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

  Director Max Reinhardt, entombed in Westchester Hills Cemetery's older community mausoleum near the front of the cemetery, had a deeply personal connection to The Sound of Music. His legacy is not only marked by the founding of the Salzburg Music Festival but also by his inspiration for the character, Max Detweiler. After his passing, his son, Wolfgang, continued this connection by acquiring the film rights from Maria Von Trapp. In Salzburg, his former home, Schloss Leopoldskron, was used for some exterior scenes in the movie and is now a boutique hotel with three Sound of Music-themed suites.

One summer day, while wandering the grounds of the Gate of Heaven cemetery, I came across an alabaster statue of Mary cradling Jesus in an open grassy field. The statue was striking, but the Greek surname on the gravestone, which is not often seen in Catholic cemeteries, caught my attention. There was also something faintly familiar about the name. I soon realized that I had stumbled upon the grave of Spyros Skouras, a movie executive and former president of 20th Century Fox Studios. I wondered how many others had passed by, unaware of who he was and what he had accomplished. Born to humble beginnings in Ilia, a small village in Greece, Skouras boarded a boat to America with two of his brothers in search of the American dream. He truly found it. The man who once sold popcorn in American movie theaters rose to become the president of 20th Century Fox. During his 20-year tenure—from 1942 to 1962, the longest in the company's history—he oversaw the production of major films such as Th...

Wealthy industrialists William Robertson and Mary "Mai" Rogers Coe,  are entombed within a stately mausoleum in a leafy alcove toward the eastern end of Memorial Cemetery of St. John's Church on Long Island's north shore.  Their former Oyster Bay homestead has served as a state park—Planting Fields Arboretum—since 1949, are entombed within a stately mausoleum in a leafy alcove toward the eastern end of the cemetery.

  One of the most unusual mausoleums I’ve encountered is in Brooklyn’s Cemetery of the Evergreens. Cylindrical in shape, and made of cast iron, it resembles a boiler tank, and for good reason. It is the final resting place of W.H. Guild, whose firm, Guild and Garrison, manufactured pumping material.

  Capt. Alexander Joseph Swift was the son of Brigadier-General Joseph G. Swift, West Point's first graduate. During the Mexican-American War, Capt. Alexander Swift trained U.S. Military Academy officers for deployment to Mexico. It was there, during the Battle of Vera Cruz, a 20-day siege of the Mexican seaport, that Swift contracted dysentery. He died less than a month after the battle ended and is buried in Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery.

Harry James Luke Foale, a Brooklyn resident for most of his life, ran a successful interior decorating business. His name often appeared on the Brooklyn Society pages, a testament to his thriving eneterprise. However, one newspaper mentioned that Foale could have done without was his arrest in 1890 for -unknowingly- buying a stolen horse. Foale died in 1928 at his home, Irisdale, in Northport, Long Island. His funeral service took place at the Fairchild Funeral Home's Brooklyn branch. A year later, the family mausoleum was completed. Foale is entombed with his wife, Emily, in Brooklyn's Cemetery of the Evergreens.

Situated prominently near the main entrance of the Cemetery of the Evergreen's, in Brooklyn, t he impressive mausoleum of Philip Steingotter, a builder from Brooklyn, also holds the remains of his wife, Elizabeth, as well as their daughter, Lillian Reichers, and her husband, Herman, who died at the age of 33. When Philip died in 1932, he left behind an estate worth over $200,000, a substantial sum for that period.