As mentioned on April 1st 2011 I’ve decided to invite friends of mine who are fellow grave hunters to be guest writers on the Graveside Stroll blog. I pretty much gave them free rein on what they can talk about just as long as its grave hunting related.

The next installment of the “Grave Hunting Chronicles” comes to us from well-respected grave hunter, Mark Masek who is the author of the book “Hollywood Remains To Be Seen: A Guide To The Movie Stars Final Homes”  So without further adieu here is ” Reminiscing About Being A Grave Hunter”

For me, the most exciting, interesting, rewarding and fun part of grave hunting isn’t finding the final resting place of someone you’re looking for, but finding someone you weren’t looking for.

When I started as an active grave hunter, I had my list of celebrities that I wanted to find and photograph. I visited the cemeteries, read the reference books and websites, and eventually checked most of the names off my list. (And I can’t say I did it without a great deal of help from my fellow grave hunters and friends in the “Hollywood Underground,” who always seemed to be able to find everyone worth finding long before I did, and helped to point me in the right direction.)

Now, one of the most enjoyable aspects of grave hunting for me is just wandering through a new cemetery, or through an unexplored section of a cemetery I’ve visited many times before. Josh describes his blog as “geared towards the gravesites of anyone famous, infamous, notable, and noteworthy.” For me, that means everyone.

Cemeteries are like libraries. They contain the final resting places of thousands of people, each with their own separate and unique story. Some of these people are famous, and their stories are well known. Most are not, but that doesn’t make their life any less interesting, or their stories any less worthy of being told and remembered.

As I wander through the cemeteries, I like to read the names and the inscriptions on the grave markers. Sometimes the marker will also include a symbol or picture to give you an idea about the person, what they liked, how they lived, who they really were. I’ve seen musical notes, golf balls, Scrabble tiles, fishing poles, airplanes and dozens of other symbols and bits of information that help to paint a picture with a little more meaning than just a name, date of birth and date of death.

Sometimes, the grave marker will create more questions than it answers, and that’s when the research part of the hobby kicks in. A couple of years ago, I was wandering through Inglewood Park Cemetery, near Los Angeles International Airport. Inglewood is more than 100 years old, one of the largest cemeteries in the state, and has its share of notable residents, including Ray Charles, Betty Grable, former L.A. Mayor Tom Bradley, Cesar Romero, Edgar Bergen, Gypsy Rose Lee, Sugar Ray Robinson, and many more.

I was walking through an older section of the cemetery, and I saw a large marker, long enough and wide enough to cover an entire grave. It was in the middle of the section, far from the road, and the lettering on the marker was badly chipped and faded. It read: “Children of the Hope School who Perished by Fire – May 31, 1924,” followed by 10 names.

At the time, I had never heard of the Hope School, and no one I talked to had heard about it, either. So I started my research, looking through old issues of Los Angeles Times, checking online resources, searching through books on the history of Los Angeles. The story I found was a shocking, horrible and needless tragedy.

The Hope Development School opened in 1920, south of Los Angeles, along the beachfront, in an all-wooden building that had formerly been a hotel. The school served mentally handicapped girls, offering them basic educational and industrial training, and they also lived and slept in the building. Most of the girls were sent to the school from Juvenile Court, while others were brought by their parents who were simply unable to take care of them at home.

The County Public Welfare Commission, however, recognized the risk of a fire in the building, and attempted to have the school moved, but without any success. “When a suitable place is found,” one of the commissioners said, “usually it is our experience that people in the vicinity at once rise up in arms against it, and that their protests usually are recognized.”

On May 31, 1924, there were 41 people in the building — 38 residents, ranging in age from 4 to 26; two matrons; and the adopted 14-year-old son of the school’s owner. When the girls went to sleep, all the doors and windows were locked to prevent them from escaping, and some of the girls were tied to their beds.

Shortly after 9 p.m., a fire broke out in the building, which quickly burned to the ground. The Hope School fire claimed a total of 24 victims, including 22 students, one of the matrons, and the owner’s son. Most of the survivors suffered burns and other injuries.

Some of the fire victims were taken by their families and buried elsewhere. But, for whatever reason, these 10 victims were buried together at Inglewood Park Cemetery, sharing a grave and a grave marker. I haven’t yet been able to determine why they were buried here together. Did the school make the arrangements? Did the cemetery donate the plot? Had these children been abandoned and forgotten by their families in life, and now they were forgotten in death? Or were the families simply unable to afford a separate burial?

These children weren’t famous or successful or well known. In fact, they were literally shunned by society, through no fault of their own. The reason they died in an old building that was known to be a fire hazard was because no one in the community wanted them living in their neighborhood. But their lives were just as important, just as significant, just as notable and just as noteworthy as anyone else.

I wrote about the victims of the Hope Development School fire on my website, www.CemeteryGuide.com. And every time I go back to Inglewood Park Cemetery, I always pay them a visit, clean off their marker, and say a prayer. And I’ve noticed that they’ve been getting other visitors, too. Sometimes their marker is already cleaned off, and sometimes I find fresh flowers for them.

About a week ago, I received an email from a man who was working on his family history and researching his ancestors. Specifically, he was looking for information about the final resting place of his aunt, who died at the age of 14 in the Hope School fire. Through research on www.ancestry.com, a cousin in Tennessee and an anonymous poster on the www.FindaGrave.com website, he found my story.

He shared some information with me about his aunt. She was one of five children, and she suffered brain damage after having a high fever when she was a baby, and was sent to the Hope School. Two months before the fire, her mother died of tuberculosis, and less than a year after the fire, her father died, leaving the remaining four children orphans.

He also sent me the only photograph ever taken of his aunt, in 1921, three years before the fire, when she was 11 years old. She was tall and blonde, a very pretty girl, squinting in the sunshine, standing with her three sisters and their mother.

I never expected to get an email like that, and I’m sure he never expected a total stranger to be writing about his aunt’s death. But by telling me his aunt’s story, and sending me her picture, she became much more than just another name on a grave marker to me.

And it proved to me that cemeteries are full of these stories, sometimes tragic, sometimes uplifting, sometimes famous, sometimes obscure, but each one important, and each and every life worth remembering.

This story is ©2011 by Mark J. Masek

Special thanks go to Mark Masek for contributing this story.