-
Bio
Bess Lovejoy is a writer, researcher, and editor based in Seattle. She writes about dead people, forgotten history, and sometimes art, literature, and science. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time.com, The Believer, The Boston Globe, The Stranger, and other publications. She worked on the Schott’s Almanac series for five years. Her book Rest in Pieces: The Curious Fates of Famous Corpses is out now from Simon & Schuster.
Feel free to get in touch: besslovejoy (at) gmail.com. On Twitter: @besslovejoy or @Death_A_Day. The blog's home is: besslovejoy.wordpress.com.
Represented by Jill Grinberg at Jill Grinberg Literary: jill@jillgrinbergliterary.com. For publicity enquiries related to Rest in Pieces, please contact Leah Johanson: leah.johanson@simonandschuster.com.
(Headshot available here.)
-
Rest in Pieces
In the long run, we're all dead. But for some of the most influential figures in history, death marked the start of a new adventure.
The famous deceased have been stolen, burned, sold, pickled, frozen, stuffed, impersonated, and even filed away in a lawyer’s office. Their fingers, teeth, toes, arms, legs, skulls, hearts, lungs, and nether regions have embarked on voyages that crisscross the globe and stretch the imagination.
Counterfeiters tried to steal Lincoln’s corpse. Einstein’s brain went on a cross-country road trip. And after Lord Horatio Nelson perished at Trafalgar, his sailors submerged him in brandy—which they drank.
From Mozart to Hitler, Rest in Pieces connects the lives of the famous dead to the hilarious and horrifying adventures of their corpses, and traces the evolution of cultural attitudes toward death.
"A tasty, sharp, wonderfully unusual book. I enjoyed it like a jar of perfect dill pickles: when the mood strikes, nothing else will satisfy."—Mary Roach, bestselling author of Gulp and Stiff
"If really, we’re all sitting in the undertaker’s waiting-room, then Rest in Pieces is the perfect easy read, preparation for the moment when the nurse steps out of the shadows and quietly calls your name."—Simon Winchester, bestselling author of Skulls and The Professor and the Madman
"Deliciously morbid and delightfully macabre, Rest in Pieces is required reading for those of us who intend, one day, to die."—Ben Schott, bestselling author of Schott’s Original Miscellany
"A fascinating foray into the way of all flesh."—Kirkus Reviews
Connect to the book's page on Facebook.
Visit the Death-a-Day Twitter account.
Represented by Jill Grinberg: jill@grinbergliterary.com.
For publicity enquiries, please contact Leah Johanson: leah.johanson@simonandschuster.com.
-
Book Events
- Events celebrating the release of Rest in Pieces.BROOKLYNApril 26th, 20138pmPresentation, Q&A, and wine.543 Union StBrooklyn, NY$10Presented by Morbid Anatomy & PhantasmaphileSLEEPY HOLLOWApril 27th, 20137 p.m.Presentation at Sleepy Hollow CemeteryBROOKLYNApril 28th, 2013Green-Wood Cemetery chapel1 p.m.$15SAN FRANCISCOMay 14, 2013Presentation with Obscura Society SF7-10 pmDNA Lounge,375 Eleventh St., San Francisco21+ with ID please
-
Writing/Research
Selected:
The GuardianTamerlan Tsarnaev’s Unwanted Body: Where Other Notorious Criminals Are BuriedTime IdeasThe AppendixThe StrangerCrosscut.comAtlas ObscuraThe New York TimesThe Dead Have Something to Tell YouThe New York Times
The Arctic Club's Most Famous TenantSeattle Met
Portrait of the Arts Center as a Young PrisonSeattle MetMorbid AnatomyBoston Globe Ideas section, November 2011Boston Globe Word column, October 2011The Believer, March 2011Review of Joshua Lyon's Pill Head: The Secret Life of a Painkiller AddictThe Tyee, November 2009Review of Rebecca Godfrey's Under the BridgeThe Stranger, January 2006The Tyee, June 2005Cover feature on Vancouver's safe-injection site (Winner of a Society of Professional Journalists Excellence Award)The Stranger, June 2003Interview with author Wayde Compton
The Stranger, May 2002(Interview with Marcel Dzama)Resonance Magazine, no. 37, 2003Research and writing:2005-2010: Five editions of Schott's AlmanacResearch2010 and 2011: Schott's Vocab (NYT.com blog)
2010: Toponymity: An Atlas of Words
2009: Anonyponymous: The Forgotten People Behind Everyday WordsEXTRA: A collection of articles I helped publish during my term as Editor in Chief of the Vancouver, BC, alternative weekly Terminal City can be found in Doppelganger magazine,here.
-
Posts
- Apr 15, 13
Newly published over at The Appendix, a new journal of narrative and experimental history: The Double World: One Man’s Search for Meaning in the Seattle Public Library. Our hero is below:
- Apr 04, 13
Okay, I admit it. I love being on the radio. Aside from books, public radio is my favorite medium, one I listen to all day long whenever I’m at home. The voices are soothing, the news is reliably distressing (but not over-the-top sensationalist), and more often than not, I learn something. So it’s been a thrill to go into the KUOW studios in Seattle for a few Rest in Pieces-related interviews recently. Today I appeared on “Air Talk” on KPCC in Los Angeles (that’s me above after walking to the studios in the rain). Roger Ebert’s death was announced during my segment, which made the talk a little more somber than usual, but I still had a great time. You can listen here. (I’m whispering because I sounded so loud in my headphones!)
A few other favorites:
NewsTalk Radio Ireland Moncrieff.
There’s lots more, some of which is on the book’s press page here, and more to come! And by the way, I highly recommend reading Roger Ebert’s beautiful essay on death acceptance, published in 2011 on Salon. Carpe diem, kids.
UPDATE: Now with more Luke Burbank!
- Mar 29, 13
Statue at Lakeview Cemetery in Seattle, where Madame Damnable is buried. By Steve Mohundro on Flickr, Creative Commons license.
I wrote a few articles in preparation for the release of Rest in Pieces, but the one I most enjoyed was about a nineteenth century Seattle madame, Mother Damnable, whose corpse is said to have turned to stone. Mother D (also known as Mary Ann Boyer or Mary Ann Conklin) has been fascinating me for a few years, and I’m glad to have had a chance to tell some of her story. Read it at The Stranger.
I’d like to thank John LaMont, Special Collections librarian at the Seattle Public Library, for his help tracking down key documents for the story. John provided me with the 1884 article that describes the discovery of Mother Damnable’s corpse, which I’m including below.
“Removing the Dead.” August 22, 1884. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
A reporter of the Post-Intelligencer called upon Mr. O.C. Shorey, the contractor for removing bodies, monuments and stone work from the old city cemetery to the new burying ground, adjoining the Masonic cemetery, and asked him for anything of interest in connection therewith that has so far come under his observation. Mr. Shorey said: “I have been at work about three weeks, and have removed so far 120 bodies together with most of the monuments and stone work, and have, I think, over half of the work done. I have been laying off for a few days, waiting for the Catholics to get their grounds in readiness for the reception of the bodies of those of that faith. I have also delayed some in order to give all friends of deceased persons an opportunity to select new lots, and to give all such friends an opportunity to be present during the removal of the remains of their friends and loved ones.
“Last week among the remains taken up and removed were those of Mrs. Mary Conklin, who died and was buried eleven years ago, at the age of 70 years and 10 months. During her life she was known by the old settlers as ‘Mother Damnable,’ and many will remember her by that name. We discovered that the coffin was very heavy, weighing at least 400 pounds and it took six men to lift it out of the grave. On removing the lid to the coffin we found that she had turned to stone. Her form was full sized and perfect, the ears, finger nails and hair being all intact. Her features were, however, somewhat disfigured. Covering the body was a dark dust, but after that was removed the form was as white as marble and as hard as stone.
When we took up the coffin under the headstone marked “William Carnes,” who will be remembered as a large butcher, who died some ten years ago, we found the form of a small, delicate woman, with her clothing on and watchchain about her neck. The way I account for this is as follows: Some time after Carnes died, his friends had a stone made to mark his grave, and the parties employed to set the stone placed it over the wrong grave.
When the remains of James McKay, the tanner, who died ten or eleven years ago, were taken up, they were found well preserved, though the features were unrecognizable. All the graves, at certain seasons of the year, are full of water and the coffins float in their boxes. The action of the water has turned most of the bodies black. In a greater number of the coffins there is nothing but a few bones. The coffins are mostly sound, and before removing them we place them in new cedar boxes. So far we have found nothing of an offensive nature so far as smell is concerned, most of the bodies having been buried so long that the flesh has either all turned to dust or been eaten by the worms. I shall take up and remove all the bodies that can be found, including those who sleep in unmarked graves within the Pottersfield, but shall not interfere with the Chinese graves, as the Chinamen desire to take up the bones of their dead and ship them to the Flowery Kingdom.
Many graves have been sadly neglected, and I fear that some will be consequently overlooked. I wish you would tell the people again that I am anxious to hear from all those who have friends buried in the old cemetery, and have them point out the graves to me, especially those that are unmarked. A forest fire ran through the cemetery two years ago, and burned up a number of wooden grave marks, which adds to the difficulty of finding some of the graves. The new cemetery is located on a fine site between the two lakes, and can be made a beautiful burying ground with proper care and attention.”
- Feb 11, 13
Look what my friendly UPS man delivered this morning!
Illustrations are by the amazing Mark Stutzman.
For those who’ve been asking, the book comes out on March 12. A pretty little website is being buffed and shined, but for now there’s plenty of information on the publisher’s page and on Amazon. To stay up to date on the book and related events (coming to Seattle, NYC, and San Francisco this Spring), like the book’s page on Facebook. Thanks so much for all your love and support, deathlings!
- Dec 14, 12
I’ve recently been chastised for my absence from this blog (I won’t name names), and just when I thought no one was paying attention! I think all internet-enabled writers know the difficulty of juggling their paid work, creative projects, and social media efforts, which ideally overlap and cross-pollinate, but also distract from one another. Also, it’s hard to sit in a chair for more than ten hours a day. Nevertheless, I’ve been remiss in keeping all of you updated. Here’s a bit about what I’ve been up to:
- In late November I wrote an Op-Ed for the New York Times about Yasser Arafat’s exhumation. The focus was on ethical issues surrounding exhumations, which are discussed less frequently than I’d like. If you’re interested in the subject, also check out “Alas, Poor Yorick: Digging Up the Dead to Make Medical Diagnoses” by Deborah Hayden, the debates about research on ancient mummies, and the wonderfully in-depth article Tales from the Crypt: Scientific, Ethical, and Legal Considerations for Biohistorical Analysis of Deceased Historical Figures.
- I appeared on the CBC Radio Show Day 6 with Brent Bambury, my first Rest in Pieces-related radio interview. Since I’m a dual citizen (US/Canada), I was tickled that the Canadians were the first to record a segment with me about the book. That day I also had the pleasure of meeting author Simon Winchester, whose new book (and app) Skulls is obviously right up my alley.
- I also just returned from a packed trip to New York, where I finally got to meet the fantastic team working on my book Rest in Pieces: The Curious Fates of Famous Corpses. We shot a little interview, which you should hopefully be able to see in a few weeks. I’m also planning events in NYC for the book’s release in March (and possibly other cities), so stay turned for details, as well as a website, trailer, and Facebook for the book. (Psst: you can pre-order it here.)
- My New York carousing also included attending a lecture on Sicilian sex ghosts (see here for a great Q & A with presenter Paul Koudounaris) at Observatory in Brooklyn, an event that did double-duty as a birthday party for Morbid Anatomy’s truly amazing Joanna Ebenstein. The day before, Joanna and Colin Dickey‘s Morbid Anatomy Anthology Kickstater fundraising campaign ended a spectacularly successful run, which means you can expect a beautiful volume forthcoming from them, and more on the way.
- I also got to hang out with the entirely excellent curator and blogger Pam Grossman, whose blog Phantasmaphile you should definitely peruse if you’re into fantastical, surreal, or occult art (or just general awesomeness). I’ve also heard word that Pam is cooking up an occult-themed conference at NYU, so stay tuned for news on that.
- Other cultural treats on this trip included getting a sneak peak at Sophie Blackall‘s illustrations for The Nine Lives of Alexander Baddenfield, a childrens’ book she’s working on with John Bemelmans Marciano (I’ve helped with research for some of John’s books for adults). If you appreciate Edward Gorey and Lemony Snicket, this book is going to be a real treat.
- In other news: I’m honored to have been invited to join The Order of the Good Death. From our fearless leader, Ask a Mortician star Caitlin Doughty, who helped out with the appendix in Rest in Pieces:
The Order is about making death a part of your life. That means committing to staring down your death fears–whether it be your own death, the death of those you love, the pain of dying, the afterlife (or lack thereof), grief, corpses, bodily decomposition, or all of the above. Accepting that death itself is natural, but the death anxiety and terror of modern culture are not.
- I’ve been working on editing a few projects for the Port Townsend publishers Feral House, including a fantastic forthcoming encyclopedia of black metal by Dayal Patterson. It’s got everything you want to know about the controversial genre, from the origin of corpse paint to the 70s glam metal band that inspired most of the Norwegian second wave. Feral House, of course, are the same folks who previously published Lords of Chaos, which both disturbed and fascinated the 18-year-old me.
- Last but not least, congratulations to the curious and wondrous Atlas Obscura, the world’s most awesome travel-related website, on their re-design! You can see my spotlight on Einstein’s brain in their “Objects of Intrigue” series.
If you made it to the end of that, you get a gold star. Or maybe a skull in a jar, like the beautiful one (made of netting?) I saw at ABC Carpet & Home during the trip. More news, and skulls, soon!
- Oct 31, 12
Over the past few months, I’ve been spending rainy Seattle evenings reading accounts of our local haunted history. According to the shelf of books about ghosts in the Seattle Public Library’s Seattle Room, my town is full of the spirits of gamblers, prostitutes, thieves, murderers, murder victims, even pets. A s a result, a friend (Meg van Huygen) and I have begun an ongoing, just-for-fun project called A Field Guide to Seattle’s Ghosts. In honor of Halloween, I thought I’d provide the text I’ve written so far about my favorite local spirits.
A note: I’m agnostic about ghosts. I’m not interested in whether or not they’re real; I’m interested in what they inspire, what they stir up. For me, the most interesting thing about ghosts is the way they stay rooted to a particular place. Ghosts tell stories that never appear in tourist brochures, the dark secrets that local developers would rather keep hush-hush. But mostly they tell us about ourselves, how vulnerable we are, and sometimes, how much we want to believe.
1) The Japanese Dancer
Habitat: Mutual Life Building, 605 First Avenue at Yesler. Often seen: Around September 10. Distinguishing characteristics: Covered in white rice powder, nearly naked. Behavior: Writhing, floating. What he wants: To finish his dance.
Yoshiyuki Takada became a ghost while pretending to be a ghost. He was a member of the Tokyo dance company Sankai Juku, whose members performed in the creepy, controlled style known as Butoh. The troupe was known for suspending themselves—almost naked, shaven, and covered in white rice powder—from the tops of tall buildings, in a piece called “The Dance of Birth and Death.” Takada once explained his performances by telling the Los Angeles Times, “Our main theme is life and death, so we try to realize the situation of death and the state of just being born.”
On the afternoon of September 10, 1985, Takada had just begun one of his performances on the top of the Mutual Life Building in downtown Seattle when his rope snapped. He fell eighty feet, curled up in a ball until he hit the pavement below. Some members of the audience thought it was part of his performance. It wasn’t. He died at Harborview Medical Center soon afterward, and some think his spirit is still trapped in Pioneer Square. Every year around September 10, people claim to see a twisting, turning figure suspended in the air. The apparition lasts for about a quarter of a minute, before fading into the autumn air.
2) The Fire
Habitat: Northernmost tip of Alki Beach Park. Often seen: around April 14. Distinguishing characteristics: flames, burning smell. Behavior: flickering, disappearing, reappearing. What it wants: to be remembered.
Luna Park opened in West Seattle in 1907, billed as the greatest amusement park in the Northwest, our very own Coney Island. People came from across the state to ride the Giant Whirl and the Figure-Eight Roller Coaster, dance at the Dance Palace, swim in the pools of the Natatorium, and drink at the “longest bar on the bay” (especially drink).
But Luna Park lasted only five years, closing in 1913 after a moral panic about underage women carousing on the grounds. The pools remained open until an arsonist’s fire burned them down on April 14, 1931. At very low tide, you can still see the stubby concrete pilings, which is all that remains of the park today. But every year around April 14th, people in Seattle call up the fire department to report the tang of smoke, and the sight of flickering orange flames across the water.
3) Mother Damnable (a.k.a. Madame Damnable, or Mary Ann Conklin)
Habitat: Southwest corner of First and Jackson. Often seen: When she feels like it. Distinguishing characteristics: Apron full of rocks. Behavior: Whispering curses in people’s ears. What she wants: for you to go away.
Mother Damnable, born Mary Ann Conklin, ran Seattle’s first hotel, which was also supposedly one of its first brothels. Her accommodations were clean and comfortable, but it was her colorful personality that made her a local celebrity. It’s said she could swear equally well in English, French, German, Chinese, Spanish, and Portuguese, and that she was prone to throwing rocks or wood at people she didn’t like.
After she died in 1873, she was buried at the old Seattle cemetery, now Denny Park. Legend says that when her body was exhumed in the late 1800s, her corpse had turned into more than a thousand pounds of stone. The heavy coffin led to rumors that Damnable had been buried with her gold, but when workers opened it, they found only her body, perfectly preserved. Though she is now buried in Lakeview cemetery (probably), some say her spirit returns to protect her old property. Watch out for flying rocks.
4) Princess Angeline
Habitat: Pike Place Market, Bainbridge ferry. Often seen: On rainy mornings, or after the market’s shops close at night. Distinguishing characteristics: Blue eyes, red scarf, cane. Behavior: Walking slowly down the street, carrying woven baskets, disappearing on the ferry before it gets to Bainbridge. What she wants: To go home.
Princess Angeline was Chief Seattle’s daughter. Her given name was Kikisoblu, but she was re-named “Angeline” by one of the white settlers, who called her “Princess” in honor of her father’s status. She ignored the rules that said the Native Americans had to leave the city to live on reservations, and instead lived out her days in a cabin on what is now Western Avenue, doing laundry, digging clams, and selling baskets to the Old Curiosity shop. Edward Curtis took amazing photographs of her, for which he paid her $1 each (she preferred photo shoots to clam digging).
Angeline is said to be one of Seattle’s most frequently-seen ghosts, appearing late at night or early in the morning, her pale clothes swirling around her like mist, her body transparent except for her luminous blue eyes. If you see her, don’t be afraid: she doesn’t seem to mean anyone any harm. Though personally, I’d forgive her if she did.
5) Jimmy Durante
Habitat: Rendezvous Theatre, 2320 Second Avenue. Often seen: In the projection room. Distinguishing characteristics: That nose. Behavior: Turning on the projectors, locking the doors. What he wants: Unclear.
Several ghosts are said to haunt the Rendezvous. There’s a female presence that carries a waft of sweet perfume, and a dark energy that prowls that basement, sometimes erupting in loud banging and clanging. In the 1940s the building was used as a movie theatre, and some say the projectionist never left. But others sense Durante, who is said to have been busted for playing cards in the building’s basement speakeasy during Prohibition.
6) “Frank”
Habitat: Annex Theatre, 1100 East Pike Street. Often seen: at various times. Distinguishing characteristics: blue-and-white jumper. Behavior: stealing things, messing with the lights, vanishing. What he wants: we don’t know.
The building that now houses the Annex was once an auto repair shop, and some believe a mechanic died there while working underneath a car. An unnerving male presence is frequently sensed in the theatre, playing innocent and not-so-innocent pranks. Workers have nicknamed the presence “Frank,” although one late-night séance also picked up the name “Robert.” He often appears as a shadowy figure in the control booth.
7) The Little Red-Haired Girl
Habitat: Kells Pub, 1916 Post Alley. Often seen: When the bar is quiet and empty. Distinguishing characteristics: Long red hair. Behavior: Pulling out chairs, sliding glasses, laughing. What she wants: A friend.
Kells Pub is part of the famed Butterworth building, constructed in 1903 as the Butterworth funeral home. While a succession of businesses have failed on the upper floors, Kells—on the bottom where the garage and stables used to be—is always packed with locals and tourists.
But when it’s quiet, staff say they can hear a little girl chuckling to herself. One woman who came to Kells for a job interview was frightened out of her wits after her daughter reported playing with a red-haired girl who wasn’t there. The ghost girl is known to give her favorite playmates crudely-made rag dolls.
8) Buck
Habitat: Lakeview Cemetery. Often seen: randomly. Distinguishing characteristics: is a horse. Behavior: clomping. What he wants: carrots?
Buck was a cattle horse so beloved by his owner, one Irving Wadleigh, that when the animal died Wadleigh had him buried beneath an eight-foot monument in Lakeview Cemetery on Capitol Hill. Supposedly, a 1901 newspaper article about the horse’s burial infuriated the locals, and so Buck’s marker was moved—but not his body. When Wadleigh died, he was secretly buried next to Buck in an unmarked grave. Today, some report a glowing white horse nibbling at the grass between the gravestones, forever looking for his master.
- Oct 31, 12
On Sunday, the New York Times ran an opinion piece I wrote about Halloween, famous body parts, and the benefits of contemplating your own mortality. I’ve been honored by the response! Read the piece here.
- Oct 03, 12
The relic thieves have struck again! According to German news outlet The Local, police are seeking thieves who stole a mummified “liar’s hand” from a church in Legden, North Rhine-Westphalia. (Gruesome photo at the link.)
To be clear, the hand isn’t the relic of a saint—in fact, it’s not clear who it originally belonged to. The Telegraph explains, “Known as the ‘perjury-hand’, local legend dictates that it was severed from its owner when he or she broke an oath, and to serve as a bloody lesson to anybody else contemplating straying from the truth. But nobody knows the real history behind the hand other than that it was discovered preserved in lime during the demolition of an old fortified town in 1905.” In fact, locals had just raised enough money to send the mysterious item to Düsseldorf University for tests to determine its age and the sex of its owner.
The world has been plagued by a spate of thefts of mummified body parts—and their accessories—over the past year and a half. This past March, the 900-year-old heart of 12th century Irish saint St. Laurence O’Toole was stolen from a church in Dublin. In February, also in Ireland, a burglar stole a valuable shrine that normally contains part of cheekbone of St. Brigid. (The bone was out at the cleaners; hat tip to Christine Quigley for news of that theft.)
Christ Church, Heart of Archbishop Saint-Laurence O’Toole. Photo by Chickpea, via Creative Commons on Flickr
In October 2011, three “relics of the true cross” were taken from Holy Cross Abbey in Ireland, while in June 2011 in California, a bone said to be from St. Anthony’s body was stolen from a Long Beach Catholic church. In the latter two cases, both of the relics were later recovered.
(Then there’s the Czech whack job who claimed this past summer to have plundered the Vienna graves of composers Strauss and Brahms, but that’s a different story.)
There’s a long history of relic thefts in the Catholic Church, though for a variety of reasons. In the Middle Ages, owning a fragment of a major saint—their tongue, say, or a scrap of their cloak—could establish your church as a must-see pilgrimage destination, providing a steam of both pilgrims and revenue. Eventually, relics became scarce enough that towns and churches began stealing them from one another—under the cover of night or in all-out assault.
According to medieval historian Patrick Geary, such thefts were known as “sacra furta,” or holy theft, and they weren’t seen as an ethical problem. Because the relics were viewed as the representative of the saint on earth, the bones, tongues, or bits of cloth were thought to have their own personalities. If they didn’t want to be stolen—or “translated”—they wouldn’t allow it. A successful theft meant the saint wanted to come with you.
Two of the most famous thefts of the Middle Ages concern Saint Mark and Saint Nicholas. In 828, Venetian merchants smuggled bones supposedly belonging to Saint Mark from Alexandria to Venice; the story goes that the relics were covered in a layer of pork to prevent the local Muslims from interfering. In 1087, sailors from Bari (now part of Italy) stole Saint Nicholas’s bones from Myra (now Demre, Turkey). The perfume of his “manna,” or “bone oil,” was said to be a sign that the saint approved of his move.
I discuss the theft of Saint Nicholas (the inspiration for Santa Claus) in Rest in Pieces: The Curious Fates of Famous Corpses. For those who want to more about medieval relic theft, I highly recommend Patrick Geary’s book Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages. And if anyone reading this works at a Catholic Church, I highly recommend hiring some additional security guards.
- Sep 29, 12
The first in what I hope will be a series of short columns in Seattle Met magazine on the darker side of local history is now online. This story profiles the Inscape building, once a local immigration processing center and prison, now remade as artists’ studios. Read it here. Next month: Congressman Marion Zioncheck and the suicide (or murder?) that haunts one of my favorite places to drink downtown.
- Sep 05, 12
Update: Ned Kelly finally had a funeral, 132 years after his death. The Guardian posted a video on the subject with some great background. But his skull is still missing–read on below.
It’s not every day the news talks about a real-life witch returning a skull. And not just any skull: the skull of the notorious outlaw Ned Kelly, one of the best-known characters in Australian history.
In late August 2012, various news outlets reported that Anna Hoffman, a 74-year-old New Zealander and self-proclaimed witch, had come forward claiming to possess Ned Kelly’s head. Hoffman is only the latest in a line of colorful characters who’ve made the same statement, and so far they’ve all been—let’s just say—not entirely in touch with reality. I tell the full story (or at least the story so far) in Rest in Pieces, but here’s the Cliff’s Notes version.
Ned Kelly was a bushranger, a type of criminal who used the Australian outback as the base for conducting robberies of stagecoaches and small-town banks. His daring escapades and defiance of the establishment made him a folk hero, and after he was captured in a police shootout in 1880 wearing homemade armor, nearly 30,000 people signed a petition asking for a stay of execution. But the authorities were determined to end his life, and Kelly was hanged at the Melbourne gaol on November 11, 1880. His last words are said to have been “Tell ‘em I died game.”
As a Roman Catholic turned newly devout in prison, Kelly wanted his remains be given to his family for burial in consecrated ground. But as an about-to-be executed criminal, his had little say in the matter: his body was the property of the Crown. His corpse was buried on the grounds of the Melbourne gaol, where it stayed until renovations in 1929. That year, part of the gaol grounds were turned over to a nearby college to create a new engineering school. When the skeletons were exhumed, local schoolboys plundered the graves. That’s when Kelly’s skull disappeared—for the first time.
Things get pretty weird from here, but an object said to be Kelly’s skull was returned to police shortly after the exhumations in 1929. However, this skull never made it back to Kelly’s grave. Instead it was kept at a variety of Australian institutions, and casts of it went on display in the 1940s at the Australian Institute of Anatomy in Canberra, where it kept company with aboriginal artifacts and preserved koala bear hands. Later the skull was moved to the Old Melbourne Gaol Museum, where it was on display next to Kelly’s death mask. But in 1978, the skull was stolen again, this time out of a locked cabinet.
The theft has never been solved. In the years since, several lively characters have come forward claiming to have the skull, including an eccentric activist named “Fast Buck$” and former Australian Marijuana Party Senate candidate known as J. J. McRoach. For years, Ned’s missing head has been a ghostly character in Australian politics, known only by its absence.
In the later 1990s, a sandalwood farmer named Tom Baxter from a remote region of western Australia came forward saying he had the skull. Baxter refused to say whether or not he himself had stolen the skull, but said he was taking care of it because he objected to its display as a “police trophy.” After a decade of negotiations, Baxter returned the skull to authorities in 2009 on the anniversary of Kelly’s death.
But as it turned out, Baxter never had Ned’s head. Forensic analysis in 2009 showed that Baxter’s skull, the same one stolen in 1978, probably belongs to another character from Australia’s history: Australia’s first serial killer, Frederick Deeming, who some think could be Jack the Ripper.
As for the “witch” Hoffman, who is something of a folk hero herself, she claims that she was given the skull by a security guard thirty years ago while on a vacation in Melbourne. A report in the Telegraph says:
Ms Hoffman, who courted controversy as a witch in the 1960s and 1970s, told the Herald on Sunday newspaper that she has cared for the skull, one of more than 20 she has in a collection. “I have treated it with respect, I haven’t lit candles in it or drunk red wine out of it or anything bohemian like that.”
Goodness gracious, nothing like that.
-
Tweets
- Talked to a relative the other day who won't listen to any NPR. Not the content or politics, she says, it's the voices. (I love most of it.)
- Why does everyone on This American Life sound suicidally depressed?
- RT @ChirurgeonsAppr: One of my favourite books - REST IN PIECES: THE CURIOUS FATE OF FAMOUS CORPSES by @besslovejoy. Check it out! http://t…
- Museums Confront the Skeletons in Their Closets (you know, literally). http://t.co/UXGxkcwPA0 via @ChirurgeonsAppr
- Right, back to the travel essay in which everyone dies.
- Re: The Loved One movie, I do have a nascent Jessica Mitford/Evelyn Waugh midcentury black humor obsession. I imagine this surprises no one.
- RT @mcpheeceo: Seattle's Once Sold Tales closing & struggling to move 500,000 books: http://t.co/NEZysy1NFV
- RT @joylandfiction: The Loved One is on #TCM. Watch this lost gem. Screenplay: Terry Southern. Features: Jonathan Winters, Liberace and R…
- RT @archivistkevin: Great to see all of the German-Jewish émigré journal Aufbau online, thanks to @lbinyc and @tweetMETRO http://t.co/7Q77x…
- RT @Irr_Anatomist: Great photograph: RT “@thanatos_net: http://t.co/CiDkjIxOX2 __ Dissecting the corpse of a murderer, 1897.”
- RT @bschillace: #ff @DeathSalon and all my deathlies, @LibraryatNight @TheGoodDeath @ChirurgeonsAppr @besslovejoy @wunderkamercast @Cadaver…
- RT @HayesBrown: The true and insane story of a Va. man who was told to rob banks by the "Defense Intelligence Agency" http://t.co/0TrxumNwaB
