Episodes

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. "Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse." Opening lines to one of the most well-known and well-loved Christmas poems of all time, but how did they come to be? In this episode Dianne and Jennie have a delightful chat with Pamela McColl author of the newly released book, "Twas the Night: The Art and History of the Classic Christmas ...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Hanukkah has become a part of the Jewish-American experience that was essentially brought about by two Rabbis who worked tirelessly during the mid 1800s to improve Jewish life and beliefs in America. Dianne and Jennie pay a virtual visit to Walnut Hills Jewish Cemetery in Evanston, Ohio where the graves of Rabbi Issac Mayer Wise and Rabbi Max Lilienthal are located. These two Ordinary Extraordina...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne pay homage to a man whose legacy has held much sway over the world for more than 150 years when he stipulated in his will that his fortune was to be "deposited in a fund, the interest of which should be divided into five parts and to be used for Prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Literature and Peace." This of course was the Ordinary Extraordinary Alfred Nobel who lies at rest in one...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne continue to explore Old Burial Hill cemetery in Plymouth, Massachusetts. They recount a love story that took a very long time to come true. They also visit the grave of the first American casualty of a foreign war, and they clear up some myths and misconceptions about two of the stories that were shared in the previous episode. They also learn about an Ordinary Extraordinary Ame...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Happy Thanksgiving! Dianne and Jennie explore Old Burial Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts. This is Plymouth's second oldest burial ground and the possible final resting place to some of the Mayflower passengers as well as many of their descendants. They delve into the true story of the relationship between the Wampanoag tribes and the settlers who came from Europe who in time became known as the P...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne delve into the spiritual beliefs of the Puritans and how those beliefs made them fear death, but also brought comfort in times of grief. We discuss how these beliefs affected their dress, daily living, death rituals and burial. These Ordinary Extraordinary were constantly preached to about death being as much a part of their life as living. As Puritan minister Cotton Matther onc...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. In honor of Veteran's Day, Jennie and Dianne sit down with the executive director of Wreaths Across America, Karen Worcester, to learn how a serendipitous mistake led to National Wreaths Across America Day, and the mission to Remember, Honor and Teach by coordinating wreath-laying ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery, as well as at more than 3,400 additional locations in all 50 U.S. states, ...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Dianne and Jennie are joined by special guest Janet Richardson from Fairbanks, Alaska who shares stories of those buried in Fairbanks's first cemetery and shares many of the details of the years of restoration and preservation that has kept this cemetery alive. Clay Street Cemetery, formerly called the Fairbanks Cemetery, was established in 1903, the same year the city of Fairbanks was establishe...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Join Jennie and Dianne for this very special Halloween edition of the Ordinary Extraordinary Cemetery podcast. Grab your favorite warm beverage, turn the lights down low, and curl up with a cozy blanket as we visit the legendary village of Sleepy Hollow where rumor claims a Headless Horseman roams the countryside by night searching for what has been lost. Washington Irving's creepy tale of love a...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Dianne and Jennie are joined by not one, not two, but seven special guests on this episode to talk about Washington Irving, his life and his writings. Our guests are professor Tracy Hoffman who teaches Early American Literature at Baylor University and her students who are specifically studying Washington Irving this semester. We learn about Washington Irving's early life, the tragic loss of his...

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 Drifter and Gypsie of the Rebel at Large Adventure podcast for a special Friday the 13th...err... Thursday the 13th visit to the Hope Moravian Cemetery, located in Hope, New Jersey. This cemetery is featured in the movie Friday the 13th in which its high arched, cast iron front gate, with the name lettered through the arch, has become iconic with horror movie fans....

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. This episode should have been an episode with a group of very special guests, however, technical difficulties made that impossible so instead, join Jennie and Dianne for a trip down memory lane and enjoy the performance of our first ever Beyond the Grave event which featured Cemetery Wanderings with Edgar Allan Poe! We thought this was appropriate as it will air the day before our second Beyond t...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. "Not far from this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little valley or rather lap of land among high hills, which is one of the quietest places in the whole world." This is how Washington Irving describes his imaginary village of Sleepy Hollow in New York, that over time was made real in his honor. In this episode Jennie and Dianne are joined by Sleepy Hollow's superintendent Jim Logan...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Dianne and Jennie chat with special guest Ahna Wolff. Ahna took a trip to Edinburgh, Scotland over the summer in order to study, but she made time to visit four of Edinburgh's most historic cemeteries: Old Calton Cemetery, New Calton Cemetery, Canongate Kirkyard, and most famously known, Gray Friar's Kirkyard. Ahna shares her impressions of each cemetery, her favorite graves to visit, including t...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Dianne and Jennie have often discussed cemeteries that have been moved, meaning the dead have been disinterred and moved to a new burial site. In this episode they cover just such a story that took place in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado on August 22, 2022 and caught the attention of many local cemetery enthusiasts across the state. They discuss what led to the move, the process of reburial, and...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne look back through the first 99 episodes of The Ordinary Extraordinary Cemetery podcast. They discuss some of their favorite episodes, highlight clips from memorable moments with guests, and share comments and reviews from listeners. Many thanks to all those who have listened and contributed to these first 100 episodes! We are so grateful! Join in the celebration of the dozens of...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. How have the people of Venice, Italy buried their dead over the centuries? Founded in the 5th century and spread over 118 small islands, Venice became a major maritime power in the 10th century. Some of these Ordinary Extraordinary Venetians were buried in a crypt beneath Basilica di San Marco, while others were relegated to burial grounds on two different islands; the Island of San Michele and t...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. New Orleans, Louisiana is famously known for its intricate above ground cemeteries, but what about the cemeteries that have been lost to time? In this episode Jennie and Dianne speak with returning guest, Ryan Seidemann, about the Ordinary Extraordinary cemeteries that have disappeared beneath the streets and buildings of the Big Easy; including Caesars Superdome, home of the New Orleans Saints ...

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 learn about some of the craziest phenomenons that happen in cemeteries, such as exploding casket syndrome and what happens when a body is too big for a casket. They also discuss how the American civil war transformed traditional coffins to the more ornate caskets we see today and they delve into the fear of being buried alive. This fear of being buried alive led ...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Dianne and Jennie chat about their upcoming fundraiser, Beyond the Grave: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Dianne also gives an update about the raising and resetting of many of the old military stones that have sunk at Evergreen Cemetery in Colorado Springs. A casual cemetery chat for cemetery lovers everywhere on this episode of the Ordinary Extraordinary Cemetery podcast. To learn more about the r...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne learn about Francis Scott Key and his gravesite at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Frederick, Maryland. Francis Scott Key was a complicated man who opposed war, but believed in the freedom of the nation. He fought for the freedom of black people while at the same time owning slaves himself that he never intended to offer freedom. He was a poet, a father, a lawyer. In an Ordinary Extrao...

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 Jan MacKell Collins, author of The Good Time Girls book series to discuss the Ordinary Extraordinary lives of dancehall girls and ladies of the night who made their living during the days of the Wild West into the early 20th century. They visit the gravesites of some of these sporting women across Colorado, Arizona, California, Alaska and more! Jan sh...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne explore Evergreen Cemetery in Juneau, Alaska. Founded in 1891, Evergreen Cemetery has become the final resting place to many of Juneau's pioneers. They share the ordinary extraordinary stories of two Tlingit women who were instrumental in preserving and continuing their native heritage, the stories of the co-founders of Juneau, and Joseph Juneau and Richard Harris, and a love st...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. "And those who have undergone [life in Alaska] claim that in the making of the world God grew tired, and when He came to the last barrowload, just dumped it anyhow, and that was how Alaska happened to be." - Jack London - Jennie is joined by special guest co-host Dave Johnson to discuss their recent visit to Gold Rush cemetery in Skagway, Alaska. Gold Rush Cemetery is Skagway’s oldest and most we...