Today I am grateful for people’s generosity…

This is Willoughby Village Cemetery’s most famous grave. It was erected and maintained by donations from the local townspeople.

In the early morning hours of Christmas Eve in 1933, a young woman arrived in Willoughby and checked into a local boarding house. According to the landlady, Mary Judd, the woman came downstairs around noon, asked about local church services, wished her a merry Christmas, and departed. The young woman was dressed entirely in blue that complemented her blue eyes and was friendly to those she passed in the streets. Within minutes, she stepped into the path of an oncoming train.

The citizens of Willoughby were saddened and captivated by the circumstances that would lead a pretty, friendly young woman to commit suicide by train (according to eyewitnesses, her actions appeared deliberate). She carried no identification – the only clue in her purse was a train ticket to Corry, Pennsylvania. They hoped that family would come to claim her, and when no one did, they paid for her funeral and monument themselves and maintained it. It was not until 1993 that she was identified as Josephine “Sophie” Klimczak.

Here are articles about the girl in blue.  Even today, her grave is well maintained, shaded by a donated tree, and surrounded by flowers.

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The Ashtabula Horror

Visitors and caretakers at this cemetery have reported families in 19th century clothing wandering around this obelisk with their luggage. It seems that the victims of the Ashtabula Train Disaster, ripped so suddenly from life, do not realize they are dead and continue their travels in eternity

On December 29, 1876, the Lake Shore and Michigan Railway’s No. 5 Pacific Express train traveling from Erie, Pennsylvania, was approaching Ashtabula, Ohio. Despite the bitter cold outside, the interior of the train was warm and bright courtesy of oil lamps and coal-burning stoves, and the passengers were cheerful and in the holiday spirit. Crossing a bridge that spanned a deep gorge, the engineer of the first engine felt a ominous pull as the cars behind him began to fall with the failing iron truss bridge bridge. Somehow, he managed to uncouple the engine but watched helplessly as the passenger cars plunged into the freezing water. Passengers who weren’t killed by impact faced new threats as they struggled to escape the sinking cars: the paralyzing freezing water filled their voluminous winter clothes while fires erupted from the now-broken oil lamps and overturned coal stoves. Help was slow in arriving at the water’s edge down the steep embankment, and an estimated 90 to 100 people lost their lives that night. The exact number of deceased could never be determined due to the lack of passenger records and the fires that burned many bodies past the point of recognition, but scholars believe at least 160 people were on the train.

The monument in Chestnut Grove Cemetery stands specifically in memory to those unrecognized dead. The names of those known to be among them are engraved on the base of the obelisk. Perhaps they are the warmly clad wanders out of time that can be seen milling around the monument some days, seemingly uncomprehending of their fate.

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