A Visit to Marysvale Cemetery
Our road trip earlier this month took us to some wonderful places, including Lone Pine, a trio of national parks, and a Utah state park.
In the coming weeks I'll be sharing some "Photos From the Road" of various places we visited, and I also have some fantastic movie location photos I'll be sharing either here or in my Western RoundUp column at Classic Movie Hub. Among other things, we found the "Roman riding" location from Rio Grande (1950). Talk about a huge thrill!
First, though, I'll share a very special side trip we made to the little town of Marysvale, Utah, which is on Highway 89 along the way between Bryce Canyon City and Moab.
As we neared Marysvale we were interested to see a sign for the "Boyhood Home" of Robert Leroy Parker, aka Butch Cassidy.
We pulled into the parking lot and snapped a quick photo of the exterior:
Then it was on to Marysvvale Cemetery:
This cemetery is the final resting place of actress Marie Windsor, who was born Emily Marie Bertelsen in Marysvale on December 11, 1919. We found her grave marker almost immediately:
This is one of the nicest grave markers we've seen, honoring both Marie's acting career and her husband Jack Hupp's years playing USC basketball. Hupp was the MVP and captain of the Trojans team in 1936.
It's a lovely spot overlooking the town, with Marie's parents buried nearby. When we arrived there were fresh flowers on both gravesites.
Marie died in Beverly Hills in 2000, the day before her 81st birthday. Her husband, whom she'd married in 1954, died the following summer.
Something unique to this cemetery, which I can't recall commonly seeing at the many cemeteries we have previously visited, is that many of the tombstones have the names of married couples' children on the reverse. Richard was the Hupps' son together, and Christopher was Jack Hupp's son from his first marriage.
Marie Windsor is a key actress for those of us who love both Westerns and film noir. It was a great honor to be able to pay our respects to a woman whose work has brought us so much enjoyment over the years.
posted by Laura @ 10:00 AM
2 Comments:
It's not uncommon in Boston for people to put their names on the family headstone with just the birthdate - and their family can add the year of their death when the time comes. I guess it just depends how many graves there are at that particular site or if the family members want to be somewhere else.
A couple years ago I was at a cemetery near my house looking for an architect about whom I was writing a paper. I encountered a gentleman who was carrying out an elaborate planting scheme and had even hooked up a hose to one of the spigots one finds in cemeteries. Thinking he must be an employee, I said, "Hello! I'm looking for Henry Hobson Richardson. Have you seen him?" and the man turned and said, "No, you're the first person I've seen all day." "I should have said, 'Do you know where his grave is,'" I said apologetically. He replied,"No, the only people I know are my parents," and he pointed to the grave. I gave up and luckily the grave location was on the cemetery's website.
Hi Constance,
Belated thanks for your interesting comments. I've seen what you describe, where room is left for later family members. This was interesting as throughout the cemetery the tombstones had very long lists of family members on the reverse side -- I think one family listed 8 children. I wondered if perhaps the deep appreciation Mormons have for family played into it somehow. Not that the rest of us don't have that, but it seemed as though this cemetery was celebrating it in a special way.
I *loved* your story about your cemetery visit. Glad you ultimately found the spot you were hoping to visit!
It's always so nice to hear from you!
Best wishes,
Laura
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