Goose Gravestones & Soccer Send-Offs | 4M #249
Welcome to the two-hundred-and-forty-ninth edition of Morticians’ Monday Morning Mashup, 4M #249, where we’ll serve up bite-sized, easily-digestible nuggets of the deathcare news you need to crush conversations in the week ahead. Bon appetit!
Long overdue recognition
Boston’s current mayor Michelle Wu wants to recognize more than the usual tea-filled harbor and historic halls as being among the city’s notable locations during the year-long America250 celebration. As part of this effort, on July 4, Wu announced that a recently-identified marker may be among the oldest gravestones of a free Black person in America. Conservators at Boston’s Granary Burying Ground recently found and restored the stone marking the final resting place of Sebastian Lake, a former slave who died as a free man in 1729. The site will be recognized by one of 40 new historic markers being installed across Boston to “recognize people and places that have been underrepresented in traditional histories” according to Style Magazine.
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A premature celebration
In late June, in what was obviously a nod to improving international relations, a friendly group of Brazilians honored their German friends with a lively parade through the streets of Jamaica. Just kidding. They were actually celebrating the German soccer team’s June 29 elimination from the FIFA World Cup in the Round of 32 with a “burial service for Germany’s World Cup campaign.” We’re curious to know if there was a similar celebration in downtown Belfast when Brazil was knocked out a round later in the Round of 16 on July 5 after a 2–1 loss to Norway …
A very special goose
A cemetery in Iowa is honoring one of its most celebrated residents with a special grave marker — one that also encapsulates a viral story of friendship with its custom engraving. For years, Blossom the goose roamed the grounds of Riverside Cemetery in Marshalltown, beautiful, but lonely. A few years ago, the cemetery began a nationwide search for a companion for Blossom, finally welcoming Frankie to the grounds. Tragically, Blossom was struck by a vehicle in October and buried at the cemetery. Her resting place will be marked with the new monument that bears her image and the image of another goose we can only assume is Frankie, who the cemetery says will “feel comforted by it.”
Her name is Porscha
When your funeral home “never says no,” you might find yourself building the world’s fastest hearse to help a family fulfill a young man’s dying wish to be driven to his resting place in a Porsche. UK funeral director Jason Threadgold worked with a local dealership and a “specialist hearse supplier” to equip the Porsche Taycan with the interior framing to safely carry a casket.
