My husband's Uncle told me a story beginning "You know there's a person who isn't a Murphy in the Murphy plot" He said that his mother went to visit the graves and was surprised to see a freshly dug grave. She was rather shocked because no family member, that she was aware of, had recently passed away. They inquired about the name of the person who was buried there and were given the run around for quite some time. They kept inquiring and finally were told by the undertaker that the body of a homeless drunkard was left at the gates of the cemetery in the middle of the night. Supposedly, this was fairly common. The undertaker, believing that everyone was entitled to a decent burial, but being too tired to take him to the potter's field, put him in the Murphy plot thinking it would never be used because it had been empty for quite some time. The undertaker (a drinking man himself it seems) told them he had one last drink with him (he was found with his bottle still on his possession) and then buried him with it. I don't know how much truth there is in this story, but if there was an undertaker who had a habit of doing this it could explain these unknown people without necrology or census records. They are the poor souls who should have been buried in an unmarked grave in the potter's field. Lilly ________________________________________________________________ The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today!

The story has the faint aroma of being an apocryphal one, however, where would we be without a bit of blarney? Dick Conoboy -----Original Message----- From: lillylakewood@juno.com [mailto:lillylakewood@juno.com] Sent: Saturday, June 07, 2003 12:11 PM To: OH-CLEVELAND-IRISH-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: Calvary Cemetery-mysterious bodies My husband's Uncle told me a story beginning "You know there's a person who isn't a Murphy in the Murphy plot" He said that his mother went to visit the graves and was surprised to see a freshly dug grave. She was rather shocked because no family member, that she was aware of, had recently passed away. They inquired about the name of the person who was buried there and were given the run around for quite some time. They kept inquiring and finally were told by the undertaker that the body of a homeless drunkard was left at the gates of the cemetery in the middle of the night. Supposedly, this was fairly common. The undertaker, believing that everyone was entitled to a decent burial, but being too tired to take him to the potter's field, put him in the Murphy plot thinking it would never be used because it had been empty for quite some time. The undertaker (a drinking man himself it seems) told them he had one last drink with him (he was found with his bottle still on his possession) and then buried him with it. I don't know how much truth there is in this story, but if there was an undertaker who had a habit of doing this it could explain these unknown people without necrology or census records. They are the poor souls who should have been buried in an unmarked grave in the potter's field. Lilly ________________________________________________________________ The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today!