Cleveland Ohio is just a hop skip and a jump from Meadville and is home to Lakeview Cemetery (12316 Euclid Ave Cleveland, Ohio 44106). The cemetery hosts an amazing amount of interesting headstones including a life size man sitting playing guitar at the side of the lake, a five foot tall juke box and too many others to mention. It is a photographers dream location.
Many notable people also have made Lakeview Cemetery their final resting place such as John D Rockefeller, the Standard Oil Tycoon and Elliot Ness, who was given credit for helping take down the infamous mob boss Al Capone in Chicago.
President James A Garfield, one of Cleveland’s favorite sons, is memorialized in a 180 foot tall monument which is open to the public. Inside this impressive building is a statue of the former President in a room filled with stained glass and golden mosaics.James Garfield served as a major general in the Union Army when he was elected to represent Ohio in the House of Representatives. He holds the distinction of being the only sitting House member to be elected to the Oval Office. As the 20th President of the United States, he was shot by an assassin’s bullet and lay mortally wounded in the White House for 3 months as the doctors struggled to find the bullet lodged in his back.Alexander Graham Bell was even called in with his newly invented metal detector to help but to no avail and he died from infection and internal bleeding. His short 6 1/2 month term made him the second shortest presidential term in US history. His life and his presidency is definitely worth a Google search a bit of reading. Downstairs is the former President’s casket draped in a US flag beside his wife Lucretia also in this room are two urns which contain the remains of his daughter and her husband. It is a solemn room and unique for the fact that it is the only presidential casket on full display to the general public.
If famous people and a presidential memorial aren’t enough to entice you to visit, let me tell you about possibly one of the most interesting head stones which belongs to canning baron Francis Haserot and his family. The statue of an angel seated on a marble headstone is titled “The Angel of Death Victorious”. The bronze statue is often called the “Haserot Angel" or due to the name the “Angel of Death”. The life sized statue is impressive with wings spread wide holding an extinguished torch upside down to represent life extinguished and the bronze has the green patina of age. One of the most interesting aspects is the black stains under the angel’s eyes which make it appear to be crying, thus giving the piece its other name, the “Weeping Angel”.
The Weeping Angel is located off the roadway a little bit in Section 9 Lot 14. Maps are available at the main office of the cemetery and also at the Garfield Memorial. The closest marked grave on the map is the Hanna Mausoleum, but even that took a bit to find. My biggest tip is this, if you drive around the little lake, then start up the hill to Section 9, it will be on your right and if you make it as far as the dam then you have gone too far. It was a very cool thing to see and well worth the time it took to find it.
