Episodes

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. With Easter just a few days away, Jennie and Dianne dive deep into the mysterious and controversial subject of the Shroud of Turin. This ancient piece of cloth is believed by many to be the burial shroud of Jesus Christ himself, but its authenticity has been the subject of much debate and scientific analysis over the years. Jennie and Dianne explore the history, science, and faith behind the shro...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne celebrate the last week of Women's History Month by revisiting some past interviews with women who have researched the Ordinary Extraordinary women of the past who fascinated them. Join them as they chat with authors Jan MacKell Collins and Sharon Pajka about soiled doves, marvelous madams, and women writers. They also revisit a conversation with Jennie's very good friend Lauril...

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 celebrate Women's History Month as they explore the lives and legacies of two women who helped to tame the Wild West. First we'll meet Margaret Tobin Brown, more famously known today as Molly Brown. She was a socialite and philanthropist known for her courage and tenacity, particularly during the sinking of the Titanic. Her story is one of resilience and determi...

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 explore the aftermath of the Salem Witch Trials in part three of their series. Discover what happened to the victims and accusers after the trials, including the difficult lives many faced, as well as the memorials and tombs in cemeteries dedicated to them. Reflect on the impact that this dark period in history had on the Ordinary Extraordinary community of Salem an...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. In this week's episode of The Ordinary Extraordinary Cemetery, Jennie and Dianne continue their series on the infamous 1692 Salem witch trials. Last week, they talked about how Tituba's confession triggered a chain of events that shaped the course of the trials. This week, they explore the aftermath of her confession, including how it led to more accusations, the establishment of a new court syst...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne discuss the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 in part one of a two part series. The Salem witch trials were a dark moment in American history that resulted in the execution of 20 people accused of witchcraft. The hysteria began in 1692 in the small Massachusetts town of Salem, when young girls started to exhibit strange behaviors that were attributed to the influence of witches. The ac...

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 heartwarming stories of love for children. The first story takes us back to the Great Depression era, where a family relies on the kindness of their neighbors to provide a burial place for their baby. The second story tells of a group of men who rediscover a forgotten cemetery belonging to the Dickson Orphanage, the only state-run home in Texas for black c...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." Happy belated Valentine's Day! In this episode Jennie and Dianne are continuing a month of love by featuring three Ordinary Extraordinary love stories, two of them all the way from New Zealand's Karori Cemetery! The final story is one of love that has fascinated Jennie since she was a little girl - a story of love overcoming obstacles and proving that ...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne kick off a month of love as they delve into the fascinating bond between humans and their beloved equine companions. From the majestic thoroughbred racehorses to the reliable mules, these creatures have captured our hearts and imaginations for centuries. And in this episode, they will be discussing one of the most Ordinary Extraordinary tales of human-horse relationship - the st...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. "This is one time where television really fails to capture the true excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather.​" Phil Conners, "Groundhog Day" - For the past 136 years at 7:20am on February 2nd 15 men dressed in tuxes and top hats gather round a chubby, brown-furred creature named Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators, and Weather Prophet E...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Whitehall cemetery, also called Whitehall burial ground or Whitehall graveyard, is the oldest burial ground in Mystic, Connecticut being set aside for the purpose in 1644. This cemetery contains many excellent examples of 17th and 18th century stone carving tradition including death's heads, soul effigies, willow trees and more! Many Ordinary Extraordinary stories are buried beneath the stones, i...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Dianne and Jennie continue to answer your questions in this second Q and A installment of the Ordinary Extraordinary Cemetery podcast. They discuss an old-wives tale regarding burial of those who die by suicide, answer questions about how they do their research for each episode, and share some of their favorite cemetery book recommendations. To round out the episode, they discuss Boston's Granary...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne kick off 2023 by answering many questions posed by their listeners over the course of the previous year. They begin this two-part episode by covering the legal definition of an abandoned cemetery and how this definition determines either the survival or removal of a burial ground. They delve in to what to do should you accidentally excavate a burial site, especially if that site...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne have made a tradition of sharing classic Christmas stories each year and have chosen an especially lovely to share as we say goodbye to 2022 and hello to the new year. This year the ladies pay a quick visit to the grave of Harriet Beecher Stowe whose novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" made her a household name prior to the American Civil War. She was a woman who stood up for her beliefs ...

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 ...