Weird or Wonderful: Here Are 16 Unusual Graves and Headstones

Have you ever wandered through a cemetery, spotted a beautiful headstone and pondered about the life that may have inspired it? If you have, you are not alone. Cemeteries inspire a natural curiosity in all of us. They reflect a lot about the people whose remains are interred within them, as well as their customs and beliefs about the afterlife.

1. The Haunting Grave of Fernand Abelot

A striking bronze gravestone in the world-famous Père Lachaise cemetery is that of actor and musician Fernand Arbelot, who died in 1942. Little is known about Arbelot, but it is thought that the face he is holding is that of his wife, which he wished to gaze upon for all eternity.

The epitaph on his grave reflects the love he and his wife shared: “They were amazed at the beautiful journey which led them to the end of life.”

2. The Grave of the Clasped Hands

These are the graves of husband and wife Colonel van Gorcum and Lady van Aefferden, who are still holding hands more than 150 years after their death.

Their marriage in 1842 was a great scandal – Lady van Aefferden was an aristocratic Catholic, while the Colonel was a Protestant with no noble connections. When Colonel van Gorcum died in 1880, he was buried in the Protestant cemetery in Roermond.

Knowing that she would be buried in the Catholic cemetery, his wife made it clear that she did not want to be buried in her family's burial plot. Instead she chose a burial site right by the wall dividing the two cemeteries, as close to her husband’s grave as possible. Atop their headstones, two hands meet across the wall, proving that love really doesn’t end with death.

3. Tragedy and Romance in Paris

Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris is world-renowned for its beautiful mausoleums and gravestones, but few are as striking as that of Georges Rodenbach, a 19th Century Belgian writer. From his tomb, a bronze statue of Rodenbach can be seen emerging from the grave, clasping a single rose in his hand.

Dramatic and romantic, Rodenbach’s tomb reflects his writing. His best-known work, a symbolic novel called Bruges-la-Morte, is the heartbreaking story of a widower living in Bruges, struggling to cope with grief in the wake of his wife’s death.

4. The Grave That Keeps Growing

This tomb in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, has grown to extraordinary lengths over the centuries. It’s said to be the final resting place of Daniel, the Old Testament prophet, and local legend has it that his body continued to grow after death, resulting in a tomb that is now 18 meters long.

The story goes that Timur, a Turco-Mongol leader who conquered parts of Persia and Central Asia, interred Daniel’s remains at Samarkand for good luck. It’s believed that the truth behind the growing grave is that Timur became wary of robbers, and extended the tomb to make it harder for them to plunder the precious remains.

Although several other places, mainly in Iraq and Iran, also claim to be home to the grave of Daniel, Samarkand’s remarkable ever-growing tomb is unique.

5. A Burial Facing the Open Sky

Designed by revolutionary American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, the Blue Sky Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, New York, is in tribute to his close friend and supporter, Darwin D. Martin. Wright and Martin had discussed the unique mausoleum in detail between 1925 and 1928, but sadly it was not built in either of their lifetimes.

In 2004, architect Anthony Puttnam, who was once apprentice to Wright, worked with Forest Lawn Cemetery to bring the two friends’ vision into reality. The design is based on detailed sketches and plans by Wright, but is now a memorial rather than grave. The memorial's inscription was taken from a note written by him to Martin as an epitaph: “A burial facing the open sky… The whole could not fail of noble effect…”

6. The Artist’s Assistant and His Colorful Cat

Among the Victorian mausoleums and granite tombstones of Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris, you’ll find this colorful creature. Standing at about 1.5 meters tall, this gravestone is known as Ricardo’s Cat and is decorated with mosaic tiles.

The unusual headstone was made by artist Niki de Saint Phalle for her assistant, Ricardo Menon, who died aged 37 in 1989. The epitaph at the cat’s feet reads: “To our friend Ricardo who died too soon, beautiful, young and loved.”

7. The Girl in the Shadow Box

Also known as ‘the girl in the shadow box,’ this hauntingly beautiful headstone marks the Luyties family plot in Bellefontaine Cemetery, St. Louis, Missouri USA.

Herman Luyties commissioned the memorial stone after falling hopelessly in love with the sculptor’s muse, an Italian model, while he was in Europe. Although she declined his marriage proposal, he shipped the statue of her to St. Louis and kept it in his home. Eventually it was moved to mark the family burial plot in Bellefontaine Cemetery, where Herman added a glass case to protect his beloved from weathering. He died at the age of 50 in 1921 and was buried at her feet.

8. Memorial Candle for a Hungarian Heroine

Katalin Karády was a Hungarian film star in the 1940s, known for her remarkable efforts to save Hungarian Jews during the Second World War, including hiding children in her home. In 1944 she was arrested for being an Allied spy and imprisoned for three months. After the war ended she travelled around the world, eventually settling in New York where she opened a hat shop. She died in February 1990 and she was brought back to Hungary for her burial.

Her grave in Farkasreti Cemetery, Budapest, bears a large and intricately carved sculpture resembling a melting candle, with a copy of her distinctive autograph imprinted at its base. This grave has become a pilgrimage for those wanting to thank Katalin for her bravery in the face of conflict.

9. Matthew Stanford Robinson Memorial

The undying love of a mother and father inspired the creation of this incredible monument. The bronze statue depicts a little boy rising above his disability and being lifted up to heaven. His face is turned upward, and his arm reaches towards the sky. The sculpture was created in memory of a little boy named Matthew Stanford Robinson who had cerebral palsy and spent his entire life in a wheelchair.

After Matthew’s passing in 1999, his parents wanted to be reminded when visiting his grave that he was now free of the limitations he was burdened with on Earth. This led Matthew’s father to reach out to a cousin who was a sculptor to help build the monument he envisioned.

Over the years, the statue has touched the hearts of so many people. Images of it have gone viral on social media many times. This had resulted in the family receiving a lot of attention and using their platform to help others. The Robinson family founded a non-profit called Ability Found, which matches people with free or discounted wheelchairs as well as other mobility supplies. The charity helps raise money both through donations and selling miniature replicas of Matthew’s grave statue.

10. Cemetery Monument Memorializing Dr. Samuel Bean’s Two Wives

For more than 100 years, visitors who saw the shared headstone of Henrietta and Susanna Bean remained stumped as to what the enigmatic crossword code engraved on the stone might say. They took grave rubbings and attempted to decipher the message, only to come up blank. What was known was that in 1867, a man named Dr. Samuel Bean had erected the stone in secret for his two wives, who had both died within a few years of one another. Bean had the two women buried side-by-side beneath the mysterious stone and, before he could share its meaning with anyone, met his own untimely end when he drowned after falling overboard a sailboat.

It wasn’t until a 94-year-old woman living in a nearby retirement home figured it out in the 1970s that anyone knew the answer to Dr. Bean’s puzzle. While we’ll never know what inspired Dr. Bean to create such a perplexing engraving for his two brides, at least the mystery of the epitaph has now been solved. We included the answer below, but feel free to skip ahead if you would like to attempt to decipher the code yourself.

Beginning on the seventh character of the seventh row down and reading in a spiral or sometimes diagonal fashion, the inscription reads: “In memoriam Henrietta, Ist wife of S. Bean, M.D. who died 27th Sep. 1865, aged 23 years, 2 months and 17 days and Susanna his 2nd wife who died 27th April, 1867, aged 26 years, 10 months and 15 days, 2 better wives 1 man never had, they were gifts from God but are now in Heaven. May God help me, S.B., to meet them there.”

11. Grave of Florence Irene Ford

To be a parent in the 1800s truly took a great deal of courage. Around half of all children died before ever reaching the age of puberty, creating a wave of grief-stricken mothers and fathers that cut across cultures and class levels. You don’t have to look any further than President Lincoln and First Lady Mary Todd to see how these tragedies impacted the people of the time. For every known story, there are thousands more that have gone untold. While it is difficult to think too long about all of those innocent children taken away too soon, it is a reminder of how fortunate we are to live during a time when the risk of death for children is significantly smaller.

One story of a mother’s grief that has stood the test of time was that of Ellen Ford. When Ellen’s daughter, Florence Irene Ford, passed away at the age of 10 due to yellow fever, she asked for her grave to be built with a small window with stairs leading down to the casket. During her life, Florence would often become afraid during thunderstorms and her mother would comfort her until it passed. Ellen wanted to be able to continue comforting her daughter during thunderstorms. She had Florence’s grave built with metal trap doors above the stairwell so that she could go down to visit and remain protected from the elements.

Today, the grave remains virtually unchanged, although a concrete wall was added to block the view of the casket through the window to ward off any vandals. The stairwell beside the grave remains as a powerful visual reminder of the enduring power of a mother’s love.

12. The Kiss of Death

The Kiss of Death is marble sculpture located in Poblenou Cemetery in Barcelona. The sculpture is believed to have been crafted by Jaume Barba in 1930, as his signature is present on the side of the sculpture. However, some suggest that it might have been designed by Barba’s son-in-law, Joan Fontbernat. The sculpture serves as an example of memento mori, portraying death as a winged skeleton bestowing a kiss on the forehead of a young man.

The sculpture marks the grave of Josep Llaudet Soler, a former textile manufacturer. The base of the tombstone features a verse from Jacint Verdaguer, a prominent Catalan poet. The verse expresses the idea that the person’s youthful heart can no longer continue, their blood slows and freezes, their spirit embraces lost faith, and they feel the kiss of death as they fall. It is frequently mentioned that the sculpture served as inspiration for Ingmar Bergman’s film, The Seventh Seal.

13. The Tomb of Jules Verne

The Jules Verne’s tomb is a grave memorial in Amiens, France La Madeleine Cemetery. It marks the grave of the 19th-century writer Jules Verne. The sculpture was designed by Albert Roze and it depicts a man breaking out of his grave and reaching skyward. Verne died March 24, 1905, and the sculpture was added to the gravesite in 1907.

In 1905 Jules Verne died in Amiens France, from chronic diabetes and complications from a stroke that paralyzed his right side, and 2 years later his tomb featured a dramatic sculpture of a man pushing his way out of the earth reaching to the heavens. The sculpture is entitled “Vers l’immortalité et l’éternelle jeunesse” (“towards immortality and eternal youth”). It was announced in January 1907 sculptor Albert Roze would erect a monument at the Jules Verne gravesite.

14. The Gravestone of Laurence Matheson

Located in Mount Macedon Cemetery, Victoria, Australia, this gravestone features an epic female sculpture entitled “Asleep.” Laurence Matheson’s widow, Christina Matheson, commissioned Peter Schipperheyn to design this life-size memorial in a loving tribute to an eternal and undying love.

Laurie was an early sponsor of Schipperheyn's artwork. The Australian stone carver describes the process as coming "about as a result of knowing a remarkable individual who in many ways changed my life".

15. Alfred Schnittke’s Gravestone, “A Very Loud Silence(rest)”

Alfred Schnittke was a Soviet-German composer, who is known for his monumental Symphony No. 1 (1969-72) and his first Concerto Grosso (1977). He also composed the score to John Neumeier’s ballet based on Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt. His early work had echoes of Shostakovich, but his music developed a unique polystylistic voice throughout his career.

The composer died in 1998 at the age of 63, but not before he left the world with another deeply inspired work of art. One that embodied a creative mind that was always challenging, contradicting and elusive.

Placed in Moscow’s historic Novodevichy Cemetery, his gravestone shows a fermata (a pause), over a whole rest marked triple forte. Or in music: an extended silence, but very, very loud.

16. The Gravestone of Elijah Bond, Ouija Board Inventor

Elijah Bond was best known for filing the first United States patent for the Ouija board. Born in Harford County, MD in 1847, Bond became a successful lawyer in Baltimore City, starting his own practice in the 1870s. He filed the Ouija patent on behalf of the Kennard Novelty Company in 1891.

Elijah Bond died on April 14, 1921 at the home of his son, William B. Bond, in the 3300 block of Clifton Avenue. The obituary stated the cause of death was a “stroke of paralysis.” He was buried in an unmarked grave in Green Mount Cemetery.

In 2007, after a 15-year search, Ouija board historian and expert Robert Murch located Elijah Jefferson Bond’s unmarked grave in Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland. A year later, together with generous donations from Ouija enthusiasts, the cooperation of the cemetery itself, and the blessing of Bond descendants Walter Dent Jr. (Bond’s great grand nephew) and his daughter Winifred Pierce, a new memorial monument was erected to mark Bond’s grave and commemorate his involvement with the Ouija.

The headstone was crafted by Tegeler Monuments, and its backside contains the Bond’s iconic talking board drawing from the original Ouija patent. It has since become the cemetery’s most-requested gravesite for visitors.