A book signing, a cemetery tour under the full moon, and feeling grateful...

Moonrise over the James River, Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia

There’s a popular perception about professors and summer. The story goes something like this: when classes end, we pack away our notes, grab a good book, and spend the next few months soaking up the sun, traveling, or enjoying leisurely mornings with endless cups of coffee.

While that might be true for some, my summer has looked very different. The weeks leading up to the fall semester have been some of my busiest and most rewarding. This summer I have spent my time working and as a volunteer where I connect with my community, and push creative projects forward, work that fuels both my writing and my teaching.

This past weekend was a perfect snapshot of my summer. On Saturday morning, I had a book signing at the Richmond Public Library. The turnout was incredible, and I was reminded once again that my best-selling venues happen to be two places steeped in history and meaning: the library and the cemetery. Both are spaces where stories are preserved, just in different ways.

After signing books, catching up with friends, and meeting new readers, I grabbed lunch with a friend before preparing for my evening Full Moon cemetery tour. This was no ordinary night. We gathered under the Sturgeon Moon in Aquarius, an air sign that speaks to communication, shared visions, and building bridges between past and future. I always try to start each Full Moon tour with a fresh perspective, and this time I even threw in a dad joke which, I must say, landed surprisingly well. It was a reel-y good joke!

We had around 65 attendees that night. Over the course of the three Full Moon tours I have led this summer, we have raised 2,875 dollars for the Friends of Hollywood Cemetery. That money goes directly toward preserving this historic site and ensuring that its stories and beauty remain for generations to come.

After the tour, a few new friends invited me out to a diner. I said yes. That is not my usual post-event routine since I am often home well before midnight, but this time I stayed out until 1 a.m. and it was worth every minute. The good conversations, laughter, and sense of connection cannot be scheduled into a calendar. Okay, it can, and I used to have a spontaneity sticker for my planner, but you know what I mean. 

On Sunday, I ventured into new territory with my first visit to the Oddities and Curiosities Expo. I had never attended before since taxidermy has never been my thing, as I like my goth a little less literal, but I am so glad I went. The creativity on display was inspiring, and I left with my hands full of art. 

Every tour I lead, every conversation I have, and every new experience I step into adds something to my toolkit as an educator. History comes alive when you have walked the ground where it happened. Storytelling deepens when you have stood under the moonlight sharing it with others. Creativity expands when you are open to unexpected inspiration.

For me, summer is not downtime. It is an investment in the work I will be doing all year long. When the semester begins, I will bring these experiences, stories, and renewed energy into my classroom. My students do not just get lectures, they get a richer and more connected view of the world because I have been out there engaging with it.

So yes, the sun is shining, and somewhere in a cemetery, there is a lounge chair with my name on it. For now, I am busy, and I would not have it any other way.

Breakfast with the Presidents

There’s something truly haunting about Cedar Hill Cemetery in Covington, VA

Covington Virginian, July 2, 1930.

With just a couple of weeks to go before Haunted Virginia Cemeteries is released, I find myself both counting down the days and diving even deeper into the stories that inspired it.

This project has never just been about ghost tales, though there are plenty of those to share. This research has been about honoring memory, tracing forgotten histories, and paying attention to the places where the veil between worlds feels just a little thinner.

On Wednesday morning, I’ll be leading a Meandering Among the Markers writing event in Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery. We’ll be walking, talking, and listening closely to the quiet echoes of the past. And later this week, a few friends and I are preparing for a séance. These are the ways I stay close to the material, and how I continue to be reminded that these stories don’t always stay on the page.


One site that continues to haunt me is Cedar Hill Cemetery in Covington, nestled in the Alleghany Highlands. With more than 10,000 burials stretching back to 1816, the cemetery is a striking landscape of stone and shadow. But it’s more than just historic. Cedar Hill pulses with the kind of eerie energy that makes even skeptics like me hesitate. Strange lights have been reported there for nearly a century. In a 1930 article from Covington Virginian, witnesses described blue flames flickering over a single plot, vanishing when anyone tried to get close. Others reported seeing them on the same night, describing them as ghostly, bluish will-o’-the-wisps. No source was ever found. No earthly explanation ever confirmed. And yet, they’re said to appear still.

Folklore has long warned us about blue fire. In European traditions, it’s often a sign of spirits or hidden treasure. Bram Stoker’s Dracula featured them, too, glowing mysteriously in the Carpathians. In Cedar Hill, they may just signal the presence of a soul that never found peace.

And then there’s the legend about the statue, a marble woman forever frozen mid-step, said to represent a young bride who died tragically on her wedding day. According to local legend, she fell down the church steps and broke her neck. Her grieving husband commissioned the statue in her image, but visitors claim she mourns still. Some even say the statue bleeds but only on Halloween. Journalists have gone out to witness it. None have succeeded. But the stories persist.

Nearby lies another grave, and another story, one that chills me every time I think about it. A young mother buried in 1848, was thought to have died of grief after losing her child. When the cemetery moved her grave decades later, workers discovered her remains face down, one hand raised near her head. It’s believed she had been in a coma, mistaken for dead, and awoke after burial. Her final moments must have been pure terror. Some say her spirit still lingers, her anguish imprinted in the ground itself.

Cedar Hill is not a place you simply visit. It’s a place that lingers with you. Those who walk among the graves at Cedar Hill don’t always leave unchanged. 

Sometimes, they carry a little of the place with them.

Two Weeks Until My Book Release—A Reflection on Pocahontas Cemetery

In just about two weeks, Haunted Virginia Cemeteries will be released. As I count down the days, I’m also deeply immersed in the work that led to this book: honoring memory, summoning stories, and yes, even preparing for a séance later this week (more on that soon). 

This week is a full one. I’ll be leading the TLA Community Circle via Zoom tomorrow evening and leading a Meandering Among the Markers event in Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery on Wednesday morning. 

As I think about conjuring spirits, my thoughts return to my own family story—my grandfather, Stanley Pajka, a coal miner in Luzerne, Pennsylvania, who died of tuberculosis at forty-four. My father was just a child, unable to hug his “Pop” during those long, isolated months in a sanitorium. 

That history echoed strongly during my trip to Tazewell County, Virginia, where I visited Pocahontas Cemetery, established after the tragic 1884 mine explosion that killed at least 114 men. Walking among the graves, I saw inscriptions in Polish, Russian, Hungarian, Italian, and English, reminders of the immigrant labor recruited to Appalachia by coal barons, far from the American dream they were promised. 

Like the towns I visited in my childhood, Pocahontas is steeped in memory and haunted by loss. Ghostly sightings and unexplained phenomena persist in the cemetery. With recent state funding for restoration, including ground-penetrating radar to locate lost graves, perhaps the spirits are stirred by our renewed attention. 

A century after the disaster, Historic Pocahontas Inc. erected a memorial near Centre Street. Every year, the town holds a candlelight vigil to honor the miners. The dead are not forgotten, and their presence, I believe, is still felt. 

Stay tuned as I share more stories from the road and behind the veil. The ghosts are ready. Are you? 

Roses, Cemeteries & Friendship: A Sunday at Hartwood Roses

This past Sunday, I spent the day surrounded by blooms, history, and some of the best company at Hartwood Roses Open Garden Day. If you’ve never been, you’re seriously missing out—it’s one of those slow, beautiful days where everything smells like roses (literally) and time just feels softer.

This year’s event was on Sunday, May 25, 2025, and as always, Connie’s garden was pure magic. I still can’t believe we have been friends for ten years now. We first connected through our blogs back in 2015, then became social media friends, and cemetery adventurers together. I've attended the Hollywood Cemetery Rose Days that she led. We attended cemetery picnics together, and I've been on a few of her rose rescue missions. She’s a friend and one of the best advocates for preserving historic roses that I know.

Connie’s the reason I started growing cemetery roses in my own yard. She kind of drafted me (in the best way) into the mission to save these historic roses—once lovingly planted in cemeteries, now often neglected or mowed over by well-meaning (I use that phrase loosely) landscapers who don’t realize what treasures they’re cutting down.

There are probably more cemetery roses blooming in Connie’s garden than in most cemeteries. She’s rescued and labeled so many that walking through her garden is like taking a rose history tour. I spotted roses from Congressional Cemetery, tons from Hollywood Cemetery, and even the Emma Trainer rose—the first one I ever worked on reviving during Rose Day. Now it’s a gorgeous velvety red blooming Dr. Huey, thriving and showing off deep red blooms. Not exactly the rose she once was but still loved. 

Connie also introduced me to Anne Spencer’s garden in Lynchburg years ago, and that visit helped me see gardens not just as pretty places, but as living archives of memory and meaning.

After soaking up all the beauty in the garden, I made a stop at Fredericksburg Cemetery to visit the graves of novelist Helen Gordon Beale and her mother, diarist Jane Howison Beale. Sadly, that visit came with a heavy heart. Earlier this month, there was a major vandalism incident at the cemetery—over 15 gravestones were toppled or damaged, including markers belonging to former mayors and others with stunning religious symbolism. Repair costs are estimated at more than $20,000—a big ask for the small non-profit that maintains the space.

It is another reminder of how important it is to care for these tangible pieces of our past, whether that’s gravestones or historic roses. They tell stories. They hold memory. And once they’re gone, they’re gone.

If this kind of thing speaks to your heart, I highly recommend following Connie on Instagram @hartwoodroses to catch next year’s Open Garden Day (and enjoy some seriously gorgeous rose content in the meantime). She’s always sharing updates, and trust me—you’ll want to mark your calendar when the time comes.

Until then, I’ll be tending my little patch of rescued roses and feeling grateful for this community of caretakers, gardeners, and friends.

Hollywood Cemetery at Night: Full Moon Tours

 

Coming August 5, 2025

 

My book now has its own landing page!

Haunted Virginia Cemeteries: Dare to Visit the Restless Dead?

The Richmond Newsletter (September 1936).

   At the corner of East Franklin and 21st Streets in Richmond lies the old Jewish cemetery—quiet by day, but by night, locals say, it stirs with eerie life. According to The Richmond Newsletter (September 1936 edition), neighbors whispered of midnight figures in long black robes slipping through the locked cemetery gate, of strange happenings that chilled the blood. 

   Mary, who lived beside the graveyard, admitted she often lay awake, fearing the ghosts said to roam the streets after dark. 

   Skeptics may scoff, but for those who’ve seen shadows move where no living soul should walk, there’s no doubt: something haunts this forgotten corner of the city. 

A Pilgrimage to Chatham: Mummiforms, Mortuary History, and a Packard Hearse

Last week, I took a deeply meaningful trip—three hours out and three hours back—to Chatham, Virginia, to visit a place that’s long held a top spot on my must-see list: the Simpson Funeral Museum.

 

Nestled in the very heart of town, this remarkable museum sits on the original site of Chatham’s first funeral home, established in the late 1800s. To walk through those doors is to step into the history of a profession that quietly shapes every community, every generation.

 

The centerpiece of this visit? Repository: Mummiforms—an extraordinary exhibit by Funetorium showcasing the largest collection of Fisk metallic burial cases ever brought together in one place. These cast iron, air-tight, anthropoid coffins—also known as “mummiforms” due to their distinctive shape were originally patented in the 1840s by Almond D. Fisk. They were designed to preserve the body longer, prevent the spread of disease, and allow loved ones to view the deceased through a glass plate set over the face. Their elegant, almost sarcophagus-like forms made them both functional and symbolically powerful.

What makes Repository: Mummiforms so significant is that it brought together more Fisk coffins than have been seen together since they were produced at the foundry over 170 years ago. For anyone passionate about early American funeral history, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, utterly surreal to be surrounded by such rare and storied artifacts. 

For context, President Zachary Taylor, who died in 1850, was famously reinterred in a Fisk metallic coffin during a controversial exhumation in the 1990s adding presidential intrigue to an already fascinating legacy.

But the museum offered much more than just the Fisk exhibit. The Simpson Funeral Museum is a trove of mortuary treasures, from award-winning antique hearses (including an immaculate Packard by Henney, which had me beaming—my dad was a devoted Studebaker man, and I’ve always had a soft spot for Packards) to antique coffins, presidential-style caskets, and burial vaults that tell the story of how the American funeral evolved.

The museum also boasts a stunning collection of regalia, including mourning attire, funeral flags, and memorabilia from fraternal orders and funeral directors’ associations.

It was a privilege to witness this tribute in person.

And just when I thought the day couldn’t get any more surreal, someone recognized me—“Hey, you’re one of the writers from American Cemetery & Cremation! You wrote that Poe book, right?” It was a fleeting moment, but in the best way possible, I had my little mortuary nerd celebrity encounter.

For those who live and breathe the history, culture, and craft of funeral service, a visit to the Simpson Funeral Museum isn’t just educational—it’s deeply personal. A pilgrimage, really. One I won’t forget.

📰 Ghosts, Gravestones, and the Stories in Between 👻

I spent the last year walking among Virginia’s oldest cemeteries—listening to whispers from history, flipping through old newspapers, and collecting ghost stories that won’t let go. Now I’ve gathered them all in one haunted volume.I’ve always believed cemeteries have stories to tell—some carved into stone, others hidden in whispers and weathered newspaper clippings. After years of wandering Virginia’s most fascinating, unsettling, and sacred burial grounds, I’m thrilled (and slightly spooked) to share this This isn’t just a ghost story collection. It’s a journey through forgotten headlines, folklore, and sacred spaces across the Commonwealth—retelling ghostly encounters that are as much about memory as they are about mystery.

You’ll meet:

• 
  A president who still whistles in the cemetery
• Spirits tied to a bathtub murder that made national headlines in 1909
• A house built from Union soldiers’ tombstones (!?)
• A haunted pet cemetery
• A gravestone struck by lightning—three times
  
• Civil War ghosts still visiting their brothers’ graves

Many of these stories come directly from newspaper archives and local oral traditions. Some are tragic. Some are bizarre. And some—like the 1902 ghost that startled a man cutting through a cemetery at night—are almost comically eerie.

In the book, I take you along for the ride. We start in Central Virginia and circle the entire state—from the eerie elegance of Arlington National Cemetery to Appalachian cemeteries rich in folk art and mining tragedy.
I even share a few of my own experiences staying in haunted inns and walking the Appalachian Trail with a slightly racing heart.

So, what’s this book really about?
Yes, it’s about ghosts. But it’s also about:
What we remember—and what we forget
The rituals of mourning and place
How folklore helps preserve history
And why some stories demand to be retold

🪦 Until then…
I’ll be posting ghost story snippets, behind-the-scenes cemetery pics, and weird Virginia trivia right here in your inbox over the coming months. 

Interview with Turtle Optimist-- Grave Encounters: Exploring the World of Cemetery Tourism

Look, Mom! "We made the cover!"

 

I wrote and submitted this piece to the Association for Gravestone Studies in December 2021. For various reasons, it was delayed until now.

Mom was admitted to Memory Care in fall 2022 but she still shared stories about this trip and would have been thrilled to see the story of our trip to see the grave of the Greenbrier Ghost in print. She passed this April.

She had worked at a newspaper and knew the importance of the printed word and storytelling. She would have yelled, “we made the cover!”

Old Town Alexandria, the Ghosts & Graveyard Tour, and the Tomb of the Unknown Solider of the American Revolution

Yesterday, I had a book signing at Old Town Books in Alexandria. It was their town's Family Trick or Treat Day and the streets were filled with kids and families in costumes. We've had such nice fall weather during the last month but yesterday I was reminded that I live in Virginia and the summer likes to have one final moment like the end of so many horror movies. The temperature was in the mid-80s and sunny! Many of the kids and family members in costumes looked like they were going to melt. One father was dressed in a polar bear costume and I hoped he had an icepack tucked in place somewhere. 

When I had scheduled the book signing event, I thought it would be fun fall day to bring my best friend Sandy aka “Babushka” to check out the Trick or Treaters; and after the book signing, we could walk around town and even go on the Alexandria’s Colonial Tours “Alexandria’s Original Ghost & Graveyard Tour. While we didn't have the fall weather, there were plenty of activities in Old Town. 

We had tickets at 7:30pm, which was the perfect amount of time between my book signing, some shopping, and a dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. They had pumpkin spice margaritas, but I opted for black cherry, which I’m pretty sure ended up being watermelon flavored. That was probably a better choice for such a warm day. 

Old Town Alexandria makes it easy for tourists to visit because there are so many parking deck options. We stashed our purchases in the car before joining the Ghosts & Graveyard tour. There were many tours happening around the same time, which may have been other tour companies. The streets were packed and tour guides were leading groups everywhere. 

We went through an alley and down some streets in the area to hear ghostly tales and some pretty good/bad Dad jokes. There was a bit of history, some questionable history when it came to a story about a burial (someone without a knowledge of cemetery history in the US might not think much about it but it wasn’t accurate) and the biggest disappointment was that on the Ghost and Graveyard tour, the tour didn’t include any graves or graveyards! 

Before I scream “False advertising,” there were several different routes and the weekend before Halloween isn’t the best time to take a tour. The tour guides are probably exhausted from packed schedules, and the streets are crowded with activity. 

Because “Graveyard” was in the title of the tour, I pulled out my Find A Grave app and found the nearest churchyard—Alexandria’s Historic Old Presbyterian Meeting House and Churchyard. We headed over and I realized that this was the churchyard where the Tomb of the Unknown Solider of the American Revolution is buried. I had checked my app earlier in the day and wanted to walk over to see the grave. 

Normally, I would not have entered a churchyard at night. I was hesitant about doing so last night until Babushka and I realized that the church was filled with a congregation watching a silent movie. The gates were open and the churchyard was well-light. Plus, there was a large sign reminding us that EVERYONE is welcome. 

The visitor’s guide brochure shares that the churchyard was active as a burial ground between 1760 to 1809 and includes over 300 people including “Andrew Wales, the first commercial brewer in the Washington area,” a confidant of George Washington, Dr. James Craik, Thomas Porter, “who participated in the Boston Tea Party” as well as an unidentified Revolutionary War soldier “whose remains were unearthed just to the north of its current tomb” and was reburied in this churchyard in 1826.

All adventures with Babushka are fun. We spent time together and in the end, I had a fun book signing event in the cutest book store, had a great dinner, saw some amazing home decorations, had great guests on our tour, and Babushka and I saw "ghosts"(ghostly decor) and found the graveyard where history is haunting! 

"Toasting The Souls Close to Edgar Allan Poe" in Cemetery Travel

I believe the first piece I ever wrote about cemeteries was for Cemetery Travel: Your Take-along Guide to Graves & Graveyards Around the World. I'm such a fan girl of Loren Rhoads and Cemetery Travel. I hope my new book encourages a visit to a cemetery or two or three or a dozen.

 

Morning in Shockoe Hill Cemetery with the Gravestone Girls

Morning in Shockoe Hill Cemetery with the Gravestone Girls!

The Souls Close to Edgar Allan Poe Google Map

1863 Brown's Island Laboratory Disaster- the graves in Shockoe Hill Cemetery

On May 10, 2023, I attended a history tour at Shockoe Hill Cemetery. I was excited because Bert Dunkerly, a historian, author, and National Park Ranger was the guide and because of the topic—the Brown’s Island Disaster.  

On Friday, March 13, 1863- Friday the 13^th- the Confederate Laboratory, a munitions manufacturing facility on Brown’s Island that produced much of the ammunition for the Confederacy, and which employed about 300 women and girls, exploded. The Richmond Whig reported that “the force of the explosion demolished about fifty feet of the house, the sides being blown out and the roof falling…”[I]

Dunkerly’s tour explicitly focused on the fourteen young girls who were victims of the 1863 explosion who are buried in Shockoe Hill Cemetery. This was the first time Dunkerly gave the tour and I was looking forward to hearing their stories. 

 

The Laboratory employed about 300 women and girls. They were working class people hoping to make a dollar to two dollars per day by producing small arms cartridges and artillery ammunition. The location of the disaster was a structure that held a variety of activities, including breaking open cartridges to be reused, and filling new cartridges. As Dunkerly explained, there was loose powder everywhere and these activities should have been done in the same space. 

One teenager, Mary Ryan, an Irish immigrant who “was known for being careless” and had been corrected prior to the disaster, was working with friction primers that were used to ignite the powder charges in ammunition. While Ryan was working with the primers, one became stuck; she banged the wooden block to dislodge it. 

Richmond Whig, March 14, 1863.

Even having been reprimanded in the past, how could a teenager possibly grasp the severity of the situation. One can imagine how little training these young girls must have had and how the safety regulations were so different from today. Ryan’s banging set off a spark that ignited the gun powder in the room. The explosion devastated the structure and ten of the workers were killed instantly, including Alice Johnson and Mary Zerhum, both just 12 years old, and Wilhelmina Defenbach, 15, who also died immediately after the explosion. 

I grew up about twenty miles from Brown’s Island but the explosion wasn’t something that I was taught in school. I don’t recall learning anything about it until adulthood perhaps because it involved many young women including those as young as 10 and they were mostly German and Irish immigrants. The tour was held nearly 160 years and two months after one of the worst manufacturing accidents of the Civil War in the South and unfortunately, it was poorly attended. I point this out for a reason that I will explain later.

Emma Blankenship, 15

 

Alice Johnson, 12

Blankenship, Richmond Dispatch, March 20, 1863

Dunkerly’s tour explicitly focused on the fourteen young girls who were victims of the 1863 explosion who are buried in Shockoe Hill Cemetery. This was the first time Dunkerly gave the tour and I was looking forward to hearing their stories. 

 

The Laboratory employed about 300 women and girls. They were working class people hoping to make a dollar to two dollars per day by producing small arms cartridges and artillery ammunition. The location of the disaster was a structure that held a variety of activities, including breaking open cartridges to be reused, and filling new cartridges. As Dunkerly explained, there was loose powder everywhere and these activities should have been done in the same space. 

 

One teenager, Mary Ryan, an Irish immigrant who “was known for being careless” and had been corrected prior to the disaster, was working with friction primers that were used to ignite the powder charges in ammunition. While Ryan was working with the primers, one became stuck; she banged the wooden block to dislodge

it. 

Virginia C. Page, 13

Richmonders rushed to the scene only to be met by victims who were seriously wounded from burns, lacerations, and blunt force trauma. The wounded were taken to General Hospital #2 that had been the former tobacco factory of S. W. Bailey and Company. 

I can only imagine how overwhelmed the families must have felt. And while there were advertisements in the newspapers and Richmonders donated funds to help with the costs of the injured, burials began immediately with several of the victims being interred on the same day.  

 Mary Zerhum, 12

Virginia Page, Richmond Dispatch, March 16, 1863.

     

                                  

Mary Valentine, 14, and Margaret Drustly, 16

Martha Clemmons, 25, and Margaret Alexander, 14

Virginia Mayer, 12, and Wilhelmina Defenbach, 15

Caroline Zietenheimer, 16

 

 

Nannie Horan, 14

My photos of the graves of Mary Ellen Wallace, 12 and Anne E. Bolton, 14 did not turn out but I plan to return to visit these girls .

One poignant moment of the tour was when Dunkerly shared how with so many war-related memories happening, this disaster did not continue to make the newspapers. His research could not find mention of the first or tenth anniversaries being recognized with wreath-laying ceremonies or even tributes in the paper. With so many lives affected by the explosion, it's unlikely the tragedy was forgotten by those close to the victims. A low tour turnout reinforced the message of these girls being forgotten. I'm so appreciative of researchers like Dunkerly and the Friends of Shockoe Hill Cemetery for working to keep their stories alive. 

---

[i] “Terrible Explosion at the Government Laboratory,” The Richmond Whig, Sat March 14, 1863, 1.