Episodes

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. In this very special episode Jennie and Dianne celebrate the one year anniversary of the Ordinary Extraordinary Cemetery podcast! This episode is slightly longer than normal as they recap the first year of the podcast and then have a wonderful discussion with special guest Sharon Pajka who takes them on a tour through one of Edgar Allan Poe's favorite haunts, Shockoe Hill Cemetery in Richmond, Vi...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne chat with special guest Nolan Altman about how a simple question from his daughter led him down genealogy rabbit holes that eventually led him to coordinate JewishGen.org’s JOWBR (*JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry) database. We delve into the importance of cemeteries and their link to genealogy research, how they help to preserve stories, and how they help educate futu...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. In this episode of the Ordinary Extraordinary Cemetery Jennie and Dianne share news of a 140-year-old cemetery that was lost but has been found again in North Dakota and they learn the history of the spirit houses that cover the burials of more than 100 graves of native Dena’ina Athabascans in a cemetery in Alaska. Join us as we once again journey through these Ordinary Extraordinary Cemeteries! ...

Jennie and Dianne sit down and talk with necrotourist Ken Naegele who is also the host of The Cemetery Podcast. Ken shares many stories of his adventures in cemeteries around the country, talks about his non-profit 'Respect our Cemeteries' and more! Join us, for a truly fun-filled episode of the ordinary extraordinary cemetery!

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. “No abbey’s gloom, nor dark cathedral stoops, No winding torches paint the midnight air; Here the green pines delight, the aspen droops Along the modest pathways, and those fair Pale asters of the season spread their plumes Around this field, fit garden for our tombs." - WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING There are more than 10,000 souls who call Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts their final...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne explore a couple of highly unique Belgian immigrant cemeteries located in Door County, Wisconsin. Is there really a little cemetery in the sky? And why are the headstones at St Mary of the Snows churchyard only 6 inches apart? Find out the answers to these questions and much more more in this episode of the Ordinary Extraordinary Cemetery. Cemetery events mentioned in this epis...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne take you to one of Ohio's most beautiful garden cemeteries, Oakwood Cemetery in Cuyahoga Falls. In this episode they explore the lives of a teacher and a gentleman farmer, a self-made man who was one of Cuyahoga Falls' best know citizens, a man who began his career on the factory floor making tires and worked his way up to become the CEO of Goodyear tires, a poet, and the discov...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. In this episode Dianne and Jennie visit five mysterious graves located throughout the United States. From the grave of a female stranger, to a group of graves marked by a turning Angel, to a supposed witch, and even to the grave of a creature that may not be of this world! Come along as we explore these ordinary extraordinary cemeteries and and the mysteries they hold within! Resources for this ...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne are joined by special guest James Walsh who shares the stories and histories of the Irish miners who went to Leadville, Colorado in search of silver. These miners were the bottom of the rung men who were generally shunned by other members of society because of their Irish Catholic heritage. Many of them were buried in the pauper's section of the Evergreen cemetery in Leadville, ...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Find out how a gold mine, a pocket watch, and a letter bring the past to life and bring a family back together. In this episode Jennie and Dianne talk with Ron West. Ron has spent many years portraying James F Burns, Jimmie to his friends, at historic events throughout Colorado. James Burns was a coal miner turned millionaire who was not all that thrilled with his wealth and the other millionaire...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne enjoy a delightful conversation with three gentlemen who have been tasked with helping to preserve and restore St John's Historic Cemetery in Thibodaux, Louisiana. Special guests John Dennis, David Plater, and Teddy Pierre share the stories and history of St. John's and what they have been doing to preserve this historical landmark. Join us for a visit to yet another ordinary, e...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. "These few dollars you lose here today are going to buy you stories to tell your children and great-grandchildren. This could be one of the big moments in your life; don't make it your last!" Words spoken by American gangster John Dillinger. Join Jennie and Dianne as they visit Crown Hill Funeral Home and Cemetery in Indianapolis, Indiana specifically to tell the ordinary extraordinary story of J...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Take a dive with Jennie and Dianne as they explore two of the world's underwater cemeteries. Their first stop will be a cemetery off the coast of the Philippines that has been underwater for more than 150 years thanks to a volcanic explosion. Their second stop is a man-made coral reef cemetery off the coast of Florida. And finally they will pay a visit to the Gloucester Fisherman's Memorial in Gl...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne wander through graveyards across the United States and even the world exploring the wit and wisdom of epitaphs. Some are sweet and poignant, some are comical, and some tell the tragic tales of those buried beneath the headstones. Come along on another journey through many Ordinary Extraordinary Cemeteries and their poetry. Resources for this episode include: "Epitaph." https:/...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. In this episode Jennie and Dianna continue their visit to the cemeteries in Hanna and Carbon, Wyoming where more than 200 men who perished in the Hanna Mine Number 1 Explosions are buried. They tell the tragic tale of the double explosion that occured on March 28, 1908 and how working and living for "the company" left many families not only grieving for their lost men, but also left many widows a...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Join Jennie and Dianne as they go back in time to revisit the tragic day of June 30th, 1903 when the Union Pacific Coal Company's number one mine in Hanna, Wyoming exploded killing 169 men. This explosion was devastating to the community of Hannah, Wyoming. You will find many of these men buried in the cemeteries at Hannah and in the nearby ghost town of Carbon, Wyoming. This is part one of a two...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne chat with Jeff Belanger of the New England Legends podcast. They talk about visiting cemeteries, the importance of keeping stories alive, how many people feel about the Dead, and a little side story about driving in Boston, Massachusetts. Come along as we visit some ordinary extraordinary New England cemeteries and revisit their tales with a guest who has spent much of his life ...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. In this episode Jennie and Dianne are joined by special guest Suzie Lennox, an expert in the history of body snatching especially in England, Ireland, and Scotland. Suzie shares the stories of successful and unsuccessful body snatchers, why they wanted to dig up the Dead in the first place, and how cemeteries and families tried to prevent the snatching of the Dead. Take a walk with us through the...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. In this episode Jennie and Dianne share stories of soldiers that were sent along with photographs for our first ever Memorial Day slideshow featured on Facebook and Instagram. While the photographs were shared in the slideshow, we felt it was important to share the stories that came with them. We also learn how the Buffalo Soldier reenactors began honoring the fallen soldiers at Evergreen Cemeter...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. A very special Memorial Day episode! Jennie and Dianne are privileged and honored to interview Ruth Robinson a member of the Society of the Honor Guard for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery located in Arlington, Virginia. Ruth served as SGT Ruth Hanks from 2016-2018, a Military Policeman assigned to the 3d U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard). She is the fourth fema...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne explore lone graves throughout Australia and the United States. Graves of those seeking gold, those who died of broken hearts, and those who chose their own perfect final resting place. Come along and explore the ordinary, extraordinary lives of those buried in lone graves. Resources for this episode include: https://www.adamshistory.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=artic...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Special guest Ryan Seidemann returns wearing his lawyer hat and joins Jennie and Dianne to discuss legal issues that happen in and around cemeteries. In this episode they talk about the law regarding photography and cemeteries, accessing cemeteries on private property, what happens when someone is injured in a cemetery and much more! Ryan Seidemann: Louisiana Cemetery Response Task Force 225-326...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne take a trip to the past to explore Mt. Pisgah the ordinary extraordinary cemetery located just outside of Cripple Creek, Colorado. Cripple Creek is where Colorado's last great gold boom took place in 1891. Mt. Pisgah is the final resting place of hundreds of hard rock miners, cowboys, railway workers, mothers and children, ladies of ill repute, and many others who dreamed golden...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. In this episode Jennie and Dianne explore Lone Fir Pioneer Cemetery in Portland, Oregon. They share the tragic stories of victims from a steamship explosion, the heart-breaking story of the first woman charged with murder in the Oregon territory, they share an article written in 1922 about the historical significance of the cemetery and why it needs to be cared for, and they talk about a new, exc...