Stuff You Should Know - What's the deal with headstones?

Episode Date: August 26, 2014

Headstones have quite an interesting history. From the beginnings of marking graves with simple wood carvings to the elaborate tombstones that would come in the Victorian era, Chuck and Josh break down the deal with all things headstone in this episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Sun's out, Jerry's over there, it's the end of July. Is the sun out?

Can you tell him this tomb? I can see, I have a window, I can look out behind you over your shoulder. You must, I mean, this, I can't imagine you're not depressed. Oh, just staring at foam? Yeah, when I look behind me, it's like, geez. But you're the light.

Thanks. That just makes everything okay. It's so nice of you, you're making me blush. I know. So how are you doing? Oh, I'm sleepy. Okay, well, let's get this over with. So I can, what, take a nap?

Wanna guess, sir? We have those like Japanese style nap rooms here. We're very forward thinking. That would be wonderful. And HowStuffWorks. Yeah. I don't think I'd be able to do that at work. Take a nap?

No, no way. No, I don't think I would be able to either, but I would think it'd be wonderful just because it would show how progressive HowStuffWorks is. We should have nap cubbies that are like plexies. He can just watch people nap. How uncomfortable would that be?

Or, yeah, that'd be very uncomfortable. There's probably one or two weirdos here that would love to do that. Yeah. Jonathan Strickland sucks his thumb. Yeah. Not a surprise. Yeah, this was, we've cobbled together this one,

which is unusual. Yeah, where did you get some of the information? One was the International Southern Cemetery Gravestones Association, and the other was the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Boo-ya. Definitive sources. They know all about headstones and grave markers

and tombstones. Yep. With any name. Yeah, I think the professionals who make headstones or grave markers or tombstones call them funeral markers or grave markers. Yeah. That's the lingo, the jargon of the industry.

Yes, and this pairs nicely with our coffins podcast. Dude, it pairs nicely with a bunch of them. This is part of the dying suite. Yeah. We'll never end until we die. That's, here lies Josh and Chuck. The death suite. So, Chuck, you wanna talk a little bit

about the history of this stuff? Yeah. I've got a little bit of history, I don't know if you have or not, about how long humans have been burying the dead. Let's hear it. It's pretty old. Yeah.

As a matter of fact, there's evidence of weird funeral rights, kind of, or at least an assemblage of people acting differently, or an assemblage of primates acting differently around a recently deceased member of their group in Bonobo apes. So they'd like poke it and think it's not moving? I don't think they were poking it, but the way that they were interacting with one another,

like those with the highest rank had the most access to the body. Right. They were kind of guarding it from being disturbed. Yeah. So like early signs of respect? Yeah. Interesting.

Apparently Neanderthals, as well, used to, as far back as 250,000 years ago, there's evidence that parts of the dead Neanderthals were put away from the rest of the group in what you could consider like a resting place, like a cave or something like that. I wonder if that started because of just obvious things like smell and rotting bodies, or if it was just,

or maybe both. Well, I mean, we're hardwired for disgust, to experience disgust and disgust warrants. It's like, don't eat that poop unless it's a fecal transplant. Don't eat that vomit under any circumstances. There's a lot of stuff that you shouldn't do. Like don't eat that dead body. It's turned.

Yeah. It's not a nice, fresh, dead body. So I would guess that funeral rites grew out of our sense of disgust, like you're saying. Yeah, that's just kind of ambiguous stuff though, the Neanderthals, like they deflesh bones and then place the bones in separate places. Some people are like, well, it's evidence of cannibalism.

Other people are saying that's a funerary practice. Right. The unambiguous evidence of burials comes, I think about 80,000 years ago, between 40,000 and 80,000 years ago in Egypt, a child was buried next to a cobble pit. What's that? It's where you excavate stone to pave roads

or something with her. Gotcha. Although 40,000 years ago, they weren't making roads. I'm not sure what a cobble pit is. Nothing to do with shoes. It's an excavation pit. Okay. I guess that they were excavating stones to make tools,

I would guess, rather than roads. But there's a child buried by anatomically modern humans between 40,000 and 80,000 years ago. Wow. So we've been doing it for a very long time. Yeah. But this was just burial. Right.

While we're talking about our headstones. And they didn't come along until far after that. Right. Well, let's go back even further to Roman and Celtic times. Yeah. They had headstones that were kind of, it seems like they were pretty advanced for the time. And then there was a period where they weren't so.

Detailed, but early on they were super detailed. They would have pictures. They would describe things that happened, these battles that took place. If they died in battle. And same as in Scotland, they would describe the profession maybe. Sometimes it was pictorial.

Like if someone was a carpenter, they wouldn't say, here lies a carpenter. They would just have a hammer maybe. Right. Like a saw. Yeah, that's a dead giveaway that it was a carpenter. Scotland was very descriptive, apparently in their early days of headstones too,

they would describe professions. So like early on it seems just like the profession was a big deal. Right. Like this is what they did here on earth. And in other cultures too, there was this idea that you could erect a memorial to somebody by placing a stone or something,

an upright stone. Not necessarily at their grave, but like there's things called stelae that are basically just markers that say like this person did this. Right. Or this person fought this battle and won or lost. Right.

This person was great for some reason that makes us want to memorialize it by carving this into a stone and placing it upright. It never said this person didn't do so much. Not really. That came later. Right. In the 20th century.

But the idea of stones period was before gravestones even, I think the term headstone for what I gathered is from the Jewish custom of marking graves with stones. Yeah. And then I think the other cultures did that too. Like supposedly to keep the dead from rising, they would. I thought that was pretty cool.

But I've also heard, and I think it makes sense that they didn't want the bodies to be disturbed by you know, packs of wild coyotes. Yeah. So to combat that, and if you were lazy and didn't feel like burying, or you lived in a place where the dirt was just too hard. Yeah.

You could make something called a cairn or carn. Yes. A C-A-I-R-N, right? Yeah, I'm not sure how this pronounced. Which is basically like you lay the body on the ground. Maybe you dig out a little bit of a shallow pit and then you place rocks around and on top of it so that even like the hungriest coyotes

not gonna be able to get through this pile of rubble. Right. And then you may also erect like a marker at the head of it. Sure. And these I think at this point, pre-19th century, I don't even think there were cemeteries. It was just you would be buried near your family plot. Right.

Near your home with your family. Yes. But they weren't all gathered together. Bunch of dead people in one area. Well, the whole family was there. Yeah, but not like a cemetery. And then depending on where, how many people lived in a village say,

eventually that morphed into a churchyard. Yes. The graveyard was moved to the church because the church was so intertwined in people's everyday lives that it just made sense that that's where you would go to be buried. The thing is, these were almost purposefully gloomy places. Yeah.

They were... Reminders. Yeah, it was a reminder that you're gonna die. A memento mori. The churchyard itself was a reminder that you're gonna die. And they were not landscaped. They were usually, they had a fence around them maybe. And there were the markers, but that was about it.

It wasn't meant to be a place of solace or peace or meditation. Yeah, there's one over in my neighborhood. There's a churchyard cemetery. And it feels a little different than just your average cemetery. It looks a little different and it's, that seemed a little like, I don't know.

Well, the reason why is because you and I are used to what's called the rural cemetery movement. The RCM? Right. You know, you have that T-shirt, I know. But that came out of the 19th century, the, I think, the early, mid 19th century where this idea as cities built up.

Right. And people became further and further removed from nature. And you also had less and less space to just bury somebody in a churchyard. Yeah. They started moving the dead slightly to the outskirts of the city. Right.

And also put some thought into landscaping the area as well. So what you have is what you and I think of as a modern cemetery. Yeah. Very park-like, nice shrubbery, paved roads that allow people to go through. Yeah, a nice place for visitors. Yeah, so much so that very early on in the rural cemetery

movement and for a while, families would go picnic there on Sundays. It was like a park. Yeah. But you also plant your dead there, too. It was a little bit of both. But also during this time, it's not very surprising because during this time, death was so much more fully integrated

into the life of the average person. Yeah. That having a picnic there on a Sunday didn't seem to be bizarre or macabre. Yeah, there weren't the hang-ups like we have these days, it seems like. Right, because nowadays, it's sterilized and removed. Right.

Death is. Yeah. Back to the headstones, the Celts started using, once Christianity came to Ireland, they started using the Celtic Cross, which was originally the, I think, called the Sun Cross, which was a pagan symbol. Yeah.

But then, I think, St. Patrick put the Christian Cross over the Sun Cross, and we now had our Celtic Cross. And they started using that, became kind of a common, but again, not specific, just sort of like an unmarked grave still with the Celtic Cross. No inscription. Right, right, yeah. That didn't come until later.

But like you said, there was a lot of symbology or symbols attached. And then, over time, it evolved to include things like date of birth, date of death, the person's name, and then inscriptions later on. Yeah, and thanks also to the Irish. They were the first ones, I believe, to get a little cheeky with their sense of humor.

With 30 limericks. I don't know, but they probably had 30 ones. I can see that, yeah. But one example that in the article I read said, think of me as you walk by where you now stand, so once did I, which is, for the 18th century, that's big time funny. Right, because it rhymes.

Yeah, exactly. But again, that's what's called a memento mori. It's like a reminder that you're going to die. So don't get too big for your britches or don't forget to go live your life. There's all sorts of reasons for that. Yeah, in America, in the colonies, colonial times, it wasn't super fancy.

And they started to use things like limestone and marble instead of wood, which would last longer in sandstone. But then, in the 1860s, they moved to igneous rock, which I always want to say igneous because of. St. Ignatius? I always want to say it because Confederacy of Dunces, I think. Was it the name of one of the characters?

Yeah, the main guy, Ignatius Riley. Oh, was it? It's igneous. What about St. Ignatius? Who? I don't know. Who was that? If there was ever a name for a saint, it's Ignatius.

St. Ignatius. But was he the saint after all? I don't remember. I just, his name always stood out to me like, bad is a saint's name. The patron saint of podcasting. All right. In the 1860s, though, they started

using the igneous rock, which is underground, cooled rock. And that was much more permanent because other stuff crumbled in, you know, the sandstone. Yeah. Let's talk about weathering, shall we? And in colonial times, too, when they were using these markers and headstones. So symbology has been a part of headstones

for a very long time, whether it was the Celtic cross or a saw to indicate a carpenter or whatever. And in the colonies, apparently, they like to remind everybody that only the most pious select few were going to go to heaven the rest of year are going to hell. No bones about it, buddy. You are going to hell. Sorry.

And I would like to use my headstone to remind you of it. So I'm going to put a skull and crossbones on it. The death's head. They carved the death's head onto the gravestone to remind others that they were going to hell. That's what the Puritans did. Yeah. The Victorians were fancy in all ways.

So they had really elaborate headstones and tombs. And they were also big on the really nice park atmosphere. Well, that's what it grew out of was the Victorian era. Yeah. And you sent a link, too, about what some of the Victorian symbols mean, right? Yeah. They had some, there's weren't quite as,

they weren't intended to be a reminder that you're going to hell. They were a lot more hopeful. And a lot of these you still see on tombstones today, headstone like modern ones and people who are buried today. Like you'll see a bundle of wheat gathered together. And that's to indicate that somebody lived a nice long life and they were harvested and they will go on and into the next life. Yeah.

A gateway might be nice because that means that's the gateway to heaven. Yes. Any kind of arch or gate? Yeah. Butterfly is a symbol of resurrection. That's very nice. If you have a broken column, it indicates that you were cut down in the prime of life.

Oh man, that's sad. Taken too young. If you have a flower that's broken, have you ever seen that? No. It's like it'll be like a rose or something and then it's like snapped in two. That indicates that you died suddenly. And if it's a bud, if it's not an open flower,

it indicates it was a child. So it's like all this code. Yeah, an hourglass is the transience of this life. Right. Or a lamp, the light of truth. Classed hands, you know, where there's like somebody holding somebody else's hand? Yeah.

That means like, take care. I'll see you in a few years. Or the saddest maybe, maybe the willow tree. That's just mourning. That's just really sad. It is sad. But there's none of these are reminders that you're going to, you're going to go to hell when you die.

It's going to be bad. The Victorians were a little more uplifting. If anybody had their finger on the pulse of death, it was the Victorians. They just knew what they were doing. Another thing human beings did in the 18th century was mort safes, these cages, iron cages they would put over. But the Victorians were like, no, that's really untoward.

Well, let's get rid of those. Part of the reason why is because there wasn't that need for it anymore. It was, you remember the cairns or the cairns? I'm going to say cairns. And it's probably wrong. But that was to protect from coyotes disturbing the grave. You also said morgolons.

Yeah, morgolons. And jacama. Jacama. Jacama. Yeah, that's what I said. Loris and jacama. The mort safes were to protect the body from being dug up by people who were robbing graves

to sell the bodies to anatomists. Yeah, or I imagine maybe loot the body as well on your way. Like, here's your body. Disregard where that gold wedding band was on the finger. Remember Mr. Burns has the suit that Charlie Chaplin was buried in in a shadow box on his wall. That's a good one. And that brings us, I guess, I mean,

that's skipping forward, though, but the modern era, the last 100 years has been, I mean, headstone, the headstone industry is a big deal. It's, you know, people put a lot of thought into what goes on their headstone or their family's headstone and cost a lot of money. And you can be as ornate as you want to. Or you can do like in Royal Tannenbombs and invent your own.

Just lie. Fake headstone. Yeah. Just pretty good. You want to talk about some of these ones? Yeah, some of these epitaphs. We have this slideshow on stuffyoushouldknow.com called the 21 Remarkable Epitaphs.

And it is definitely worth checking out. And this one's my favorite, Chuck. Charles Bukowski? Yeah. Bukowski's Don't Try. I love that one, yeah. And he has a little pugilist, too. Yeah, well, he was a huge boxing fan.

I think he might have been a boxer himself. He died in 1994. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah. For some reason, I thought he was like in the 80s or something. No, he was still working in the 80s.

Yeah. Boy, he didn't look good there at the end. Well, he pretty much drank himself to death. I know, but he looked really bad. I remember seeing a documentary, I think, from the 80s or early 90s. Is it the one where he kicks his wife off of the couch or something?

He's like being physically abusive in the documentary on him? I think so. He wasn't a nice fella. No, he really wasn't. No. He's not at all. You saw Barfly, right? That's one of my all-time favorite movies.

Yeah, I figured. That's a good one. Whose is that one? Mitchell's. Oh, it's just a person. Yeah, these are just like noteworthy. Well, this sucks. Isn't that awesome?

Yeah, that seems like something I might do, actually. Well, this sucks on your gravestone? Yeah. Because this got me thinking of what I would want, you know? Yeah. And I mean, I didn't come up with anything, but I think I would just want something sort of like humble, like he tried his best.

But maybe didn't do such a good job all the time. You get it more? No, I mean, I wouldn't keep going on. I wouldn't want to like flout, like tout anything or trump up any life, you know? Like, here's a simple dude who tried to not be such a jerk. Right. How's that?

That's a good one. Hey, what about Mel Blanks? Yeah, that's all folks. Yeah, that's a good one. Man of 1,000 voices. That's very nice. Some of these are a little schmaltzy and sweet. This one was good.

Robert Clay Allison, his tombstone. He died in 1887 at the age of 47. His epitaph says he never killed a man that did not need killing. That's pretty good. That's a gun slinger right there. Did you know that only like four or five times in the history of the United States was there an actual gunfight in the center of town?

No, it sounds like a good don't be dumb. Oh, yeah. Make a mental note. OK. I think it's verified like five times or something. It's very much a movie thing. I mean, there were plenty of gun, you know, people shooting in gunfights, but.

But like the whole like. High noon, yeah, come out in the middle of town and draw your guns at the tick of the clock or whatever. You notice it was a surprisingly good movie, three o'clock high. Did you ever see that? Oh, yeah. Richard Tyson and Casey Semesco.

Yeah, I saw that when it came out and thought, man, this is kind of a different movie. Yeah. Then years later, it's sort of a cult favorite. Yeah, it's a good one. That guy, what was his name in the movie, The Bully? His real name? No, his name in the movie.

I don't remember. It was like he had like a scary first name or something. And he went on to a sale Arnold Schwarzenegger in kindergarten cop. I didn't see kindergarten cop. Really? Yeah. You should see it.

All right. You want to do any more or should we just tell everybody to go check these out? I think we should just, here, let's do this one more. Raised four beautiful daughters with only one bathroom and still there was love. That's nice. It is nice.

He wants to be morbid, you know? I don't know. I think there's something to be said. Yours is going to be so morbid, isn't it? Mine will probably say, boo. I'm coming to get you. And Chuck, one more thing about epitaphs and gravestones for we move on.

There was this thing, remember Y2K, the Y2K bug? Yeah, I wasn't sold on that to begin with. Well, there were a lot of potential problems. It wasn't just with computer programs. One of them was the grave marker industry. A lot of people, by their headstones ahead of time, and they had 19 and then nothing after the date. Because they expected to die in the 20th century.

Well, a lot of people had to have this filled in and re-etched because they lived into the 2000s. There was a big problem. And apparently, a lot of longstanding gravestone makers around the 60s or 70s started really trying to persuade their customers to not etch that in. A lot of people didn't listen. Some people did, some people didn't.

Why would you get that done ahead of time? I understand picking out your plot and what you wanted to say, but the actual etching, who cares? I guess these people really didn't want their families to have to do almost anything. I get that. Just put 9-9 in there. I wonder if they're all grumpy like, I'm alive.

It's 2000. Gotta call that guy. Yeah, exactly. I mean, what a thing to have on your to-do list. I know. I need to get my epitaph filled in and re-carved. Drink Oval Team, get epitaph re-carved. All right, so we'll move on here after this message break

and talk a little bit about military graves and government funded headstones. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new I Hard Podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. Ah, OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

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I think about this every day. Truly, every day of my life, I think about this and what I want to say. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. OK, so government furnished headstones. And this is from the Veterans Affairs website.

And I thought it was pretty interesting. They also call them Obama stones. That was off the cuff. That was good. Originally, I found it interesting that standard grave markers were even before the national cemeteries were established in 1862. And they had, prior to the Civil War, they had all these

frontier armies. And they would just bury you in a, don't bury me in the open prairie. Basically, they would bury you if you died in battle. Not a mass grave, as in they would dump everyone in there, but a mass grave site initially. Like they would just bury everyone together. And they wouldn't even market.

Yeah, or you were just buried in battle like where you died if things were really tough. Yeah, if you were lucky. I'm quite sure there are plenty of soldiers who were left on the frontier to basically be picked off by vultures. Sky burial. Sky burials on the American frontier. Yeah, you're exactly right, I'm sure.

But it wasn't until the 19th century that they started even marking these mass graves. It was like, oh, a bunch of soldiers died here. Let's take a pit, fill it in, and just forget about it. Then in the mid-19th century, the Crimean War, for example, they would raise a monument saying, there's a bunch of guys buried here who fell in this battle. And it wasn't until World War I that they started

to really try to individually bury men who fell in battle. Yeah, initially in the Civil War days, they used a wooden board and it would have a registration number and some sort of inscription, but they didn't keep any kind of records of burials at that point. That came along later as well. But once the Civil War happened, after the Battle of Manassas,

they were like, a lot of people are dying here. This is becoming a problem. Like we need to find a way to respect these soldiers. And so the quartermaster general from the generals' orders in September 1861 was directed to finally start keeping records and provide headboards. Headboards in blank forms to all of the commanders around the country.

Yeah, so they could just keep track of everything at least. Right, and this is the first time that anybody ever made a coordinated effort to track burials ever, apparently. Yeah, and after the Civil War, they made an effort for the first time to relocate people that were buried in battle and have them relocated to an official grave.

Yeah, a win. After the Civil War. Oh yeah, because they had a bunch of confederate dead that the southern states reclaimed and moved down south to bury so that they wouldn't have to be buried in any Yankee earth. Yankee dirt. In 1865 is when they started thinking, hey,

these wooden burial markers are not lasting very long. No, they were expected to last about five years. They each cost at the time $1.23, which is not cheap. No. And so when you suddenly multiplied that by the 300,000 expected dead from the Civil War that you had to bury and then maintain their headboards every five years, they suddenly were like, this is going to go well into a million

dollars over the next 20 years. Maybe we should come up with something a little more permanent than popsicle sticks. Yeah, it was the economics of it and the public sentiment started growing too to, hey, maybe we should memorialize these soldiers in a more permanent way, because a little wood thing that's rotting after a few years is pretty kind of a disrespectful thing.

And apparently, there was a huge and vigorous debate over what we should use as a headstone. Should we use something like marble, or should we use something like galvanized iron coated in zinc, which I wasn't even familiar. That was the thing until today. Yeah, I'd never heard of any of that. And I guess over the course of seven years,

there was a lot of debate and angry words flying. And I'm sure the marble industry was like, yeah, marble. And galvanized iron industry was like, you better get in there and get this passed. And then finally, the marble people won. Yeah, and in 1873, Secretary of War, William W. Belknap said, you know what, we're going to design these stones. They're going to be in national cemeteries.

They're going to be permanent, but they're only going to be for the known dead at this point. And the unknown came about later as well. And not only that, this is just for Union soldiers. Yeah, that was. We're not providing for the Confederate soldiers. That was a bit of a slap in the face. I believe they reversed that position later on.

Yeah, they did. And then anybody who'd ever fallen in battle in the United States got a marker. And they made different markers for the unknown dead. They were basically just blocks of stone. And then it had the grave, the burial plot carved into the top of it. And then eventually they said, oh, we're

going to make all of them the same. Everybody gets the same marker. Yeah, and they made it retroactive too and started including past wars, Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Mexican War and Indian campaigns, and then eventually the Spanish-American War. So a lot of thought went into it. I thought it was, I just kind of never really

think about that kind of thing. You just see Arlington, and you don't think about all the behind-the-scenes work and decisions that need to be made on exactly how to do that. Yeah, and they even did a study in 1902 to find out how the 1879 markers were holding up. And they said, we need to change these a little bit. So if anyone ever asks you what the official military

headstone in the US dimensions are. This would be the most arcane piece of trivia anyone would ever ask. It's pretty arcane. But you could probably impress some weird uncle or your grandpa or something like that with this one. The height of the stone is 39 inches tall, 12 inches wide, and the thickness is four inches.

And apparently the height extends 12 inches above the ground, so you have 27 inches very below the ground. Yeah. You've been to Arlington? Mm-hmm. It's pretty neat. It is really something. You go to Oakland Cemetery here in Atlanta?

Yep, been there too. Yeah, it's pretty nice. It is really something. Yeah, and Oakland even has, and I've always felt, I don't think I have death hang-ups, but they have like concerts there and stuff like that. Yeah. And I think they show movies there.

Yeah, I think so. Like in the outside? Yeah. There's some really neat mausoleums there. There's like a miniature Statue of Liberty. There's some really ornate, beautiful mausoleums. Bobby Jones, the famous golfer, is buried there. And there's a putting green on his grave site.

I've never seen that one. Yeah, if you, there's usually golf balls there. I think if you bring your own putter, you can just sit there and putt on his grave. Interesting. Well, I just recently saw Washington and Mrs. Washington's grave up there in DC, which was cool. But they were moved as well.

That one's really kind of, when you go there to Mount Vernon, you see them buried. Oh yeah, we saw that recently too. Yeah, you see, they were moved from their original one, but the original tomb is still there. And they made a nicer one. And then there is the slave burial ground, which is just a really kind of a sad place to visit.

Because it's not, I mean, they've done something now. But I don't know, it's just sort of a reminder of what went on. Which, speaking of that, Washington, it was like, he's lauded for freeing his slaves. But it was after, he freed them after he died. And then in his will, it was after Martha Washington was to die, then they would be officially freed. And you know, that's great, whatever.

He still held slaves until he died, at least. Martha Washington did something remarkable, though she gave the slaves that she inherited from her husband their freedom within a year of his death. She didn't wait until she died. She was like, do you guys be free? And I mean, in Washington's favor, for sure, he also provided substantial amounts of money for them

to just start a new free life. It was just like, you're free, good luck. It was, you guys are free, here's a new life for you. Right, did you go recently? Yeah, pretty neat. It is, it's like a really well done, I guess, living museum. Yeah, I went last year with just my sister and then went again. Actually, you and I probably went within the last few weeks

of each other, it's funny. Yeah, because I went with my niece and Emily and highly recommend going to Mount Vernon, it's amazing. And Monticello, too. I still haven't been there. It's amazing. Both of them are just really great spots to go check out. Yeah, it's pretty cool.

I mean, you can stand there and look at the bed where he died. Yeah, it's, you're like five feet from it. Yeah, I tried to get in and lay down and they, I got snow. Got smacked on the wrist. All right, after this break, we're going to talk a little bit about unmarked graves. Ooh. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new I Heart Podcast,

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I think about this every day. Truly, every day of my life, I think about this and what I want to say. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Chuck. Yeah.

I am interested in learning the definition of an unmarked grave as per, say, someone named Jolene. Well, it means it's a grave that's not marked, right? Pretty much. It's almost exactly what you think it is. It's if somebody is buried in a grave, and this is from this article from How Stuff Works,

according to Jolene Mason, who's the general manager of Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park, which is where a lot of celebrities are buried in Los Angeles. It's really one of the most useless quotes I've ever seen. She says, quote, if there's no marker, headstone, or name plate, and there is someone in the grave, it qualifies as unmarked, end quote.

She was probably like, duh, in her head. She hung up just shaking her head. There are many reasons. There's a lot of reasons why you might want your grave unmarked. Man, that was so caddy of us just then. To make fun of that lady? Well, to make fun of the quote, the whole thing. Yeah, that's right.

Sorry, everyone. I didn't think it was that caddy. I was moved to say something. All right. Like I said, there's a lot of reasons you might want, or not want. There's other reasons you might have an unmarked grave. Historically, you might have an unmarked grave

if you were a really bad person, like Himmler. Oh, his grave isn't marked. That makes sense. Yeah, and he's a pretty bad person. He's a bad person. Good example of a bad person. Hey, thanks. You're welcome.

Executed criminals a lot of times have unmarked graves. A lot of time is to show contempt for what they did on Earth. But a lot of times, too, it's also so it doesn't draw people there to go do bad things to face the grave in any way. Sure. Family victims or whatever. It's also if you die a pauper, you will be buried in what's called the Potter's Field.

And Oakland Cemetery has a Potter's Field. Yeah, there's one next to the theater, too, the Drive-In Theater. Is there a Potter's Field there? Oh, yeah. I didn't know that. Right next to it. But basically, it's just a plot of unmarked graves. Yeah.

And the state still does that. Yeah, the one next to Starlight Drive-In is like a lot of bad stuff goes on over there. Apparently, it's like prostitution and drugs. And yeah, what else could you do? You could scatter the remains of a bad person and not even have a grave at all. And that's what some of the Nazi war criminals, that was their fate.

Like Akemen and Göring, were just scattered. And so no one would know where they were. You know, it wasn't around then. But today, it would seem like if you came up against the Nazis again, the best way to dispose of their body would be something we mentioned in our episode, what are different ways to dispose of a body. Yeah.

And remember the autolysis one, where you turn into a viscous goo that can be poured down the drain? Yeah. That's what you should do with Nazis these days. Put it in the toilet and flush it? Yes. Yeah. Yes.

Pretty good. Heads up, Nazis. Yeah, but in some cities, don't they treat wastewater for eventual drinking water? The process of autolysis renders it sterile. So you can just pour it down the drain. But would you want to drink it? That was what mine.

I can't imagine the molecules that we drink, the things that we drink, or what they used to be, that still make it into our body on a molecular level. I'm sure it would be revolting to know. Sure. As a matter of fact, if anybody out there does know, if you work in wastewater treatment or something, share some stories.

Yeah, that'd be a good podcast. I don't know if I want to know. Do you remember the story of that poor girl in Los Angeles who went missing? She was on a trip there by herself for a few days. She was from Canada in the last couple of years. Oh, the one in the tank? Yeah.

They found her in the drinking and the hotel water tank on the roof after, I think, a week or two. Yeah, because people said the water tasted funny. Yeah, and looked funny. Yeah, she was the one that did the strange stuff with the elevator, right? Yes. Yeah, she was mentally ill.

That was really sad. Was it mental illness, or was she on drugs? I don't believe she had a history of mental illness. Yeah, she did. Oh, she did. Yeah. It is sad. It is sad.

I mean, it's sad either way. Yeah, but at first, it's like, oh my gosh, this is the creepiest thing I've ever seen, because her behavior was so weird. Yeah, if you look online, there's a lot of 16-year-olds that are like, the roof that she was possessed by a demon, and they actually mean it, Chuck.

They mean it. Come on, 16-year-olds. Get your act together. All right, and now, to close, we're going to go over some famous people with unmarked graves, because sometimes, if you're famous, your family might want an unmarked grave, so your grave site doesn't become a tourist stop.

That's one reason, I guess, because you ever been to, like, parade Lechey and- No, I haven't, but I've seen pictures. Yeah, I went, of course, because I was just out of college, way into the doors. And you didn't go to the Louvre. No, I went and looked at it. You don't like the doors anymore, though, do you?

Have you had this combo? It was a passing fancy, but I don't dislike the doors, but I was, like, really into them for a while. And then, now, I'm coming to Morrison. It was not much of a poet. I bought his poetry books back then, and I was all into the Lizard King. I think it's something that happens when you're 20.

Sure, yeah. But it's good music. I still like them. I was into Pink Floyd for a while, too, but I don't listen to them much anymore. They have a new album coming out from what I understand. Yeah, I did hear that, the old material that they've- That is going to be awesome.

Yeah, I still love Pink Floyd, but I don't- Not like I did when I was 14. Yeah. All right, Mozart, he's in an unmarked tomb, because even though we see him as a big shot, he, at the time, was not in the upper echelon of society. No, you had to be pretty highfalutin in the 18th century in Vienna to get a grave marker.

Yeah, so he's buried. They now have a- In the 1850s, they built a monument over where they think he was buried, and then that was later moved to a space where they just had honored various musicians that were buried there. And they put up another monument

near his original assumed, or presumed grave site at Mark's Cemetery, St. Mark's, M.A.R.X. And it has an angel leaning up against a broken column, which, as you remember, indicates someone who has cut down the prime of life, and Mozart died at age 35 suddenly, of rheumatic fever. Yeah, that's a sad one. The vapors, he had the vapors.

Oh, they call that? That's what I call them. Vienna's nice you've ever been there? No. Absolutely. It is. John Wayne, he is buried, and his family gives his reason for his unmarked grave

for just not wanting to be disrespectful to others that are also buried there, which I think is a pretty nice thing. That's kind of a, I don't want to say a trend, but a lot of celebrities' families do that. They're buried in unmarked graves, either because they have the same thought that you have, like-

Sure. If you want to be humble, you can't be much more humble than being buried in an unmarked grave. Yeah, I want to be marked at least. So like George C. Scott, Frank Zappa, they're both buried in unmarked graves. Yeah, Roy Orbison.

Roy Orbison is, because apparently his family never got around to putting a headstone on his grave. They were planning on moving him and never have, so he's been laying in an unmarked grave since 98. Yeah. Bessie Smith, famous blues singer. She was big in the vaudeville scene in the 1920s, and like a lot of the siren singers of the day

had a problem with alcoholism and died in a car crash in 1937. And she didn't have a grave because her husband, apparently the rumors, didn't want to pay for it. And years later, Janice Joplin was such a fan. She had moved to pay for and commission a headstone for her. And I didn't see if it was ever done.

It says she died shortly thereafter, but I don't know if that project was ever completed. It was. Oh, okay, it went through. All right. Mike Tyson did that too. His mother died very poor and I think had an unmarked grave or a very small marker.

And after he hit it big, one of the first things he did was get this huge, gaudy, elaborate headstone erected for. Belushi has been, they've had some problems with fans of Belushi's partying at his grave. So they moved him from his grave in Martha's Vineyard to a spot that only the family knows, but they have two synotaphs, which are empty tombs. One at Martha's Vineyard,

one at his family plot in Chicago, where you can go visit. But apparently only like his family knows where he's truly buried now. Gotcha. And you know, I've hung out in the room where he died a couple of times. Oh, really? In the Belushi cabana at the Chateau Marmont.

Oh yeah. I always think he was, it was in Chicago, but that was Chris Farley. Yeah. Who died in exactly the same manner that Belushi did just in Chicago. Yeah, it's a little weird. I mean, you're sitting there and you're,

you know, I was having a good time and having a few drinks and it's like John Belushi died right here where I'm standing. And yeah, bad way to go. What, speedball? Yeah. And then Chuck, I've got one more. Remember the movie Peter Pan, the Disney movie? The cartoon?

Yeah. Yeah. Little boy who voiced Peter Pan. He is buried in an unmarked Poppers Grave. That is sad. Yeah, he was in, his name was Bobby Driscoll. He was in not just Peter Pan, but also Treasure Island. Oh yeah.

Movie called The Window. And he was a child star. And after he hit puberty, he was apparently discarded by Hollywood and hit the skids. Yeah. And he actually died. The guy who, the kid who voiced Peter Pan died at age 31 in an abandoned apartment in New York City.

God, that's so sad. Not even a drug overdose, but of a whole bunch of drug overdoses that finally led to catastrophic heart failure. And his mother started looking for him a year after he died and found that he died because I guess the police printed him. He was just a John Doe until his mother started looking for him.

Wow. He was still buried in an unmarked grave from what I understand. Yeah, and it's not just like, oh, he was famous and it's so sad he died that way because thousands of people die every day in this country, homeless people that died with no family and no one that cares about burying them.

And well, there's also a lot of people who have family, whose family don't have enough money to do anything and have no choice but to allow the state to handle the funeral. And it is not an elaborate funeral. No. State-state-brun funerals are not elaborate. I'm sure.

Unless it's an ahead-of-state. Yeah, that's different. And they're, whiz bang. 21-gun salute. Yeah. I got nothing else. I don't either. Go to our website, stuffyshinod.com

and check out 21 Remarkable Epitaphs. It's pretty good, if I say so myself. It is good. You can read the, let's see, what is it? 10 famous people buried in unmarked graves. That article's on howstuffworks.com. And since I said howstuffworks.com, it's time for Listener Mail.

I'm gonna call this a brainical illusion. Okay. And this is something that we hear about a lot and as fans of radio and podcasting myself, if you've never seen someone that you've always heard, it's always jarring to see what they look like. Yeah. And some people still don't even wanna know

what we look like, which, you know, I get. I don't blame you, man. I've seen Kyri's doll before. Yeah, it's just fun to look at the NPR people. Like Lois Reitzus, I expected to be 300 years old. Lois Reitzus looks exactly like I would have thought she would. She looked younger than I thought. Yeah.

But not much. All right, hey guys, Josh, Chuck and Jerry. And again, Jerry's spelled correctly. People are really getting with it. Man. I've been an added listener to your podcast and the sister podcast since 2009. Never thought I'd have anything interesting enough

to write in about, but it finally happened. And it was so perception-altering, so randomly odd, I thought you should know. All these years, I had an inner podcast movie playing of YouTube bantering going through my head. All was good. I could see Chuck laughing. I could see Josh studiously explaining things.

And I stayed in podcast land, never having ventured out to see your shows or videos yet. I would enjoy them in time as well. But what turned my world upside down and seemed like a brainical illusion was that I finally did see a video of the two of you and Josh's voice was coming out of Chuck's face. And Chuck's voice had a beard on it.

All this time, I had thought of each of you as the other person, and this is after he had already seen pictures. So that must be really weird. Yeah. Seeing those voices coming on different faces has done my head in. I think the culprit is how your pictures

are situated on the podcast image with Chuck on the left and Josh on the right. But since Westerners read from left to right, and the show always starts with Josh and Chuck. And then Chuck, that's the order my brain put you in. I now have to fight with my inner podcast movie to correct which face the voices are coming from and it causes constant bewilderment.

You guys send me to my dream land every night with your friendly voices. Thanks a lot. Perhaps I would just follow the advice of one of those funny t-shirts. I reject your reality and substitute my own. Because no matter how hard I try, I always eat Josh with a beard and Chuck with a buzz cut.

You got it wrong, pal. And that, even though I did have a buzz cut recently, is from Avalon. Thanks a lot, Avalon. We appreciate you writing and we do hear that a lot. So for everybody who that's ever happened to, I'm sorry, I guess. But not really,

because there's nothing we could do about it. It's your brain. We look like what we look like. If you wanna share something from your brain with us, you can tweet to us at S-Y-S-K Podcast. You can join us on Facebook.com slash Stuff You Should Know. You can send us an email to stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com.

And as always, check us out at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. On the podcast, HeyDude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, HeyDude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses

and choker necklaces. We're gonna use HeyDude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to me. I'm gonna call you back.

I'm gonna call you back. I'm gonna call you back. I'm gonna call you back. I'm gonna call you back. Listen to HeyDude, the 90s called, on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Munga Shatigler, and it turns out,

astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, international banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me. And my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer,

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