Episodes

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. As the world's eyes are on Paris for the Olympics, we're looking back at a different kind of champion - the con artist who sold the Eiffel Tower not once, but twice! We're shining a light on the Ordinary Extraordinary story of Victor Lustig who sold the unsellable and swindled the unsuspecting. Join Dianne and Jennie for part one of a tale of deception and daring that's as thrilling as any Olympi...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. On this episode of The Ordinary Extraordinary Cemetery, Jennie and Dianne pay a virtual visit to the graveside of a man who truly made a "splash" not only in America, but around the world. Join them as they relate the fascinating story of John Michael Kohler, the man credited as the inventor of the modern bathtub. From his humble beginnings as a young farm child in Austria to his journey as an im...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. This week on the Ordinary Extraordinary Cemetery podcast Jennie and Dianne review their recent "gravestone preservation workshop" after attending the "48 State Tour" hosted by Atlas Preservation at Evergreen Cemetery in Colorado Springs, Colorado. They share what they learned and what was accomplished while working alongside others whose enthusiasm for cemetery preservation is infectious! They al...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. This week on the Ordinary Extraordinary Cemetery podcast Jennie and Dianne chat about Dianne's recent East Coast adventures in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Dianne shares about the many historical locations she visited including the Lizzie Borden house in Fall River Massachusetts, sites important to the American revolution and of course several of America's oldest cemeteries. Get ready for a do...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Happy Birthday America, or as Americans say, "Happy 4th of July!" Jennie and Dianne celebrate America's birthday with author and presidential historian Kurt Deion as he recounts his adventures in his book "Presidential Grave Hunter: One Kid's Quest to Visit the Tombs of Every President and Vice President". From sneaking past Secret Service agents to gaining entry to a private family burial ground...

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" podcast, Jennie chats with Sandra K. Doyle, a former deathcare industry professional turned author. Sandra's book, "MY LIFE AT THE CEMETERY: IT'S NOT AS DEAD AS YOU THINK", is a heartwarming and sometimes humorous collection of stories from her fourteen years working in the industry. She shares her Ordinary Extraordinary experiences and the...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. “Cemeteries are for the living. They’re there for us, they’re there to comfort us, they’re there to educate us, they’re there to provide peaceful meditative places to contemplate our own mortality and our own life." This is what Tui Snider told Dominic Genetti of the Midland Daily News and she said it again on this week's episode of the Ordinary Extraordinary Cemetery podcast. Join Jennie, Dianne...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Join Jennie and Dianne on the Ordinary Extraordinary Cemetery podcast as they delve into the hidden histories of Charleston, South Carolina's iconic graveyards. This week, they're joined by Patrick Harwood, a man who's spent his career uncovering the truth. From his days as an investigative journalist to his current work as a professor and author, Patrick's passion for storytelling shines through...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Ask and ye shall receive! This episode was made possible because several listeners reached out to this week's guest letting him know that Jennie and Dianne were eagerly hoping to speak with him. Get ready for a journey through history as Jennie and Dianne welcome Ed Breen, a descendant of the incorrigible Maurice Breen, whose story is a tribute to the American dream. You may remember Maurice's in...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Join Jennie and Dianne on the Ordinary Extraordinary Cemetery podcast as they welcome Mel Bennett, founder of Life Forest cemetery, for a heartwarming and insightful conversation. Mel shares the personal story of how Life Forest was born out of her desire to give her mother a better burial after a long and painful battle with dementia, and how this vision has grown into a revolutionary approach t...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Just in time for Memorial Day, Jennie and Dianne are honored to be joined in this episode by Major General Mari K. Eder (U.S. Army, Retired) to discuss her amazing book, 'The Girls Who Stepped Out of Line'. These Ordinary Extraordinary women are "heroes of the Greatest Generation whom you have most likely never heard about. These extraordinary women didn't expect thanks and shied away from medals...

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 podcast, Jennie and Dianne are joined by returning guest Hugh Yemen as he shares a tale that in many ways is truly stranger than fiction! The story begins with a tornado that left tragedy and death in its wake in Fort Smith, Arkansas in January 1898. However, it is events that take place shortly after this tragedy that becomes a different sor...

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 continue their conversation with Lynette Webber, Cousin Jennies: Cornish Women of Mining Country Cemeteries, probing deeper into the surprising connections she unearthed between the graves of Colorado and Michigan during her exploration of Gilpin County's picturesque mountain cemeteries. Lynette sheds light on the hardy Cornish families who made the journey from Mic...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. This week, buckle up for part one of a riveting tale as Jennie and Dianne team up with Lynette Webber, an expert who has dedicated years to researching the cemeteries and their residents in Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula. Picture this: a time machine back to the 1800s when tin miners and their kin from Cornwall, Great Britain, made the Peninsula and its copper mines their stomping ground. As the c...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. "I hope the adventures in this book inspire you to explore a cemetery. It’s good for the cemetery—and I promise it will be good for you." This is how Loren Rhoads welcomes readers to indulge in her latest cemetery book, 'Death's Garden Revisited: Personal Relationships with Cemeteries'. Loren, who is the editor, says the book is a "collection of over two dozen essays and more than two hundred pho...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Get ready for an unforgettable journey into the heart of mystery and romance with Jennie and Dianne in the latest episode of the Ordinary Extraordinary Cemetery Podcast featuring author Roy Widing and his captivating book "Whispers From The Tomb: A True Love Story Discovered In A Century Old Mausoleum." Join them as they unravel the secrets behind the magnificent Rae Room tomb in Portland, Oregon...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Dianne and Jennie are thrilled to continue their conversation with Rachel Meyer from Epoch Preservation. Join them for part 2 of an insightful two-part series delving into the fascinating world of cemetery conservation and preservation. In this episode, they discuss crucial topics like advocating for saving cemeteries, securing funding, leveraging social media for promotion, and the imperative mi...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Dianne and Jennie are thrilled to welcome Rachel Meyer from Epoch Preservation as this week's special guest. Join them for part 1 of an insightful two-part series delving into the fascinating world of cemetery conservation and preservation. Discover the remarkable journey of Epoch Preservation, a leading gravestone conservation business based in Massachusetts. From humble beginnings to becoming ...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Join Jennie and Dianne on an enlightening journey through history with the author of "The Queen of Denver: Louise Sneed Hill and the Emergence of Modern High Society" Shelby Carr. In this captivating follow-up to Episode 127, Shelby, who is the leading historian on Louise Sneed Hill, joins us to set the record straight and correct misconceptions about the woman who took charge of Denver's high so...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Join Jennie and Dianne, along with returning guest Avrohom Krauss, as they continue their exploration into the world of Ordinary Extraordinary Jewish cemetery sites. This week, they delve deeper into the topics of desecration and preservation of these sacred spaces, shedding light on the importance of honoring the memory of those laid to rest. In a time when our world is once more grappling with ...

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, along with special guest Avrohom Krauss, an educator, genealogist, and speaker specializing in Jewish resources and cemetery research, delve into the Ordinary Extraordinary Jewish immigrant cemeteries of New York. These cemeteries hold the final resting places of victims from tragic events like the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne dive into history with special guest Tim Smith, the Director of Education for the Adams County Historical Society and town historian at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. This week, Tim unfolds captivating tales of the battlefield, revealing how the citizens of Gettysburg coped with the historic battle including the tragic account of Jenny Wade, the only civilian casualty of the battle. ...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne return to Dayton Ohio's Calvary Cemetery, this time to visit the grave of Maurice Breen, an Irish immigrant who spent some of his early years in America helping those who were enslaved to escape to freedom on the Underground Railroad. Maurice Breen was a man who worked hard but always made the best of life. He lived through plenty of hardships, but he didn’t let them prevent him...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. This episode is part one of at least two episodes covering one of Dayton, Ohio's largest green spaces, Calvary Cemetery. Founded in 1872 to accommodate three Catholic parishes that grew out of the German, Irish, Polish, Hungarian, Italian and Lithuanian immigrants who flocked to the area in the mid 1800s, it replaced the overflowing St. Henry's cemetery, and has become a crown jewel among Midwest...