1987, at the age of 89. He is buried with his wife, Clara, daughter Marjorie Mayrock, who preceded him in death, and a number of other family members. The Fotunoff/Mayrock plot is located under a towering oak tree, on a shady corner, at the far end of the cemetery. His footstone reads: He Lived the American Dream .

  The grave of legendary jazz singer Billie Holiday (nicknamed Lady Day) is well visited, as evidenced by the memorabilia and stones left atop her grave in St. Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx. Diana Ross portrayed Billie Holiday in the 1972 movie 'Lady Sings the Blues' for which she won a Golden Globe and earned an Oscar nomination.