Bodie Cemetery- L. H. Arrild
….He Shall Sleep but not forever….L. H. Arrild (d. 29 April 1903) Aged 19 years, 8 months.
Louis H. Arrild
Louis Hansen Arrild, the only son of Andrew P. and Lena C. Arrild, died Wednesday at 5 a.m. of diabetes.
He was born on the 27th day of August 1884, and was a member of the Bodie Lodge No. 143, A.O.U.W. and Bodie Labor Union by which Orders, he was laid to rest Thursday at 2 p.m. (Bodie Miners Union Cemetery)
Louie, as he was known by all, had lived in Bodie since infancy, had attended the public school, whose flag floated at half-mast, and later had been an employee of his father, on the “tailings pond.”
He joined the A.O.U.W. in October 1902, and was insured in favor of his parents in the sum of $2,000. During his “Membership in that Order “missed but one meeting.
Louis was a quiet, well meaning young man. Respected by all, the only son of devoted parents, whose loss can never be replaced. Besides his parents, he leaves a sister, Mrs. Jas. Currie, to mourn his loss.
(Bridgeport Chronicle-Union, 5/2/1903, Saturday)
Bodie Cemetery “Mother’s grave”
MOTHER- MARY A. MILLER ( 1893-1963)- In Gods Care- BODIE CEMETERY!
The “overland migration” at mid- century (1865) was a major transplanting of young families. If any passion drove the married- at-a-young-age Wives forward, it was the “determination to keep their families together.” After the familiar strategy of sending the men “first” or ahead,” the determined “Overland Women,” set themselves to maintain the family’s coherence.
The decision to go West, was not the wives to make. The wives were reluctant to embark on the journey that meant a complete break with their old stable,“ “conventional city lifestyle.” But if women understood, and responded to any principle, it was “the need to keep the members of thefamily together.”
Thus, the married women and mothers, only choice was to picked up their infants and young children, and traveled that agonizing, treacherous and unknown-road , so the family——the entire family——might be transplanted into the new frontier. (Emigrants sought to travel in company of extended family, friends, neighbors and co-religionists. This single “keep the family together” purpose, above all, made the west-ward-Wagon-train travel hardships bearable
Within the “cycles of childbearing and childrearing,” the young mothers, managed a kind of equity in which they placed their lives. Their “Mother Of” became their “Emigrant Identity.” The overland-women were neither brave adventurers nor “sun-bonneted ladies.”
They were vigorous, and given to Realism, and Stoicism. The long hours- (8-10 hours ) of daily walking presented to them all challenges. The West meant to them- “the challenge of a family and maintaining domestic order against the disordered life of an unknown frontier.”
Once embarked on the overland Western journey, there was “no turning back.” The young wives were determined to complete the Journey, no matter the physical hardships of walking, and wagon-train isolation, traveling to get to the destination their husbands had chosen! Energetic in their daily efforts to survive their “western movement,” and have their entire family living “settled” in the West was the faith that moved them in their hearts.
At the end of the Civil War (1865), 25,000 emigrants had made the “overland crossing to California.” They were among the last Americans to make the journey by mules team-wagon. Migration dwindled after 1868. The Railroad began to replace the over-land by mule team and wagon-travel. Settlers, also began to look to lands of the Middle Mountain Regions, rather than the Pacific Ocean Coast. The hardship and travel time was also lessened by the Railroad expansion to the Pacific Ocean.
It was a time of consolidation and for a different kind of building. No longer “log cabins” this time, but the fabric of social life- ——-Schools and Churches ——-and the reweaving of families separated by the Civil War and broken up by the migration.
It was a time for the “Frontier Women” to redefine their friendship’s, their “family, and their new hearth and home!”
Bodie Fraternal Burial Association
Bodie Fraternal Burial Association- Fenced Grave- Bodie Miners’ Union Cemetery!
~~Today, the only reason we know the names of individual Bodie citizens ,and their “Date of Death” is because “upon death” the Miners “membership dues were current.” The distressed family received the “Beneficiary money” to pay for the 1)expensive granite headstone, 2)the “undertaking” which included the casket, viewing the body, 3) a Church Funeral Service, 4) a proper Gravesite Ceremony, and 5) an ornate fence to surround the grave plot.
~~~Specifically, the Bodie Miners’ Union legacy is the graves with stone monuments in the Bodie Cemetery. Over “the testimony of time ,” these headstone have stood silent in the graveyard. The Union Miners’ Memberships Dues and “Death Benefit Clause” mase it possible, and paid for these stone Headstone.
~~~To handle all the burial details of the Bodie Miners’ Union, the Bodie Fraternal Burial Association was also organized. The digging of the graves- dynamite blasting the frozen ground was a unique technique “only in Bodie. ”The Union had explosion experts, they used this skill in blasting rock. Frozen ground did not keep, the miners from properly interring a fellow worker, or workers family member.
Each individual grave, whether man, women or infant child, and their different Headstone, tell its own unique Bodie story. A story of living in Bodie, laboring in the Mines, and dying in Bodie. The graves, grave-plots give a “window of a time-capsule.” Originally, the fence surrounding the individual grave, purpose was to deter grazing cattle from trampling the grave. Besides keeping cattle out, the smaller fences helped deter smaller animals from digging and getting to the Caskets and the contents below ground. The single plot fences also marked the grave location, otherwise forgotten to time by the overgrowth of sage-brush.
The “ornate metal fences,” which came from Mail-Order Catalogs have in some cases lasted and the headstone are missing. Either way, 150 years later, the layout of the “family layout” Cemetery Plots are marked. The “original intention” of Bodie Miners’ Union having a final resting place for it “wage-earning membership” is locatable, respected and the graves maintained.
Bodie- Winter Months!
Infant Son- John McMillan, Infant Son- George McMillan- Brothers buried in Bodie Cemetery.
~~~Miners, Women and Infant Children are interred in each of the three separate Cemetery Distinct sections of the Bodie Cemetery. Family plots hold siblings. Single, granite grave monuments have had family members names “added” over two decades time. Parents “wooden markers” have been replaced by their children. (This is only known because it is engraved on the stone- ERECTED BY WIFE and CHILDREN.)
~~~By puzzle piecing the graves in the Cemetery with the “unrepairable, boarded-shut dilapidated buildings” in Bodie, the history of the Bodie Mining District has a richer context. Eight months out of the year, daily life at the remote, mountain 8,400 elevation was miserable, an uncomfortable —-freezing bitter cold, windswept place.
~~ A location with no Sanitation- Outhouses, No cold or hot running water, No indoor plumbing, only “wood burning heating,” and cooking on a wood burning stove.
~~Everything that came in-and-out of the Mining Town, (including the gold-bullion leaving,) whiskey, food, firewood and people, came packed in-out by Freight-Wagon pulled by a “twenty-mule team”. Due to heavy snowfall or a blizzard, the roads to and from Bodie were usually impassable. The blizzards made it impossible to leave the town. The town “closed-down” even in the dark-daylight-hours weeks of Winter and early Spring months. After snow-storms, slush and mud prevailed in prominence all over the town. Difficulty in maintaining “Firewood storage” also complicated the “months of Winter”- freezing conditions, wind chill- also required keeping “Wood Storage” inside, covered-shed and near the house.
~~The Bodie Cemetery has only “full- body burials”- (No cremations ). During the frozen winter months, the corpses were kept “in storage” until the sage-covered ground thawed. Blasting the frozen-ground was part of digging a grave. The “death date” might have been during a Winter month. The actual day the Casket was lowered into the ground, covered over, and a “proper gravesite ceremony” could have varied, up to six months later. The Snow melting determined everything in Bodie!!
BODIE- GHOST TOWN
Sage covered- BODIE CEMETERY- graves- BODIE MINERS’ UNION CEMETERY!
~~~Today, located at 8,400 foot elevation, Bodie (Mono County), California is an abandoned Ghost Town. It is a “remote Eastern Sierra location” on a state of California State Map. Buried in Bodie are a 200 sage-brush-covered- graves, located in the three acre Bodie Township Cemetery. A Cemetery that has three distinct sections- the Wards Cemetery, the Masonic Cemetery and the Bodie Miners’ Union Cemetery.
~~~It is the “death date” that was carved into the Headstone, which gives the individual grave ,and “the engraved name on the marker” significance. The “birth and death dates” defined the deceased persons lifespan. “That date” is when the persons death became a part of mining history and Bodie Township history. Bodie’s Township History is also connected to California mining history, because every grave has a “timing connection” to the Bodie Mining District.
~~~These names and dates, unique only to Bodie, tell the History of this gold mining district, on the map collectively called “the Bodie Mining District,” located on the Eastern Sierra in California. Intertwined in the towns history are the individual graves of the men who physically labored, 1,200 feet below ground, in the shafts of the mines, and who banded together in 1877 to establish the Bodie Miners’ Union labor organization. The BODIE MINERS’ UNION established Bodie as a “mining-town.” Organized, the Miners’ took the “mining-camp” to a California location of significance both innovation and enterprise.
~~~What remains today is only the scares of tunnel mining, abandoned machinery and forgotten graves. The Cemetery reclaimed by sage-brush, fenced to keep out the wandering cattle and covered in snow-depth. Only the Headstones and Marble Monuments make it a “place of notation” on the mountainside, above the old-town of decaying buildings.
Bodie Mine Shafts- Dynamite Danger Below!!
~~~Sinking a Mine Shaft through rock required the following sequence: (1) Drilling a round of holes. (2) Loading the holes with explosives.(3) Blasting, removing the broken rock. (4) Trimming the shaft to form. (5) Installing the timber supports. (6) Then drilling the next round of holes.
~~~The “holes” were loaded with Dynamite and fired with electric detonators, known as “blasting caps”. Dynamite was called “powder,” a carryover from the days when “black gun powder” was used in underground mining Sticks of Dynamite that did not not exploded were called “misses” or “missed holes.” They were extremely dangerous, and had to be discovered before work continued. Many a Miner was maimed or killed by accidentally drilling a “missed hole,” or setting off the charge.
~~~After blasting, the “broken rock” was removed from the bottom of the Shaft by shoveling it into the ore bucket, and hoisting it out of the the mine for dumping. This business of shoveling was known as “mucking.”
~~~With one man at the hoisting, and the other man at the bottom of the shaft, it was necessary to devise some sort of communication. by pulling a cord a man below could “ring a bell” inside the Hoisting House. Bells were used for communication. The different “bell signals” were for UP, DOWN and STOP. “Stop” meaning- STOP RIGHT NOW! That was usually- ONE BELL!
~~~When the sSgnal was given, the loaded ore bucket was hoisted up the shaft. At the surface it was dumped into a waiting mine car. A 60-Gallon Bucket held enough rock to fill one 1,100 pound capacity Mine Car. These mine cars were prevalent in small mining operations, because they fit inside a tunnel and could be handled by one man. They also pivoted, so that dumping could be directed to either side of the tracks. (Larger cars were pulled by mules.)
~~~The “timber cribbing” that supported the rock, and earthen walls of the shaft was framed to fit, then lowered into the Mine in the ore bucket. Each framed section was known as a “set”. Since the “Shaft Sets” are placed from the surface downward, each “new set” had to be “suspended from the set” above, until it was wedged in place. Iron Rods known as “hanging rods” provided the temporary support. The Shaft had to be kept “straight and plumb”- to allow the raising and lowering of the of the “free swing ore bucket.”
The miners “rode the bucket” only while lining the shaft with planks. This was extremely risky, dangerous, and done with extreme caution. (There were no guides in the Shaft.) The Shaft was all boxed in, so the Bucket would not catch any exposed timbers, if it started to swinging. It was pretty hard not to keep a hundred-foot cable from swinging.
With no Guides in the Shaft, the danger the Bucket might catch on something, and tip you out was a “falling to your death.”
Bodie Mining District Township
Bobby Bell- March 9, 1914- January 9, 2003- Bodie, (Mono County) California- Bodie Cemtery
~~~Bodie, California was a gold mining town, a boomtown of enterprise where glamorous Mining Companies hoisted gold and silver out of the holes in the ground. Today, the Bodie Mining District is silent, still and in weathered with 140 years of weathering. Very little remains of the Mining operations, or township that made Bodie Mining District of any notation of importance.
~~Lester Edward Bell was born in Lapinee, Ontario, Canada, in 1860. At the age of 15, in 1875, he left Canada with his good friend James Stuart Cain. The two, young and ambitious, young men set out to strike it rich in America. Arriving in Carson City Nevada, they found employment in the lumberyards supplying Virgina City. Not long after the men began courting two sisters, Delilah and Charity Wells, while residing in Genoa. Lester Edward Bell and Charity (“Cherry”) were married and moved to Bodie in 1879. Lester L. Bell was born January 24, 1888.
~~~When the Standard Consolidated Mining Company suspended operations in 1913, the new owner used the 20-stamp Standard Mill to crush ore for the few lessors still living in town. Lessees (more commonly called leasers) were allowed to take ore from the old workings, and pay a specified percentage of their yield to the Mine Owner. The big companies, once sensations on stock exchanges from San Francisco to New York- had already removed the large ore bodies. The “leassors” found enough value in narrow “stringers” and disregard ledges to provide meager livings for their families.
~~~By the late 1920’s the Stamp Mill was being run by Lester L. Bell and his son, Bobby Bell. Where once a steady stream of mine cars and mules brought ore to the mMll, now the individual leasers used their own trucks to haul ore in small batches at irregular intervals to the Stamp Mill. The “milling machinery crushed the rock”, extracted the gold and silver, and turned the metals into bars of Bullion. If the leaser’s ore was “poor quality—which was often the case- there was not much profit after the cost of the milling was subtracted. “The work was dangerous, grubby, and difficult to make a living working “tired old mines claims.”
~~~By 1930, the Bodie Mining District had declined, and Bodie had become a deserted town. Bob Bell and a few other stalwart individuals hung on to their “hopes.” Even though they resided elsewhere in Mono County, the four or five miners would returned from time to time during the summer months to the hills around Bodie to prospect and stake claims to prospect.
Bob Bell would stay in his old family’s house. It had survived the June 24, 1932 fire which had destroyed ninety percent of the residential township.
Bobby Bell ran the Stamp Mill for the last time in 1935. The Bell Lode was a “pocket of sulfide rock and no gold bearing ledge” and some quartz stringers. It was the closing chapter in the Bodie’s long quest for Gold.
Bodie Miners’ Union Death Benefits
~~~Constitution and ByLaws of the BODIE MINERS’ UNION- March 14, 1899. Bodie (Mono County) California.
BODIE MINERS’ UNION ~~~DEATH BENEFIT ALLOTMENT~~~~
By June 30, 1878, the 190 member Bodie Miners’ Union had constructed a “Union Meeting Hall” on Main street.
The individual miners’ Union Dues helped pay for the “care of a sick, or injured miner, “or if Death occurred- paid for “his cost of Burial.” The Burial Benefits were paid out to the deceased Miners’ family to help with the cost of the funeral and internment of the Miner in the Bodie Miners’ Cemetery section of the Bodie township Cemetery.
The Death Benefit Allotment was $75 for funeral expenses, (which could cost from $80 to $100), depending on the level of “undertaking services.”
Lottie Johl- fenced grave!
Lottie Johl’s (d.7November 1899) fenced grave- Bodie (Mono County) California.
LOTTIE JOHL
Nobody knew anything about Lottie, not even her last name. She worked in the Red Light District of Bodie, California, as a prostitute, where she met Eli Johl. A rough German man, who co-owned the City Market where he worked as a butcher.
They fell in love and married. Lottie cleaned up her life and attempted to join the respectable society of town, but because of her past lifestyle, the people of Bodie shunned her. She once attended a costume ball, decked out in the best of finery. Her outfit was picked for the "Most Beautiful Costume" award, but at Midnight when the masks came off and everyone found out it was her, she was asked, “to leave,” and the award was given to someone else.
One day in early November 1899,Lottie fell ill in, and consulted the Doctor who gave her a Prescription. Later that evening, she started having violent convulsions. The doctor was called again, but could not determine what had caused such a drastic turn for the worse. She was dead by morning. (She died November 7, 1899.)
Eli requested that an autopsy be performed, where it was discovered that the druggist had mistakenly given her poison instead of the proper medication. The townsfolk demanded Lottie be buried "outside the fence" in Boot Hill, instead of the Cemetery proper where decent people were interred. Eli argued, and eventually was allowed to bury her “inside the cemetery perimeter,” on the west side, (Bodie Miners’ Union Cemetery), farthest from the Bodie cemetery entrance-gate and the town.
Bodie Cemetery Fenced Plots
Lottie Johl’s Fenced Grave Plot marks her burial and grave location.
Lottie Johls’ grave would be in an “unmarked grave without the Iron Fence, surrounding the Johl’s Plot.
THE FENCES SURROUNDING THE GRAVE PLOTS
Fences were built around newly dug graves to keep out wandering, grazing cattle and to deter smaller animals from digging up the contents below the ground. Graves were dug pretty shallow and the small fence was never originally intended to “mark a grave.”
With the deterioration of the wood-board-markers, the remaining metal fences purpose changed from protecting the Grave, to being a “distinctive plot marker,” and being the only remaining Grave-Site or burial-plot “Identity Marker.”
The Fences lasting duration has marked the Grave-Site plot, and its location. These fences made forgotten “unmarked graves” an variable location, and today “recognizable as a grave-site” without a Headstone to give positive identification of the burial.
Bodie Cemetery~~Hearse House~~
Henry Ward- Horse-draw Hease- Bodie, California!
HENRY WARD
Around 1878, undertaker Henry Ward built the “Hearse House” for storage of his horse-drawn glass hearse. A native of England, Henry Ward came to Bodie in Spring 1878 and opened up Pioneer Furniture Store. Ward also, began construction on a two story building on Main Street for his business, H. WARD and COMPANY.
Mr. Ward’s new Bodie business, included a furniture store and an “undertaking establishment.” It was common for “Cabinet makers” to also make Caskets. They had the tools and the skill. although, if it was not their chosen profession, “the coffin business” did get them established as an “Important” businessmen in their community.
The ground floor of the WARD BUILDING was for his furniture business and “undertaking services.” The second floor was rented to the Odd Fellows Lodge No. 279.
On January 28, 1881, Henry Ward sold his 3.7 acre cemetery and Hearse House to Boone and Wright for $400 in gold.
Masonic Cemetery
Bodie Masonic Lodge No. 252 was chartered October 16, 1879. The Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, a worldwide fraternal order, originated in the Middle Ages when stone mason and cathedral builders formed “Brotherhoods.” Bodie Masonic Lodge No. 252 built a hall for meetings and community events and acquired land for burials.
The Bodie Fraternal Burial Association was organized June 13, 1898, and chose pioneer resident M. J. Cody, as its first President. The B.F.B.A. provided burial services for the the fraternal organizations and handled indigent burials paid for by Mono County. A contract was signed for undertaking services with Mr. Arrild.
In 1898, the Bodie Masonic Lodge No. 252 joined the BODIE FRATERNAL BURIAL ASSOCIATION, which took over the care of the Masonic-section of the Bodie Cemetery.
The Bodie Miners’ Union organized December 22, 1877, was dissolved sometime after 1909 as mining activities declined.
Bodie’s Masonic Lodge was active until consolidation with the Winnedumah Lodge No. 281 of Bishop, California in 1918.
MARY ELIZABETH BUTLER
~~~Bodie Cemetery- WARD CEMETERY~~~ Mary Elizabeth Butler (d. 24 November 1878)
November 24, 1878
MARY ELIZABETH BUTLER
Died- November 24, 1878, age- 30 years, 8 months, 8 days.
The Butlers were one of the first families to settle in Bodie in the 1860’s. (WARD CEMETERY)
ELIZABETH MY WIFE
Back of stone
MARY ELIZABETH
WIFE OF B. F. BUTLER
DIED NOV. 24, 1878
AGED 30 Years, 8 Months and 30 Days.
Thus star by star declined
Till all are passed away.
As morning high and higher shines
To pure and perfect day.
Bodie Chinese Contract Labor
Bodie Township- Stand Mill.
Rock blasting was very dangerous and the mining companies hired “Contract Chinese Labor”. The Chinese laborers were under the “ticket system.” They owed the “Chinese ticket money” to the contract Chinese “Ton” who had funded their passage from China to America. They owed this debt to one of their own Countrymen. Once in America, where and how they labored to pay their “passage debt” was up to them. There was no returning to China until this debt was paid in full. This debt also accumulated interest. They had no skills, spoke a foreign tongue, and in America gathered in the areas where other Chinese lived to find employment. It was easiest and safer to stay within “Chinatown” because the language was similar. The meager wages they earned came from employment from a more “established countryman.”
It was Servitude. Boiling hot water for laundry, and long hours of doing laundry, butchering chickens, and planting and harvesting vegetable gardens was physically menial work. This type of manual labor took no technical skill, no language communication and was physically strenuous in an indoor tiny, confined space, or outdoors in the harsh, cold weather.
By 1880, the Census indicates about 350 Chinese living in Bodie. As a “labor pool that were fed, housed and worked together.”
The Chinese Contract laborers were all-nameless. Individually, they were just called “Johns,” and invisible to the rest of the Euro-American mine workers. Thus, if a “contract laborer” was killed in a blasting explosion- it went unnoticed, no Newspaper Death Notice. If a body was recovered, no family to notify or funeral expenses to pay-out.
The death and burial of a Chinese worker was about the customs and traditions of the Chinese ancestors. (Customs dictated that Chinese burials would later be exhumed and their bones returned to China for reinterment with their ancestors in the ancestral family grave.)
In Bodie, the Chinese were buried indigent, nameless and in unmarked temporary graves. Forgotten and nameless, their remains were never exhumed, or returned to China. Their Bodie “temporary interment” became their permeant grave.
The Exclusion Act of 1882, or Geary Act was a Immigration Federal Law that “excluded Chinese from owning property, working for a local, state or federal municipality”. The Bodie Miners’ Union and the Workingman’s Party prohibited the Chinese from joining any Union or working for any of the Mining Companies.
Excluded from being buried in a “Private Corporation Cemetery,” because they could not own property. Thus, the “1882 Exclusion Act” made the indigent “Public Cemetery” the only available place of interment of a Chinese worker who was killed or died in Bodie.
Bodie’s Chinatown was the only place an “Unmarried Female” could fit into the town and find work doing laundry, hosting in the gambling saloons, and find living quarters. The “Redlight District” was next to Chinatown for a reason. The “Non-Wage Earners,” serving the miners were living closest to the mine for convenience.
It was unfavorable location also, because of the loud and constant noise from all the various mining activity. The Stamp Mills were in operation seven days a week, dusk to dawn crushing ore. The stench of raw sewage and foul odors of horse manure added to the dislike of living in the filthy “Chinatown.” Having “a reputation” of living in the “downward status” location by the slaughterhouse, also created a “class of lower status” for the Chinese and the “women.”
“Outside the Fence” Cemetery
ROSE MAY- buried “OUTSIDE THE FENCE” of the “Proper Bodie Cemetery.
“Outside the fence” were buried the illegitimate, indigent and the “Questionable Women.” Prostitutes were the “Questionable Women” buried in unmarked graves“outside the fence” of the Bodie Cemetery.
The “Proper Bodie Cemetery,” is where the “Respectable Women” were buried. “Inside the fenced” boundary of the 10 acre Bodie Cemetery consists of three discrete burial sections-the Wards Cemetery, the Masonic Cemetery and the Miners Union Cemetery.
WARDS CEMETERY
A native of England, Henry Ward came to Bodie in Spring 1878 and opened up the Pioneer Furniture Store. Mr. Ward also, began construction on a two story building on Main Street for his business, H. WARD and COMPANY.
Mr. Ward’s new Bodie business, included a furniture store and an “undertaking establishment.” It was common for “Cabinet makers” to also make caskets. Carpenters had the tools and the skill, and although, if it was not their chosen profession, “the coffin business” did get them established as an “important” businessmen in their community.
The ground floor of the WARD BUILDING was for his furniture business and “undertaking services.” The second floor was rented to the Odd Fellows Lodge No. 279.
MASONIC CEMETERY
Bodie Masonic Lodge No. 252 was chartered October 16, 1879. The Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, a worldwide fraternal order, originated in the Middle Ages when stone mason and cathedral builders formed “brotherhoods.” Bodie Masonic Lodge No. 252 built a meeting hall and acquired land for burials- the Bodie Masonic Cemetery.
MINERS’ UNION CEMETERY
BODIE MINERS’ UNION
DEATH BENEFIT ALLOTMENT
By June 30, 1878, the 190 member Bodie Miners’ Union had constructed a “Union Meeting Hall” on Main street, Bodie.
The miners’ Union Dues helped pay for the care of a sick, or injured miner, or if death occurred- paid “his cost of burial.”
The Death Benefit Allotment was $75 for funeral expenses, (which could cost from $80 to $100), depending on the level of “undertaking services.”
The Bodie Fraternal Burial Association was organized June 13, 1898, and chose pioneer resident M. J. Cody, as its first president. The B.F.B.A. provided burial services for the the “three fraternal organizations” and handled indigent burials or burials “outside the fence.”
August and Teresa Dressler Seiler
AUGUST AND THERESA DRESSLER SEILER
Not long after immigrating from her native Germany, young Theresa Dressel met immigrant August Seiler, (birth country Switzerland), in San Francisco, California. The two fell in love and married in 1875, and made their residence in San Francisco, California. They soon had two sons. Their first child, August, who was born 1876 (died in 1879 at the age of three years.) Their second son, George was born in 1878.
In 1879, August Seiler decided to sell his Hotel, The National Hotel, in San Francisco and venture into “Mining Enterprises” in the booming Bodie District located in Mono County. At the time of this move, Mrs. Seiler was pregnant with her third child. It was decided she and her two year old son, George would remain in San Francisco for the birth and then go to Bodie.
Tragically, the Seiler’s second son, George died the day before their daughter Hermene Seiler was born. (1880). Three months later, Theresa Seiler and infant Hermene, left San Francisco to join her husband in Bodie. It was a week long journey by train and stage- wagons to the “mining town” located on the eastern slope of the Sierra’s. At her arrival, (Spring 1880), the Seilers rented a large house in Bodie, which they lived in from 1880 to the early 1900’s.
The Seilers had two more daughters, Josephine Seiler(1880) and Pauline Seiler (b.1883) and a son Gustav Seiler. Gustav Seiler (b. 1889) died in 1891. The cause of death was “a spasm of the glottis”, a condition which blocked the two year old boys wind pipe. His grave is located in the Miners’ Union section of the Bodie Cemetery.
Josephine Seiler married Cecil Burkham (b. September22, 1878 d. Jan. 7, 1972) from Bodie and their sons were Frank Burkham and Cecil II Burkham (Cecil II was called Bert, for Bertran- his middle name his whole life.)
Pauline Seiler (b. 1883) married Walter J. McKeough. Her 1909 death was nine months after giving birth to her son, Kenneth McKeough. She died at 24 years of age. Pauline Seiler McKeough (1883-1909) grave in the Wards section of the Bodie Cemetery is marked with a WOMEN OF WOODCRAFT grave stone. Kenneth McKeough died in 1992 (83 years of age) is also buried in the Wards section of the Bodie Cemetery.
Theresa Sieler, married to August Seiler for 39 years, died in 1914. August Seiler died in 1919. (Theresa and August Seiler are interred in Colma, California.)
Gustav A. Seiler (1888-1891) buried in BODIE CEMETERY.
Bodie Cemetery- Masonic Cemetery
FREEMASONS The most common symbol of the Freemasons (or Masons) is one showing a compass and a square. The letter G stands for geometry or God.
The Freemason symbol was very important to these people because they all had it on the top of their tombstones above everything else. The symbol shows other people that this person was apart of a Fraternity and stood for things like God, fairness, loyalty, honesty, and courtesy. They belonged to a Group and that was “who they were.”
The Freemason’s are the oldest Fraternal groups in the world. People put the Freemason “Masonic symbol” on their tombstone to show they were a member of this “Fraternal Brotherhood” of individuals.
Seeing the Masonic symbol on a tombstone showed the deceased person believed in a “Higher Being,” and put others first on every possible occasion.
the Masonic symbol at the top of a tombstone, also indicate its significance and importance the Masonic Lodge “Brotherhood” was in the persons daily life. The symbol is what is called a “Compass and Square” symbol with a ‘G’ in the middle. The G stands for God. The Masonic symbol meaning stands for God, helping others, courtesy, and honesty.
This is very important because it shows the unity among the membership of the Freemasonry, and it stands for so much more than it seems. It defined the interred “as being a Freemason” in comparison to the others interred without “Fraternal Brotherhood” membership symbols.
Masonic symbol at the top of his tombstone to indicate its significance in his life. Green is defined by being a Mason in comparison to his wife who is defined as a “mother”. This shows the importance of being a Mason and all that it means to be one. He was so much more than a “dad”, that’s why his did not read like his wife’s.
Bodie (Mono County)California.
THE FENCES SURROUNDING THE GRAVE PLOTS
Fences were built around newly dug graves to keep out wandering, grazing cattle and to deter smaller animals from digging up the contents below the ground. Graves were dug pretty shallow and the small fence was never originally intended to “mark a grave.”
With the deterioration of the wood-board-markers, the remaining metal fences purpose changed from protecting the grave, to being a “distinctive plot marker” and being the only remaining grave-site or burial-plot “identity marker.”
The fences lasting duration has marked the grave-site plot, and its location. These fences made forgotten unmarked graves a location, and today “recognizable as a grave-site” without a headstone to give identification of the burial.