Gravely Speaking

Michael Shea of Rochester, New York read the gravelyspeaking blogpost about Ivan Adams—the Bloomington stone carver who carved the simple and elegant depiction of the Virgin Mary to mark his own grave.

Mr. Shea has shared photos of a statue, carved by Adams, for the Holy Cross Rectory, which was blessed by Bishop James E. Kearney on May 22, 1951.

“The statue of Mary is 56 inches in height, including the base, and it rests on a 42-inch-tall pedestal, for an overall height of 8 feet 2 inches. Carved into its base is the name of its sculptor: Ivan L. Adams. Mr. Adams worked out of Monroe County, Indiana and created religious statues as well as carvings of a more secular nature. His portfolio includes carvings and columns for the Fine Arts Building in Chicago’s Grant Park in 1933 and the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., as well as the 21-foot tall statue of Our Lady of Lourdes which still sits atop the hospital of the same name in Camden, New Jersey.”

IVAN L. ADAMS

OCT. 26, 1904

JUNE 18, 1969
__

GLADYS J. ADAMS

JUNE 6, 1906

JAN. 7, 1988

Many prepare for death by writing a will, saying goodbyes, buying cemetery plots, but few have the talent to go so far as to design and carve their own gravestone. But, that is exactly what Ivan Leon Adams did. He carved a spire-like figure of the Virgin Mary for his own gravestone. The simple but elegant limestone statue in the Rose Hill Cemetery at Bloomington, Indiana, marks his grave and his wife, Gladys’s grave. If you want something done right, you might as well do it yourself—which he did.

According to his obituary, which appeared on June 19, 1968, in the Daily Herald-Telephone, “Ivan L. Adams of 2921 South Rogers, one of Monroe County’s most famous stone carvers, died Tuesday at Bloomington Hospital.”

“Adams began his career in 1924 during an era when stone carving and the stone industry was at its height in Monroe County. Stone Carvers were the artisans of the industry then.”

“Ivan Adams worked on carvings and columns for the Fine Arts Building in Chicago’s Grant Park in 1933, the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., the 21 foot statue of Our Lady of Lourdes (hospital) at Indian Hill in Camden, N.J. and the Church of the Holy Redeemer.”

Carving above a doorway at Foster’s Quad at Indiana University

“He also worked on many of the landmarks around Bloomington and south central Indiana, such as Foster Quad at Indiana University.”

An article that appeared in the Hoosier Times, Sunday, November 21, 2004, quoted Ivan’s daughter, Norma, “One of my favorite sculptures designed and carved by my father alone is Bernadette (patterned after Jennifer Jones, the actress who played the star role in the movie “Song of Bernadette”). The statue is located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as is his sculpture “St. Francis of Assisi.” A very charming small carving that he designed and carveded on the chimney at the old OBR building, 3^rd and Dunn in Bloomington, showing a boy and kissing a girl.”

In that same article, his daughter explains, that her father also worked on the sculpture of GI Joe that stands on the Monroe County Courthouse grounds. Norma explained that “it was not an unusual practice for a carver’s name not to appear on a carving.”

Adams’ legacy is much more than the statue that marks his grave. His work can be found in the many carvings he did, many of which are unmarked and unknown to passersby but add to the beauty of our everyday surroundings. Some of which we walk by without much notice.

The day after Halloween, jack o’ lanterns turned up in Rosehill Cemetery at Bloomington, Indiana.

Henry Ford Gravesite, Ford Cemetery, Detroit, Michigan

HENRY FORD

JULY 30, 1863

APRIL 7, 1947

CLARA BRYANT FORD

APRIL 11, 1866

SEPTEMBER 29, 1950

Next to a busy thoroughfare in Detroit, Motor City, lies the tiny and inconspicuous Ford Family Cemetery fittingly wedged between a 4-lane busy boulevard and a small church. The cemetery contains fewer than 50 or 60 graves, most of them bearing the last name of Ford, including Henry Ford, the great car manufacturer and industrialist. What makes his gravesite unique is the ornate metal contraption built over the grave, which is known as a mort safe. The mort safe was invented in Scotland more than two hundred years before Henry Ford was buried.

During the dark of night after the last lights in the Scottish villages were put out, gravediggers would go about their gruesome trade—pulling the dead from their graves to sell to medical schools. The nightmarish practice grew out of a need for medical students to have cadavers on which to study and practice. At first medical schools were content with the dead bodies of executed convicts and the indigent—those who society did not care about. But when the need outstripped the supply for fresh corpses, ghoulish entrepreneurs set about their craft with little more that strong backs, picks and shovels, and the cover of the darkness of night.

The discovery of emptied gravesites and missing loved ones disturbed the locals and solutions were sought. Some paid night guards to watch over fresh graves until, well, they weren’t fresh anymore. This practice was only as good as the guard was honest—they were often paid off and helped in the trade. Then, mort safes were invented. The term is the combination of the Latin—mort—meaning dead and the word safe—obviously to keep the dead body safe. The contraption that was invented was usually made of an iron grillwork of sorts, often with a weight of cement on top, but the designs varied greatly. The mort safe surrounded the top of the gravesite and kept the gravediggers at bay.

“Mortsafe at Logeriat Church1” by Judy Willson – Wikipedia:Contact us/Photo submission. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mortsafe_at_Logeriat_Church1.jpg#/media/File:Mortsafe_at_Logeriat_Church1.jpg

The great car manufacturer, Henry Ford’s grave is covered with a mort safe, too. Little likelihood, though, that the Ford family believed his body would be snatched and sold to a medical school.