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.