Lying on Husband's Grave

Detroit Free Press, October 5, 1901

Sitting up with the dead has not always proved therapeutic for the aggrieved living parties but especially in the case of spouses. Suicides and attempted suicides at the site of their loved one's graves were not a rarity. Detroit had a few of its own.

Emma Kraft could not live without her husband John. He was a Detroit fireman who had committed suicide by drinking carbolic acid a few months before in August of 1901 and she attempted to reunite herself with her beloved by drinking the same toxin while lying upon his grave in Elmwood Cemetery. 

When she was discovered by a cemetery worker, who just happened to walk by the fireman's lot, a pitiable note was found beside her:

"Dear Parents:

Forgive me for all the trouble I brought upon you. I am going to John; I cannot live without him. Do not fail to have John removed and buried alongside of me. I see him before me night and day with outstretched arms calling for me. I must go. Your loving daughter.

EMMA."

Despite her injuries she was expected to live.

Detroit Free Press, October 7, 1901

Ghost Story #14: The Bone-Cracking Haints of Elmwood Cemetery

Detroit Free Press, December 21, 1924

BREAKS A LEG BUT DOESN'T BLAME GHOSTS

Oliver Victor Can't Explain Injury Received While Passing Graveyard.

Victor Oliver swore he did not have a drink Saturday. And he was just as emphatic that he was not suffering from a previous day's "hangover." He's not a bit afraid of ghosts either, but he's sure he saw eerie apparitions as he sauntered past Elmwood cemetery shortly after midnight Friday, and they were so realistic that they must have broken his leg. He admits he got rather panicky, and he's not quite clear as to what did happen after he first came upon the ghostly shapes, but anyhow, he's in receiving hospital with a badly broken left limb.

Victor, who gave his age as 50, and says he lives on Michigan avenue near Fourth street, told hospital authorities he was on his way home from a visit to friends. As he was passing the cemetery two shapes, one a man and the other a woman, approached him rapidly. From then on, Victor is not quite clear as to what happened. He thinks he may have started to run, and he admits he became a bit hysterical. The next thing he remembered is when he came to in a drug store and someone was giving him a glass of water.

When the ambulance brought him to the hospital, Victor was still trembling from fright. But he still insists he is not afraid of ghosts.

"It took something more than mere ghosts to break my leg," he told attendants.

This haunting is reminiscent of the Peter Erb attack which an 8-foot-tall spectre knocked him cold. The incidents occurred only a few miles apart though 50 years in between.