Episodes

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 f...

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 ...

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...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne discuss the many cemeteries Jennie was able to visit while in Alaska. From the coastal town of Ketchikan to the center of the state in Fairbanks, learn about how life on the final frontier helped to create unique burial grounds and monuments to those ordinary, extraordinary souls who were brave enough to face harsh weather, extreme wildlife, and so much more in search or riches ...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Dianne and Jennie share news of Oakland Cemetery in Little Falls, Minnesota, and how residents and the cemetery board are clashing when it comes to its care and maintenance. They also share some ordinary tales and extraordinary stories of Oakland's permanent residents: From relatives of Charles Lindbergh; to a lumber company lawyer; to a two-time Superbowl champion. Join them for this episode of ...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. In episode 87 Jennie and Dianne talked briefly about the Potter's Field that used to exist where a baseball field is now in Chicago's Lincoln Park. In this episode they delve deeper into the City Cemetery, why the city decided it should be dismantled and what happened to those who originally called Chicago's first city cemetery their final resting place. Join them for the Ordinary Extraordinary s...

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 Jeffrey and Sarah, hosts of Salem the Podcast and two of Salem's best tour guides, to talk about the symbolism and other attributes of many of the cemeteries located in Salem, Massachusetts. From the death's heads and full body skeletons on gravestones in the Charter Street cemetery to the willow trees, urns and Victorian status of Harmony Grove cemetery, they guid...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Most cemeteries, both old and modern, contain a section often referred to as a Potter's field. In this episode, Dianne and Jennie discuss the history of Potter's fields and gravesites. From Lincoln Park in Chicago, Illinois to Hart Island in New York City, New York to quiet graves throughout England and Ireland, Many of these fields and gravesites have been forgotten with time as well as the poor...

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 learn about one man's heartache and how it led him to build a magnificent mausoleum and gorgeous Victorian mansion. John Bowman built his wealth owning several tanneries and selling leather goods to the Union army during the civil war. However, his true happiness was the love he showered on his wife and daughters and when he lost them he he built the magnificent ...

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 joined by special guest Andrew Bell, a former Sergeant-Major in the US Army and a veteran of both the Korean and Vietnam wars and a former Buffalo Soldier reenactor. Andrew shares not only the history of the Buffalo Soldiers and who they were, but how their nearly forgotten story was brought back to life in the 1960s. These fighting men represe...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Dianne and Jennie explore Chicago's Mount Carmel Catholic Cemetery and learn about its inception due to Chicago's growing immigrant population at the turn of the 20th century. This cemetery is the final resting place for many who took vows of holy orders including several bishops, archbishops, and Cardinals. It is also the final resting place to some of the most notorious gangsters from the 1920s...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Jennie and Dianne chat about cemeteries in the spring and summer time! This is the time of year when many cemeteries offer tours and other events and they suggest ways to get involved with your local cemetery. They also talk about some of the appropriate ways to help care for grave sites and who to talk to when you want to get involved in restoration projects or even just basic clean up. Join the...

Send us a text! We love hearing from listeners. If you'd like a response, please include your email. Henry David Thoreau wrote, "You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.” that is exactly what Dan Fischer, founder of the One Last Wave Project has done. Dan sits down with Dianne and Jennie to share how he turned his devastating heartache from the loss of his dad, dog, and other loved ones in the past two years to one of hope and help for other...