View from the cemetery in Bodie State Historic Park - August 25, 1962
Bodie and the mines from cemetery
at Bodie State Historic Park - August 25, 1962
When visiting Bodie make sure to visit the cemetery. The State Park and Bodie Foundation have on-going work gathering information about the gravesites and repairing grave markers. The historic cemeteries at Bodie contain stone markers and monuments. Many are damaged, suffering from vandalism, weathering, erosion and deterioration. Prior to about 1949 more than 200 burial sites were identified. About 2008 the Institute of Canine Forensic Team was utiliazed to locate over 500 unmarked graves. The State Park contracted with EverGreen Archetectual Arts to assess the conditions and make treatment recommendations, and implement treatment for 22 stone grave markers at the Bodie Cemetery.
Stones and monuments that needed to be realigned were reset using scaffolding and rigging, or by hand. New footings were poured where the existing had failed. Several base stones were stabilized with compacted earth, rubble and/or gravel. Standard pinning using 3/16 stainless steel threaded rod was performed on several of the broken stone markers. Concrete surrounding one tablet stone was removed, the two parts of the stone were pinned together, and the base repointed.
When needed, stone-to-stone bonding was achieved through the application of a mortar bed, epoxy, or a traditional lime/casein-based adhesive. Small chips, spalls, and cracks were filled with custom color mixed lime based grouts and patching compounds.
This work was part of the on-going effort to stablize and repair headstones, clean and remove sagebrush from gravesites, re-routing pathways and constructing identical historic wood fencing around the graves. The intention of the conservation treatment was to maintain and preserve cemetery features in keeping with the park’s philosophy of “arrested decay”. It is a special place and the State Park and Bodie Foundation are doing their best to keep it that way.
The Bodie Foundation has an ongoing project here to include straightening and restoring grave markers, as well as fixing fences.
Because of the early violence that plagued this wild mining town, Bodie, the sweep of deadly disease, death by childbirth gone terribly wrong, mining deaths, deaths by accidents and death by natural causes, Bodie’s cemetery has been full for a long time.
The Bodie Cemetery has around eighty tombstones marking the graves of the departed. There are three official large sections or sub-cemeteries that make up the majority of graves here: The Miner’s Union Cemetery area (38 marked graves), for the general public: the Wards Cemetery area (29 marked graves), and The Masonic Cemetery area (9 marked graves). See the Cemetery Map - There are 140 grave sites identified in the three known cemeteries and some unknown - Ninty-five of them are listed here
This Bodie Cemetery website contains pictures and information for a large number of grave sites in the multiple cemeteries at Bodie.
The remains of many local people are buried in the Bodie Cemetery, but wooden markers have wasted away, leaving unmarked graves. People with some money had stone grave markers. Even then, many of the stone markers were stolen by vandals. Several hundred unmarked graves of Chinese people, and lots of other people, with shameful pasts, also still remain.
Just west of the three sub-cemeteries, was the Chinese Cemetery. The Chinese who died in California wanted to be buried only long enough for their bones to be clean, so their family members could eventually take them back to the homeland. Unfortunately, several hundred Chinese remain buried in their cemetery section to this day because of the need for their relatives to leave Bodie due to violent prejudice, and to find work elsewhere.
The outcasts of Bodie, that include gunmen, murderers, prostitutes, and children born out of wedlock, were buried in their own section, marked with only posts or piles of rocks. The other people who while alive, didn’t quite measure up to existing social ethnic standards (Chinese) and/or behavioral standards (prostitutes, thugs, etc,) were buried outside the perimeters of the Bodie official cemetery plots.
The section of the cemetery that has the most tombstones was the Miner’s Union section. While they were well-paid for doing such dangerous work, some ran out of luck and died while on the job. There were a lot of ways to be killed; ranging from human inattention to explosions. Bodie was a union town, and the Miner’s Union made sure that their deceased former members had good stone grave markers.
Bodie Historic State Park Cemetery - by CaliWeGo
The HauntedHouses website has additional information. Some people believe the Bodie Cemetery is haunted.
Evelyn Myers gravemarker 1894-1897
A well-loved, kind-hearted prostitute, by the name of Rosa May was buried outside the graveyard, but had a wooden fence surrounding her grave, with a wooden marker. Years later, a descendant of a former Bodie resident came back and put a proper headstone on her grave, because of all the good works she did in town.
One little three year old girl, Evelyn Myers; daughter of Fannie O. and Albert K. Myers, who was well-loved by the townspeople, died in an tragic accident, breaking a lot of hearts in town, besides her grieving family. Because of a collection taken by people of Bodie to help her family, a really nice likeness of her as an angel leaning against a scroll, was lovingly carved into a stone statue marker, which made everyone feel better. It was placed on her grave in the general Wards cemetery. She has been known since then as the "Angel of Bodie".
Her final act of kindness was nursing sick miners from whom she caught the disease and died herself. On the Bodie website, they state, “This headstone was placed here around 1965 by Louis Serventi. Louis’s Uncle, Antonio, apparently lived near Rosa May when she was in Bodie. Uncle Antonio shared stories of Bodie with the children of his family. Many years later, after Louis had read Ella Cain’s book The Story of Bodie, that told about Rosa’s caring works, he went to Bodie and erected the marker. See also information on Find-a-Grave. Dave Stamey wrote a song Rosa May.