The mysterious mausoleum with a one-star review
More of a Little Detroit1 History postcard, today, than a letter2, but for no particular reason, I’ve been thinking about this public mausoleum:
Here’s a closer look at the Upper Sandusky Mausoleum in context, via Google Street View:
I suppose that’s Custom Glass Solutions in the background.
The three Google Reviews of the Upper Sandusky Mausoleum are as follows:
“Best mausoleum in all of upper 10/10 love the location
Its a must see for all visiting town” (This reviewer nonetheless gave the Upper Sandusky Mausoleum one star.)“This is Not a cemetery/mausoleum.This a seniors citizen(55 or older) apartment complex of 40 units.Has been for 20 years now.We might be one foot in the grave but definitely not both YET- thank-you.” (One star. You’re welcome.)
“My Home location is listed as a maseolem across town. I tried changing the address & location (home), but don’t know if the “business” portion of the description has changed.” (One star.)
Even in my career as one of America’s top Midwestern community mausoleum enthusiasts, I have been unable to uncover much about the Upper Sandusky Mausoleum. It looks like it dates from the early days of the mausoleum business, maybe mid-1910s. Squinting at this placard posted on Findagrave.com, it appears to have about 160 crypts, most of them occupied. This good soul has recorded and photographed 103 of them. Of those, the first interment was in 1916. The last was in 1982. They include Franklin Fox, “well known in the business circles of Upper Sandusky,” Sylvia Lewis once photographed in this tremendous dress, and no one else you’d know. Sometime in last 40 years, the Upper Sandusky Mausoleum was boarded up, and a custom glass solutions company built beside it.
There are lots of little mausoleums like this around Ohio and Illinois, unattached to a traditional lawn plot cemetery, just flying solo. I think this must have happened when mausoleum salesmen, shunned by some cemetery that didn’t want a mausoleum built on its grounds, evaluated the market opportunity in any given community and decided to buy some land and build one anyway. There’s the Bucyrus Mausoleum in Bucyrus, Ohio with some 300 interments. The Beecher Mausoleum in Will County, Illinois, that was named an endangered place by Landmarks Illinois in 2013. The Marion Mausoleum in Marion, Ohio, which used to be incongruously located next to a Payless Shoe Store, but looks like there’s some new build going in as of last year!:
But I don’t know why there aren’t mausoleums like this all over small-town Michigan, or if there are I can’t find them. The only one stand-alone mauso I’ve been able to find in Michigan is the Oakwood Memorial Mausoleum in Saginaw, of a considerably larger scale, at about 10,000 interments. Oakwood was designed by Sidney Lovell, the best in the biz in his era, who also did Rosehill in Chicago, Valhalla in St. Louis, and an apparently gorgeous one in Lansing that is maybe falling apart, yikes.
If you see one, holler. I think I’ll have to make it to Oakwood one of these days.
Or even Sandusky!
I am recovering from an illness and will be out touring Elmwood today! This is not an excuse or an apology because one is not required; I still wrote a couple of hundred words nobody asked me for about mausoleums! And: I’ve been digging into some really good stuff lately, the next couple of letters will be bangers, thank you for joining me on this journey of actually writing something once a week.