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

Until his death in 1877, Dr. Noel d’Alvigny was one of the most prominent doctors in Atlanta. An original faculty member and former president of Atlanta Medical College (renamed Emory University School of Medicine), he is credited with saving the school from burning down at the hands of General Sherman’s troops. In 1850, d’Alvigny performed an entirely different kind of helpful act. Soon after Atlanta’s Oakland Cemetery opened, Dr. James Nissen became the cemetery’s first interment. The physician died while visiting Atlanta during a medical convention. Afraid of being buried alive, Dr. Nissen requested that his colleague, Dr. d’Alvigny, open his casket at Oakland Cemetery and sever his jugular vein. Although Nissen’s headstone is now faded and illegible, a plaque at the site recalls this incident. Dr. d’Alvigny is believed to have inspired the character of Dr. Meade, the dedicated and wise doctor in Gone With The Wind—a plaque at his grave notes this.

Hattie McDaniel not only achieved immortality by playing Mammy in Gone With The Wind but also won an Academy Award for her role, becoming the first African American actor to do so. When she died in 1952, she was denied her wish to be buried in California’s Hollywood Memorial Park because of the cemetery’s “whites only” policy. Instead, she was buried in LA’s Rosedale Cemetery. After Tyler Cassity took over Hollywood Memorial Park in 1998—renaming it Hollywood Forever—he offered to have McDaniel’s remains disinterred from Rosedale and reburied. McDaniel’s family did not want her remains disturbed, so instead, Cassity had a four-foot pink and gray granite cenotaph erected in her honor. The cenotaph was unveiled to the public on October 26, 1999, the 47th anniversary of McDaniel's death, in a dedication ceremony to which the public was invited.

One of the most special places in Brooklyn is Green-Wood Cemetery. Twenty years ago, I saw it for the first time and thought it was the most magnificent cemetery I'd ever seen. And I had seen a lot of cemeteries in my career as a funeral director. Of course, back then, there was no way of knowing that twenty years later, in 2008, I would do a book about the place. But that's just what I did. After years of profiling noted cemeteries and famous funerals, as a freelance writer, I got the opportunity to delve into the history of the most famous cemetery in America. I knew many of Green-Wood's famous residents when I began the project. Still, as I continued to research by traversing the grounds and reading all I could about the place and its history, it became a question of winnowing down subjects to include in the book. If I were to do a  Green-Wood Cemetery  Part II, III, IV & V, I could not possibly include all the stories Green-Wood has to tell. I want to share some of ...