The Key West Cemetery by Barbara Ross

LUCY BURDETTE: I should be traveling home today and hopefully I am, but I asked my pal Barbara Ross if I could share her wonderful post about the Key West cemetery for your reading pleasure. You'll remember her as the author of the delightful Maine Clambake mystery series, but she also shares my love for Key West. Welcome back Barb!

BARBARA ROSS: The cemetery in Key West is a spot most tourists visit. It’s best known for its above-ground graves, like in New Orleans, and the light-hearted epitaphs of some its inhabitants, including the tombstones that say, “I told you I was sick,” “I’m just resting my eyes,” “If you’re reading this, you desperately need a hobby,” “I always wanted a little plot of land in Key West,” and “Devoted fan of singer Julio Iglesais.”

The cemetery was founded in 1847, after the previous burial grounds were washed away in a hurricane, though some of the graves, brought there from the earlier cemeteries, are older. Containing approximately 100,000 graves, more than three times the living population of Key West, the still-active cemetery is the only game in town, the final resting place for people of all religions, races, occupations and classes.

In addition to the regular walking tours, three times a year, the Historic Florida Keys Foundation offers a “Cemetery Stroll,” as a fundraiser. Living interpreters, often with a connection to the dead, tell the stories of some of the people buried there. Bill and I took one of those tours in March. There are so many interesting people buried in the cemetery, you can take these tours multiple times.

Here are just a few of the fascinating people whose stories we heard on our tour..

Sandy Cornish



Sandy Cornish was born a slave in 1793. In 1839, he was able to buy his freedom for $3000. His emancipation papers were burned in a fire that swept through the wooden buildings of the city of Port Leon in the Florida panhandle where he lived and worked. Unable to prove his status as a free man, when slave traders tried to take him to the market in New Orleans, he gathered a crowd in a square in Port Leon and publicly maimed himself, cutting his Achilles tendon, stabbing himself in the hip with a knife, and cutting off a finger. Worthless as a slave, he and his wife Lillah, whose freedom they had also purchased, moved to Key West. They founded a farm and orchard on the land where our rented house now stands and prospered, becoming one of the wealthiest couples in the city. Sandy Cornish founded the Cornish Chapel of the AME Methodist Church. The church houses a thriving congregation today.

The exact location of Sandy Cornish’s grave in the Key West Cemetery has been lost to history, so a memorial was recently erected. The story of Cornish’s life was told by well-known local singer Wilhelmina Lopez-Martin, who sang the intro and the outro.

William Curry



William Curry arrived in Key West penniless from Green Turtle Cay in the Bahamas in 1837. He died as Florida’s first millionaire. He had many enterprises, but made the bulk of his fortune wrecking, salvaging goods from ships that wrecked in the treacherous waters of the Keys. This is how many early Key West fortunes were made. You can tour and even stay in The Curry Mansion, which is a Bed and Breakfast today.

On the Cemetery Stroll, William Curry’s story was told by Clinton Curry, a distant relative who still lives in Key West.

The Watlington Family Plot



Captain Francis Watlington and his wife Emeline raised their nine daughters in the house that is now the Oldest House Museum in Key West. Though Key West stayed with the Union in the Civil War, Captain Watlington joined the Confederate Navy. After the war, he lived principally in New York City, though he returned to Key West in his final years to be nursed by his youngest daughter, Lily, who had similarly cared for her mother and two of her sisters. She died in 1936. Earl Johnson was the last descendant to live in the house until his death in 1972, meaning the house was continuously lived in by one family for around a hundred and forty years.

The Watlington family’s story was told by Karl Reutling, a docent and historian at the Oldest House.

The Adderlys



George and Olivia Adderly immigrated separately from the Bahamas in 1890 and married soon after. They purchased land on Vaca Key which is now part of the City of Marathon. They built their home out of tabby, a kind of concrete made by burning shells to extract the lime. Incredibly the home still stands today, despite hurricanes and the punishing tropical climate, and you can tour it. The Adderlys attracted a Bahamanian community around them that thrived on sponge-fishing. When Henry Flagler built his railroad to Key West and needed a right of way over the Adderly land, George Adderly, a literate, but otherwise unadvantaged black man, went toe-to-toe with the richest and most powerful man in Florida, and demanded a station stop at Vaca Key in return. Flagler acquiesced. The stop meant the men of the little settlement could more easily move their sponges to market in Key West, while the women made money selling garden produce and baked goods to rail workers and travelers at the stop.

The Adderly’s stories were told by Key West City Commissioner Clayton Lopez and Phyllis LeConte.

Rosa and Mary Navarro



One of the most photographed graves in the Key West Cemetery are the mother and child angels at the graves of Mary and Rosa Navarro, which have recently been beautifully restored. The inscription on Mary Navarro’s statue says, “To the sacred memory of a brokenhearted mother.” The Navarros made their money in cigar-making and at the turn of the twentieth century, their interests took them to Manhattan. Rosa Navarro died in a fall from their apartment window when she was nine. Though her mother lived four years longer, she never recovered, following her daughter in death in 1907.

The Navarro’s story was told by Ron Wampler, and Diane Silvia, Executive Director of the Historic Florida Keys Foundation which is responsible for the restoration.

The stories in the Key West Cemetery, of fortunes made and lost in wrecking, farming, sponging, and cigar-making, of lives of triumph and tragedy, are the stories of the history of Key West. Even the tongue-in-cheek inscriptions I quoted at the top are a part of the irreverent atmosphere of the island. I’ve included just a few of the fascinating lives we learned about on the tour.

Readers: Do you ever walk in or visit cemeteries? What have you seen and learned?

[All photos in this post are by Bill Carito. If you like them and want to see more, you can friend him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/bcarito and follow him on Instagram at billcarito and bill.carito.colorphotos.]

This is the Writer's Brain on Vacation

 LUCY BURDETTE: As I’m writing this, it’s early March and I’m frantically wrapping things up with several projects and starting to pack for New Zealand. This has made me think–is there ever a vacation during which I can turn my writing brain off completely? I doubt I will be setting a book or story in New Zealand, though never say never! We went to Australia about ten years ago and I’ve not written anything about that, aside from a blog post. I did start a short story about a crime on Lord Howe Island off the coast of Australia, but I realized quickly that I didn’t know enough to continue. I didn’t understand the local culture or how the police would behave–I’d be flying in the dark and subject to making  mistakes and garnering criticism. Maybe this trip will be different? Maybe I’ll write nothing and only relax. What are the chances Reds? Have you ever done that?

JENN McKINLAY: No. I don’t think I’ve ever been on vacation (since I got published) when I didn’t work. That is a very sad statement. I remember when the Hooligans were little and we’d go on our annual beach vacation to San Diego, I’d get up at 5 in the morning and work in the bathroom - usually sitting on towels in an empty bath tub - just to get the day’s pages done so I could be on vacation during the day with the fam. Most of my vacations - Florence, London, Paris, Ring of Kerry, etc. have been because I needed to research the area of the place I was writing about. Maybe someday I will travel without my laptop…someday!

HALLIE EPHRON: I do think that, if you’re a writer, your “writing brain” never turns off. I can be in the bathtub and still seeing myself as a character. Or go somewhere and imagine the words I’d use to describe its essence. I think every trip I’ve taken in the last ten years has generated a setting or a situation or a feeling that’s turned up in a story I’ve written. It’s an occupational hazard.

I confess, I’m the least fond of the Agatha Christie novels that she obviously set somewhere she vacationed or visited. Take me back to London or St. Mary Meade I want to beg of her. And Roberta you are so wise to NOT write a story set someplace you don’t know well enough. I started setting YOU’LL NEVER KNOW, DEAR in Beauford, South Carolina, and realized I didn’t know enough about its amazing history, so I created a fictional town nearby that I could have my way with.

RHYS BOWEN: I have taken some vacations with the express purpose of writing about the place where I am staying. This was true for Mrs. Endicott in Cassis. Also Tuscany and Venice. I never set a book in a place I am visiting for the first time, but somewhere I am familiar with. I go back knowing what details i want to reassure myself about.

If I am not writing I am always jotting down ideas for future reference.I find airports, trains, cafes are wonderful sources of inspiration. As Hallie said, you cannot turn off a writer’s brain.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: The only non-England trips I’ve taken in ages have been my yearly jaunts to the Round Top antiques fair with my daughter, and even though I am not “writing” writing, I am always looking at things and people and thinking about my books. I don’t think it’s possible for writers to ever really turn their writer’s brains off–and I’m not sure I’d want to. Nevertheless, Lucy, I hope you have a lovely vacation and come back refreshed and ready to dig into your book!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I agree with Hallie, writer’s brain never switches off. And I also agree with the idea that you need some familiarity with a place in order to write well about it - They’re all large cities on the water with lots of snow and cold weather, but Boston is different from NY which is different from Chicago in so many small ways that you can get wrong if you’re not reasonably well-versed in the area!

As for vacations, since I started writing professionally at the turn of the century, 98% of all “vacations” have either involved writing (Nantucket,) research (anyplace in New York State,) meetings with agents and the publisher (NYC) or conferences. The latter has been great - my kids have accompanied me to Alaska, California, Alabama, Chicago, Florida, Michigan… they and their Dad got to have fun while Mom taught or spoke!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Hmm, so interesting! I have never gone anywhere for the sole purpose of research (except for my entire TV career, which I did not realize was research at the time.), but wow, everything is possibly something. And it's not only setting, of course, it’s how people behave, or what they do or say or eat. Or, for example, the sign we saw in Nevis when we had to go to the police station to get a drivers license. (They make tourists buy them :-)) There was a big sign, warning that houses were being broken into across the island, and to especially beware, because the perpetrator “might be disguised as a vicar or a meter man.”

It makes me laugh even to type that.

I have never ever not taken my laptop.

Red readers and writers, do you take your work on vacation, or are you able to switch gears completely?

Celebrating Molly Murphy

 RHYS BOWEN:  Since this week is celebrating the publication of VANISHED IN THE CROWD, the 22nd Molly Murphy novel, I thought I'd share some Molly pictures with you. One of the things fans like about this series is that it involves real time, real place.  When I first started the series I went to New York and chose a home for my heroine.  It is on Patchin Place and still exists, unchanged.  A few years ago a man emailed me to  say he was now living in Molly's house and sent me pictures.  When Clare and Tim were in New York last year they met him and he invited them inside for a tour.

When I was writing the first books and my knowledge of New York was limited to  tourist areas I went there for every book and walked any streets that Molly would walk. What would she hear, smell, see?  Now I know her part of New York well enough that I could give a guided tour.  I said this jokingly once to the Minotaur publicist. Her eyes lit up. "Molly walking tour of New York???"  Not really, I said hastily.

The nice thing is that most of Molly's New York is still there, hardly changed. You can still walk up Mulberry Street, see the Jefferson Market building, cross the Brooklyn Bridge.  Over the years I have taken plenty of pictures and I'm going to share some now. This is Patchin Place.

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This is looking down Patchin Place toward the Jefferson Market Building In Molly's time it was both a market and a police station with holding cells.

This is the last working gas lamp in New York City.  It's in Patchin Place.

Molly's house on the right.  And some typical houses from the neighborhood. Molly lived briefly in a fancy house like this on Fifth Avenue.

And finally the pharmacy around the corner that was open and working in Molly's day.  I love how I continually find little gems like this!

I hope you've enjoyed this little tour. Next time you go to New York check out Molly's old haunts!

And writers, how important is it to you to visit the sites you are writing about and know them well?

NEWSFLASH; I've been given some free copies of the Audible version of the book.  If you'd like to be in a drawing for one, email me at Authorrhysbowen@gmail.com. i'll pick some names from a hat and give you instructions on how to claim the audio version.