Remaining Idle May Cost You—Then Again, it Could Pay
By Geoff Gehman ’80
Photography by Chuck Zovko
Last weekend I visited Easton Cemetery
on a day so glorious, I was glad to be alive among the dead. I felt even better after roaming through 99 acres of beautiful trees, creative graves and irreverent shrines.
After passing through the entrance gate, a four-turret Gothic Xanadu, I paid my respects to Lucy Minturn Barnet, who lived only 518 days. Her stone self sleeps in a canopied bed, a small pumpkin by her side. Wayne Unangst, who in 1986 succeeded his father as cemetery superintendent, believes the Halloween gift was left by someone who leaves Lucy a token every month. The ritual is Easton’s answer to the glass of cognac placed every Jan. 19 at the Baltimore grave of Edgar Allan Poe.
A few hundred yards north is another Victorian valentine. The 6-foot-tall stone contains a coin-shaped profile of actress Belle Mingle Archer, who in 1898 became a national sensation after replacing a suddenly dead performer in the play “A Contented Woman.’’ Weather and time have ruined her bronze makeup
and breast-heaving epitaph: ‘’To the name Belle Archer, the master leaning reached a hand and whispered
‘It is finished.’’’
Below Belle is Section B, which is less florid and
more fun. An open book tops the tomb of my
Lafayette College professor Jim Lusardi, whose love
of Shakespeare poured from his pores.
In an engraved picture, Flossie Holmes, mother of former heavy-weight champion Larry, looks as
feisty as her motto: ‘’I Wanna Go Home to Dance.’’ The family of
Paul Beers Sr. treats the late cemetery groundskeeper to a Halloween complete with hanged ghoul. According to Unangst, the celebration isn’t quite as flashy as the polka band that performed one January, surrounded by a foot of snow.
Driving west, on branching macadam paths, is a lovely, funky arboretum. Near the Easton Memorial is an ancient V-shaped tree crowned by furry pods and Chinese-coin leaves. Near the Odenwelder memorial, which is etched with a cabin by a lake, is an ancient hydrangea pruned to resemble a driftwood jester.
No wonder the cemetery was founded by a humane educator named Traill Green.
Heading north are grassy tiers that turn the cemetery into a monumental amphitheater. The berms cascade to a lawn that’s truly international and truly delightful. Three Kossifo crosses are sheltered by a splendid Japanese maple. Baseball fan Richard A. Parr is memorialized by a circular stone cut with seams and crossed bats. Rose DeLuca (1908-1925) appears tragically young in a faded photograph, decked out
like a flapper on a cracked cameo brooch.
Down in Section Z, near Route 22’s white-noise rush, is the cemetery’s only abstract sculpture.
David Cerulli’s blooming bronze robustly ribbons
the robust spirits of Cecil and Eleanor Lipkin, furniture-store owners, cultural philanthropists and true-blue Eastonians. Somehow, the gyroscopic curves seem natural near a carved boulder and a pair of
Torah tablets.
Last Saturday’s visit was moving, and momentous.
You see, it was my first pilgrimage to a cemetery I’ve
been passing for 48 years, ever since I was 3 weeks old
and bound to see my grandmother on Northampton Street for the first time. Spending three hours between her old house, my father’s birthplace and my alma mater, I felt at rest and at home.
  
Reprinted with permission of The Morning Call Inc., copyright 10/28/06.
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