Family Planning

My Bronx-born Irish-American wife immediately knew what the advertisement was offering. As for myself, I knew what was being offered, I just thought perhaps some added punctuation would have helped clarify the exact details of the offering.

In yesterday's and today's New York Times, under the In Memoriam section on the obituary page, there was an ad for a cemetery plot for sale. This kind of ad is not unheard of, it's just that I'm not sure I ever remember seeing one in the NYT. If I have, it's been a real long time since the last one.

WOODLAWN CEMETERY
   Bronx, NY, 1 Hillside Plot for
   2 Double Decker, 1 Opening
        For Sale at 2008 prices.
      Historic Landmark Scenic
 Landscape, Call...   

I was confused. 2 Double Decker is taken to mean stacked one on top of another. Thoroughly possible to save land, and when the water table isn't too high, this is done. 2 Double Decker was not distinct enough, at least not to me. Are 2 Double Decker spots for sale? And 1 opening? This means there's one available spot open, that someone's family plot didn't quite fill up, perhaps due to a cremation, and someone can get in with strangers? Okay, you don't get to pick your relatives, but going on top of someone who is a stranger? Just so on the odd chance that someone you know is coming to pay their respects after the burial can be treated to a "scenic landscape in a historic landmark?"

"No. Don't you understand?" my wife said when I read it to her. And now that I think of it, perhaps because I did read it to her that she understood it better than I did, and right away.

"One plot for 2, in a double-decker arrangement, as opposed to a side-by-side arrangement like our plot, with one opening. Our plot, since it is a side-by-side, means that there are two top openings." Get it? That one for sale has only one top opening" Well, yes, when you put it like that.

My confusion probably stems from my family's history. When my grandfather passed away in 1956, the four sons and my grandmother planned ahead and bought a plot in Maspeth's Mt. Olivet cemetery that could sleep 12.

Maspeth is a section of Queens dotted with cemeteries. There are views of Manhattan from there. Mt. Olivet is a non-denominational cemetery, meaning the Jews and Catholics have their cemeteries, and the non-denominationals are for everyone else. This might be where I developed my theory that to be anyone of any accomplishment and success in New York City you had to be either Jewish or Catholic. I mean, they had their own cemeteries, right? There are lots of Greeks and others in Mt. Olivet. No O'Reillys or Feinbergs.

As for the plot the family purchased sleeping 12, this was accomplished by a four across, three-deep arrangement. Four times three is twelve.

Since there was one set of grandparents, and four sons and their wives, and two bachelor uncles--one my grandmother's brother, and one my grandfather's brother--the need was for 12. If there's one thing Greeks can do, it is count. They are great with money. Try and pull a fast one at a diner next time and tell me how far you get.

The planning was sound. There is one huge headstone with the family surname on it, despite my grandmother's brother's surname being her maiden name. Footstones mark where the family members are buried. Or, at least where some of the family members are buried. They're there. but just in unmarked graves.

The current population, that I know of, has 9 people in it. I say "that I know of" because members of my family don't tell the living others when someone has died. At least not always. Thus, I can account for 9 members. There is one brother's wife who may have passed away and I don't know it, or, she might have been buried elsewhere where an adopted son placed her. I don't know, despite my living in the same house, with the same phone number for 25 years now.

One brother and wife wife, both passed away, are definitely not there. He is in Arlington, Virginia, a decorated, WW II career naval officer, and his second wife who recently passed away, who is probably buried in Greece, likely with her family. They were still married when he passed away, but the disparity in their ages and birth countries may have had a hand in separating their resting places in death.

This of course is my theory, since no one really told me what arrangements they made for my uncle's wife.

Thus, the known population is 9, but there are only footstones telling you the names of 4. The bachelor uncles have no billing, and one of the brothers and his wife, that I know of, have no marker.  Significantly, my grandmother has no billing either. Only my parents, one of the brothers, and my grandfather are noted with markers.

The one brother whose wife may or may not be there, at least has a dual marker that has his wife's name on it, with a birth year on it. Overall, the place is the plot of the unknown Greeks.

Perhaps ironically, my wife and I today were going to go to the cemetery, not really because today, Veteran's Day, is my mother's 99th birthday, but because the cemetary's office would be open and I'd be able to try and inquire who is actually in the plot right now. Mt. Olivet doesn't answer their mail. Something came up and prevented us from going today, but it will be much sooner than later when we do go.

My wonder extends to seeing if one of the brother's wives made it in, and if a divorced first cousin, who I signed a form for 30 years ago so she could be buried with her Mom and Dad, finally shuffled off.

A simple visit to the plot does not tell you everyone who is there. It never has.

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