Live strange, die strange, and leave a strange gravestone. We have explanations for some of these weird stones, but for others we do not. Educated guesses and pure speculation as to their origin are welcome.

The Clothespin Grave, Middlesex, VT 

Created for the owner of a local clothespin factory. 

The Davis Memorial

After John Milburn’s wife Sarah died in 1930, he was so overcome with grief — and so desperate to be rid of all his money — that he erected an elaborate series of statues of himself and his wife in various epochs of their life together, carved from top-of-the-line Italian marble (in Italy), then shipped to the town of Hiawatha, Kansas. Total cost: $200,000 (in Great Depression dollars). Total tonnage: about 70. Total number of annual visitors to the gravesite: 30,000. (Thanks to Neatorama and John Charlton for the photo.) 

The Dollhouse Grave

This creep-fest resides in Medina, Tennessee, and is the grave of a 5-year-old girl named Dorothy Harvey, who died in 1931. Legend has it she loved dolls so much, they built a dollhouse to mark her grave. (No, wait, that’s what actually happened. Legend has it that if you peer into the windows of the dollhouse, you just might catch a glimpse of her ghost.)

Lilly E. Gray, “Victim of the Beast 666?

This mysterious grave marker rests in a Salt Lake City boneyard. Despite repeated attempts to explain the creepy inscription, investigations by the morbidly curious have turned up little about this “Victim of the Beast 666.” A few interesting facts were gleaned by sleuth Richelle Hawks: Lily’s name was mispelled on her stone (an extra “l” was added), she married petty thief Elmer Gray at age 72, but he’s buried far away from his wife in the same cemetery, and Gray died of natural causes in a local hospital. Anyone got an Ouija board handy? 

by Ransom Riggs - September 5, 2007 - 8:32 AM