Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-06-04
THE GRAVEDIGGER,
A CHICAGO REPORTERS VISIT TO
 THE CEMETERIES.

A CHICAGO REPORTERS VISIT TO THE CEMETERIES.
 l Gravedigging . Healthy vocation-Bury.
 ing Anve-Chicago's Twenty-s,x ceme- teries-A Busy Tima-Work and Wages. How 'Familiarity Breeds Contempt.'' A withered, bent and gnarled old man was digging leisurely away at grave in Grace land cemetery. The old man was John Kane. the oldest active gravedigger in the United States. He is 65, and when he walks his back is at an angle of 45 degs. But there is lots of life in old John Kane yet and he may well live to complete his four score and over
 ''I have buried great many in my life many thousands" said the old man. i've been here, grave digger, making a good living at it, since 1860, when Graceland ceme- tery first started. I've never dug up any treasures, and 1 don't suppose ever shall But I've earned my bread at it and provided for my family, and me and my boys used to do great deal of hard work in this ceme- tary. It's an old saying that grave digging is healthy trade and that grave digger lives longer than most other people don't see exactly why it should be so, for one often
 
 elsewhere. But it's open air work, and it has to be done in all sorts of weather and at all seasons, and thus it makes man tough and not liable to give in to small ailmentsn There has never been, as far as reliable data are at hand, Q case of burying alive in Chicago cemeteries. 1t was rumored that there was, some time ago, such a case at Waldheim, the great ''Friedhof" literally peace yard) of our German fellow citizens, But visit paid there and diligent inquiry made failed to bring out any corroboration of the rumor. "That's all bosh," said Theo- dore Harks, the superintendent of the Ger man Lutheran cemetery, adjoining Grace land. II have buried thousands and have opened many collins years afterward, when the bodies, for some reason or other, had to be placed elsewhere. I have always found the bodies exactly in the same position in which they were laid to rest. All this talk of burying people alive is nonsense It don't happen, and folks might as we'll dismiss that fear from their minds" .= n Graceland has the largest silent population of all Chicago's twenty-six cemeteries. "If the 45 ,O00 who lie there SO quiet could rise up agaln, hale and hearty, what a population l there would be added to Lake View!n ex- claimed the philosophizing car driver, as his car rattled OH through the thinly settled tracts surrounding Graceland. There are 5000 buried in block alone. Of the twenty-six cemeteries fourteen are Hebrew ones, all small, and only twelve are of fair sized or large dimensions. Graceland, however, with 100 acres of ground, Calvary and Rose Hill seventy-hve each, and Waldheim with territory of just about the same extent to- gether with Concordia and St. Boniface, hold just about the bulk of dead Chicagoans. Altogether probably some 900 are laid | away in all these-a large number for a young city like ours But there is room for another 3OO,0OO in these burial grounds. In view of the large number buried, and of the hundreds that die every week, it may sound strange when it is said that there are al. together less than one hundred gravediggers employed at the twenty-six cemeteries
 1 The shovel, pick and spade, together with the strap to lower the coffin into the grave, form the complete outfit of tools for the gravedigger. During the warm season it takes but an hour to dig grave in ordinary soil, and of the regulation size, i. e., four and a half to five feet deep and about seven feet long. It is different in the winter time The plckax IS then necessary, and even with | its help 1t takes from three to four hours to make the hole, with the frost fen three feet deep in the ground. The busiest time for the gravediggers is the early spring, generally about the middle of April, when all the bodies that have been stored away in vaults during the winter are inferred At Grace land, for instance, as many as thirty-two a day have been buried. This is, of course, nothing in comparison to the dread periods of epidemics passed through during the last fifteen years-smallpox, diphtheria, etc. Then there were days when 200 bodies were handed over in one day to the authorities of one cemetery alone for internlent. During such times of stress extra help has, of course. to be employed.
 1 It is mistake to think that the grave digger earns big wages. A regular monthly pay of $40, or $1.50 to $2, when hired and paid by the day, is about all these men re- ceive for their hard work But, of course, it does not require much skill nor much pre- vious training to become good gravedigger. Any one used to handling the spade or shovel, and able to dig ditch or square hole can do the work we'll. Of course, in addition to the digging oe graves, these men have to do the sodding of the graves, and have to care besides for large number of them after the planting, etc., has been done by the florists and his assistants. One gravedigger, besides digging probably a daily average of two graves all the year around, has to mind a couple of hundred graves. The watering ot l C40 PAdAoo c1AA Cu1 WIlACu 1S uOuC W1UQ tue hose, takes up a large portion of his time.
 It seems chests chuck full of Spanish doub looms, old tumuli harboring the bones of 6 hero long dead and his golden ornaments as well, and all such buried treasures, are mighty scarce around these diggings here spoken of. Nothing of the kind ever has been found in Chicago cemeteries. That's not to be wondered at, after all, because its all virgin soil. Not even ancient Indian weapons nor the skeletons of dogs or mer have been found underground.
 It is said that familiarity breeds con tempt" It is therefore not to be wondered at that grave digger, by dint of handling bodies all his life, becomes callous and look upon the dead body of his fellow beings mucl in the same way in which a grocer looks upo1 0 dead herring-that is, as & ware whicl must yield him so much profit. He tumble the dead man in his narrow little house very unceremoniolsly into the grave, when ther, happens to be no near relatives about. Wha they hate to do of all things is the digging out of body for removal elsewhere. On cannot blame them, for the job is, to put i
 mildly, a disagreeable one. Many a mal wouldn't want to do it for any money. Thes
 men have to do 1t for a few dollars. Chicagt Herald