Maple Grove Cemetery

Maple Grove is a cemetery in the Kew Gardens neighborhood of Queens. Organized in 1875 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Maple Grove is still an active cemetery. It's pretty small, and a large portion of the cemetery appeared to be from 1950-present, but there were still plenty of wonderful old stones to keep me interested.

Almost immediately I came across what ended up being my favorites in the whole cemetery. I was excited to spot a marker for the "Methodist Episcopal Church Home in the City of New York"—in all of my cemetery explorations I don't see many markers for groups of people (orphanages, asylums, large disasters, etc.), so I always feel lucky to find one. Then I was happy to find (my favorite) an Egyptian-syle marker, but I was pulled away from it when I spotted Tom across from it—is it just me or does he look like he's crying a single tear?

Almost right next to Tom was Baby Gladys in her ruffly dress, and across from her my favorite stone in the whole cemetery: "The Place of Rest of the Patients Dying in the Hospital of the New York Society for the Relief of the Ruptured and Crippled An Institution Originated and Organized by James Knight MD Its Surgeon in Chief."

There were some other stones that stood out for their unusual shapes, like Chipman's triangle marker, Zeiterlund's very uncomfortable pillow-shaped stone and the baby clinging to what I thought was a beehive from far away, but might be a pile of something (books?). The blank headstone is not something I can ever remember seeing anywhere else—did they run out of money or leave it purposefully blank?

There are some wonderful angels and other sculptures at Maple Grove, and the administration building and receiving tomb were both built by the architect James Ware (buried in the cemetery) in the Victorian style. There aren't any big names buried here, but according to a walking tour brochure I picked up, "famous" residents include: the self-proclaimed King of Swan Island, America's Puzzle King and Chess Master, a friend of Cole Porter, the freemason who laid the cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty, a friend of John Wilkes Booth, an assistant to Nikola Tesla and the creator of pink lemonade.

I was intrigued by the description of Ruth Wheeler as "young stenographer and murder victim," so I looked her up when I got home. According to Maple Grove, 15-year-old Ruth received a post card from 20-year-old Albert Wolter soliciting her for her stenography skills. After she was hired, Wolter strangled her, set her on fire while still she was still alive and then finally dismembered her. Although he never confessed, he had recorded Ruth's age, height and weight on a piece of paper later found by the police. Wolter was sentenced to death by electric chair, which was carried out at Sing-Sing in 1912.

But Wheeler's death wasn't entirely in vain: that same year a new law was enacted, called “The White Slave Act”, which held employment agencies responsible for verifying the credentials of their clients. I would have never paid much attention to her headstone without the brochure description which makes me wonder how many other unassuming stones have intriguing tales to tell.