Bellefontaine Cemetery

First of all, I don't spend a lot of time in cemeteries. I kind of like finding graves of famous people, but it isn't an obsession of mine. Its kind of a challenge to hunt them down and then interesting to see the different types of gravestones, or in some ostentatious cases, monuments. I thought this hobby should maybe have a name - Necrography (death + geography) or Necrogation (death + navigation). Quite proud of myselft, I thought I had coined new words. That would be cool to invent a new word. I Googled them. Sadly, on several levels, they were both already taken.

Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis is a great cemetery. I was there this morning. The people in the office have a map already made out for people like me (fellow necographers). All the locations of famous people are clearly marked. Anyway, this morning I found Adolphus Busch (founder of Busch-Anheuser), Thomas Hart Benton (bigwig senator in the 1800's), William Clark (Lewis and Clark), Don Carlos Buell, Stephen Watts Kearney, and John Pope (generals).

Right next to Bellefontaine is Calvary Cemetary that has Dred Scott, Tennessee Williams, and William T. Sherman.  That would have been fun to try to find those, but that cemetary is not as necography-friendly as the other and time became an issue. Also, I can only do it for so long before it starts to creep me out a little bit.