Here Lies Linc (31 page)
Authors: Delia Ray
A wave of surprise and worry rippled through me.
Someone
had beat me to it!
Once I contacted Tim Parrott, however, I couldn’t believe my luck. After years of meticulous research and detective work, Tim had unlocked the secrets of the Black Angel and recently published a small, carefully footnoted booklet about his findings. His connections to the statue run deep. His grandfather worked as a superintendent of Oakland Cemetery from 1947 to 1964, and Tim grew up listening to stories about the cemetery’s residents. And not only is he descended from a long line of Czechs, but he also has a working knowledge of Czech, along with seventeen other languages (!), which he puts to use in his part-time employment as a translator.
Tim quickly became the inspiration for the much older character of Mr. Krasny. Like the fictional Mr. Krasny, Tim first began to hunt for clues about Theresa Dolezal Feldevert in the
Slovan Americký
—a Czech-language newspaper published in Iowa City from 1873 until 1891, when its offices were moved to Cedar Rapids. Looking back at these old issues on microfilm, I’m amazed that he could find any scraps of information in the cramped rows of splotchy foreign print. But with stubborn perseverance, he uncovered a treasure trove of leads—advertisements for Theresa Dolezal’s midwife skills, an obituary for her beloved son Edward, and short bulletins notifying her fellow Czech immigrants of comings and goings.
Tim used these clues to trace Theresa’s path from her native village in Eastern Europe and then back and forth across the United States. With the help of genealogical
researchers around the world, he unearthed copies of birth, marriage, and death records documenting the family’s tragic history. He also found confirmation that Theresa had completed her midwife training at the University of Vienna’s Clinic of Obstetrics in 1869 and, eight years later, boarded a steamship, the SS
Mosel
, with four-year-old Edward, to make her way to America.
Along with providing an interesting account of Theresa’s rather mysterious marriages, Tim’s booklet also clears up a long history of confusion surrounding her commissioning of the Black Angel statue. Based on the recommendation of a friend, Theresa hired a well-known Czech sculptor, Josef Mario Korbel of Chicago, to create a fitting memorial for her family. She paid Korbel an astounding $5,000 for his work—the equivalent of $237,500 today—and the nine-and-a-half-foot-tall statue was cast in bronze and shipped to Iowa City by rail in 1912. According to an article published in the
Iowa City Press-Citizen
in 1922, Mrs. Feldevert “was disappointed at the blackness of the angel, but the artist argued that a ‘shiny’ bronze statue would be a foolish monument.”
While most of the newspaper stories covering the raising of the Black Angel in Iowa City were sensationalized and based on questionable secondhand accounts, one article that appeared in the
Des Moines Register
in 1925 provides a rare peek at Theresa Feldevert’s true spirit. In an interview at her home with a reporter named Blanche Robertson, Theresa looked back on her life and mourned in snatches of Czech and broken English. Robertson describes the scene in heartbreaking detail:
She suddenly gave her chair an energetic push and sailed across the room. Manipulating her chair with great skill, she wheeled up to a closet door, opened it, rummaged around, poking bundles with her cane, and finally brought out a huge package wrapped in newspaper. With a triumphant little smile she wheeled back across the room, and with trembling fingers untied the strings and removed the papers.
She drew forth an immense photograph of a handsome young boy. “This is my son—my boy—my Edward.” She touched the life-sized features affectionately and gazed for a long time at her dead son. Then came another picture of a man, I should judge to be about 45 years old. “My husband,” she murmured proudly. “This other picture is of me,” she said. In the photograph she appeared to be of middle age, altogether different from the poor, withered old woman before me. For a long time she looked at the pictures in silence, then she said, “My boy—he get sick and die. My husband, he get sick and die. Now I am sick and soon I, too, shall die.” Then carefully wrapping the photographs she replaced them in the closet.
Nor was she far wrong in her predictions, for she died not more than a week after our conversation.
While many details related to the Black Angel in this book are based on historical facts, I also want to remind readers that
Here Lies Linc
is a creative work of fiction. Several characteristics of the statue, as well as historical records, were invented or slightly modified in hopes of keeping the story lively and the pages turning. For example, the fading of the inscription on the base of the Black Angel has been exaggerated in the story, and small bits of phrasing in the English translation have been rearranged for clarity.
I have also taken a bit of creative leeway with the Feldevert name. In the course of my research, I was surprised to learn that the original surname of Theresa’s German husband, Nicholas, was actually Feldewert, with a
w
. And to make matters more complex, a shorter version of this name—Feldwert—appears in several legal documents pertaining to the couple. So why did Theresa choose yet another variation—Feldevert—to be etched on her family monument? Her decision might have been related to pronunciation issues. Because there is no
w
sound in German, the original name would have been pronounced “Fel-da-vairt.” So perhaps Theresa chose this spelling to ensure that future visitors to her gravesite would pronounce the name properly, once and for all. Whatever the reason, I decided to honor Theresa’s last wishes and use the name Feldevert.
Names of streets and places in Iowa City and elements of Oakland Cemetery have also been fictionalized. Jim Wonick, the former superintendent of Oakland, and his successor, Bob Deatsch, whom I interviewed for this book, have nothing in common with the cantankerous Kilgore. They cheerfully answered a long list of unusual questions, took me on a tour of their workshop, and even showed me the small back-room cabinet where the keys to the mausoleums are kept. I only wish I could have convinced them to let me peek into one of the tombs, but professionalism kept them from granting this one request.
Finally, I’d like readers to know that the epitaphs at the opening of each chapter are real, excerpted from actual headstones scattered throughout the United States and beyond. To me they capture the vast range of emotions and experiences represented in our graveyards. Sadness, but also humor and joy. Accomplishments, both humble and grand. I hope you have a chance to wander through an old cemetery soon, just the way you might browse through a good book, waiting for the hidden stories to come alive.
Delia Ray
August 2011
I
HAVE MANY PEOPLE
to thank for lighting the way during my months of wandering through cemeteries. My deepest appreciation goes to:
Loren Horton, my very first cemetery consultant, for teaching me to recognize symbols on headstones.
Tim Parrott for laying the groundwork for this novel with his painstaking research on the life of Theresa Feldevert. I could never have brought the mystery of the Black Angel to life without Tim’s willingness to share his Czech-translating skills and his precious “black book”—a gold mine of primary-source information.
Jim Wonick and Bob Deatsch, superintendents of Oakland Cemetery, for patiently answering my questions on every behind-the-scenes subject from grave digging to tombstone tipping.
Michael Lensing of Lensing Funeral Home, who cheerfully contributed his ideas on cemetery trivia and the funeral industry.
My test-readers, Ana Hollander and Sam Buatti, and to the helpful threesome from Horace Mann Elementary—Alex
Moen, Zach Williamson, and Colin Donnelly—for sharing secrets about what it’s like to grow up with a cemetery for a backyard.
My faithful writing group members—Dori Butler, Terri Gullickson, and Jennifer Reinhardt—for their critiques and inspiration.
I’m also immensely grateful to the best-agent-ever Laura Langlie for making sure this book found its proper home and to my wonderful new editor, Nancy Hinkel. Thank you, Nancy, for all those “Hah!” and “Nice!” scribbles in the margins, for asking the wisest questions, and for helping Linc and his crew find their footing.
And as always, I owe a special thanks to Matt for being my biggest booster, and to my lovely mother, Bobby, a rare friend, who happily listens to entire chapters read over the phone.
Carmack, Sharon DeBartolo.
Your Guide to Cemetery Research
. Cincinnati, Ohio: Betterway Books, 2002.
Colman, Penny.
Corpses, Coffins, and Crypts: A History of Burial
. New York: Henry Holt, 1997.
Greene, Janet.
Epitaphs to Remember: Remarkable Inscriptions from New England Gravestones
. Chambersburg, Pennsylvania:
Alan C. Hood, 2005.
Keister, Douglas.
Stories in Stone: The Complete Guide to Cemetery Symbolism
. Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith, 2004.
Parrott, Timothy, C.
The Enigma of Theresa Dolezal Feldwert and the Black Angel
. 2nd ed. Iowa City, Iowa: Timothy Parrott, 2010. Additional copies available from the author at
[email protected]
.
Yalom, Marilyn.
The American Resting Place: Four Hundred Years of History Through Our Cemeteries and Burial Grounds
. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2008.
Cemetery Culture: City of the Silent
at
alsirat.com/silence
The Epitaph Browser
at
alsirat.com/epitaphs
Links to resources on cemetery history and cemetery preservation
at
potifos.com/cemeteries.html
W
HEN
D
ELIA
R
AY WAS LITTLE
, she and her sister and their cousin invented the Brave Girls Club as a way to make the long, hot summers in Tidewater, Virginia, a little more exciting. They dared each other to perform all sorts of daunting challenges—swims across an algae-covered, snake-infested pond, for example, or solo trips to the second story of an old, abandoned farmhouse hidden deep in the woods. Delia still uses her Brave Girl training today whenever she’s conducting research for her books, which have taken her on adventures from the Yukon Territory in Canada to cemeteries spread across the state of Iowa. Between adventures, Delia lives in a house overlooking the Iowa River with her husband, three daughters, and a strange-looking mutt named Griff, who came from the animal shelter and provided the inspiration for C.B. in this book.
Here Lies Linc
is Delia’s third novel for young readers. To find out more about her, visit
deliaray.com
.
