Strange Neighbors
Birds and gravestones make for strange neighbors. Here among the earthly remains of Detroit’s business and political elite, a fledgling cooper’s hawk perches on the branch of an oak, waiting to be fed by doting parents scrounging for lunch.
Equipped with telescopes and patience to answer a flood of questions from newbie birders like me, guides from the Detroit Bird Alliance point out feathered visitors as we walk past final resting places of strangers. A spotted sandpiper bobs along the gravel shore of a pond that is part of the Bloody Run creek way, named for the 1796 battle between the native Pontiac and the British. A turkey vulture and chimney swift swoop above the leavy canopies that shelter final resting places.
I signed up for this tour not knowing what to expect. Besides the birding gurus, our event was co-led a staff member from the Cemetery’s Foundation, which raises funds to support maintenance of Elmwood’s 146 acres of rolling hills, waterways and trees designed by the renowned landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted. Opened in 1846, Elmwood is the city’s oldest non-denominational cemetery. There is another distinction: with over ninety species of trees, Elmwood is a certified arboretum. The jewel in the crown is an 180-year-old Burr Oak, whose spacious canopy of green gives shelter to dozens of surrounding greying tombstones.
An inventory of permanent residents reads like a list of Detroit’s best and brightest. US Senator and prominent business leader Lewis Cass is buried here. Detroit Mayor Colman Young is resting in a black sarcophagus along a gravel path. A veteran of the War of 1812 rests in the military section.
I learn from our guide that Elmwood is the first fully racially integrated cemetery in the Midwest. Detroit’s first black physician is interred here, as are the US Colored Troops who served in the Civil War. Our cemetery guide points out the jagged obelisk marking the grave of US Senator Jacob Howard, who helped draft the 13th amendment to the US constitution banning slavery. Even in death Howard made a statement, directing that his obelisk remain unfinished to symbolize that achieving racial equality is an ongoing struggle.
Not all residents are famous. I pause in front of a monument of a woman who is headless, inscribed with only “Maude” and wearing a granite dress with sleek folds. Along the shaded gravel paths, I sometime wander to an ancient looking gravestone to calculate a lifespan. It is heartbreaking to see granite slabs of infants who died before their first birthdays, most likely from diseases like diphtheria or cholera.
I marvel at the stately silhouette of a hawk perched in a nearby tree. And I think about two dear friends who passed last month, and how it seems impossible that they are gone, the permanence of it all...In Exit the King, French playwright Eugene Ionesco writes about a dying leader anguished by the truth that after his impending death, life will go on in his kingdom. Without him.
The sun will still rise and set. Mothers and fathers will coo at sweet newborns. Toddlers will learn to walk, and children will board school buses for the first time. And others will breathe their last breath.
Before leaving this sacred place, I watch in wonder as a double crested cormorant extends his mighty black wings and takes flight from the cemetery’s small pond.