The WOMEN BURIED IN BODIE
In death, the Women, who are buried in Bodie are identified by their marriages. The “WIFE OF” or MOTHER social status was so important it was engraved on their headstone. (Their own- or birth-name could not have gotten them buried in the cemetery.) Their husbands membership in his “Fraternal Brotherhood” is WHY the deceased women’s family could purchase a ”family grave plot” and bury his deceased spouse in his “deeded plot” in the “proper Bodie Cemetery.”

The men used the “Bodie Miners’ Union or Masonic Lodge- DEATH BENEFIT CLAUSE” insurance money to pay for their spouses burial in the “religious cemetery.” The three sections of the cemetery are the IOOF or WARDS Cemetery, the Masonic Cemetery and the Bodie Miners’ Union Cemetery.

This “Fraternal Association” also meant that her husbands membership status was current, (meaning his monthly Membership Dues were paid.) Otherwise, her burial would NOT have been with such a costly affair which included “Undertaking of the Body and Casket,” a formal viewing of the deceased body, a minister and Church Funeral, a Grave-site service, a carved-inscription Headstone and an ornate Fence surrounding the her grave plot.