The story you are about to read is true. It happened on on Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2009.
“And these are my great grandparents, John and Anna,” said my brother-in-law, Mel, as he brushed away the snow and placed the spray of Christmas greens near the grave markers. My niece, Melanie, and I stood close by as Mel shared some stories of John and Anna’s place in the family history. It was that history that had brought us there.
For the past several years, Mel has been deeply entrenched in genealogical research that has helped him trace his family back many generations, deep into the 1800′s. In the course of that research, he has discovered the burial sites for many of those ancestors (burial records are apparently a font of family information), and many of them are located in various cemeteries throughout the Baltimore, MD area. Being a region so central to early U.S. history, it is not hard to find graves that date back to the beginnings of the nation.
Wishing to honor the major players in his family legacy, Mel had gathered a list of sixteen gravesites in five different cemeteries that he wanted to visit and adorn with Christmas laurels. Melanie and I had accompanied him for the help we might provide and the historical perspective we might acquire.
So there we were, at our next-to last stop in Cemetery Number Five, the last cemetery of the day.
“What time is it?” asks Mel as we make our way back to the car. Melanie informs him that it is 4:55 PM. The decision is made to call my sister, Barb, whom we are supposed to pick up from work at 5 PM. We have one last grave to go. We will be there to pick her up in about half an hour.
But it takes us a few extra minutes to find said last grave due to a heavy snowfall that had shrouded Baltimore a few days earlier. The sun is setting, the light is waning. But we find it, place the decoration, and hear a story about great-great grandparents William and Bernardina.
Back in the car. it is about 5:10 PM. From the far side of the cemetery, we drive around the perimeter to the exit gate.
The large iron gate is closed and locked with a very heavy padlock.
We drive to the entrance gate. It is also closed and locked.
We are trapped inside the cemetery.
After a lap around the entire facility in search of another human being (and finding none), we end up back at the entrance to scrutinize the large sign there for any useful information. In addition to the usual grounds rules and two phone numbers, we find the very last item at the bottom of the sign, almost buried in the piled snow: “Gate Hours 7 AM to 5 PM.”
Calls to the two phone numbers connect us to nothing more than answering machines, where we leave messages. Another lap around the cemetery takes us past the Sales Office, which has a sign on the door, which bears a phone number to call if no one is at the office. We get the same answering machine as before, and realize that said answering machine is probably INSIDE said Sales Office. No one will be getting these messages tonight.
We are reluctant to call 911, as this is not a dire emergency, although the prospect of spending the night in the car in the cemetery two days before Christmas is not attractive. We need to get the non-emergency number for the local police.
So we call my sister, Barb, back and tell her that we are… uh… going to be a little later than we planned. We are locked in the cemetery. She laughs and asks if we are kidding.
After we assure her that no, we are not kidding… and after she quiets the laughter of her co-workers around her… she agrees to set about finding the phone number(s) we need and doing what she can to effect a rescue.
The three of us then settle in to wait for word from the outside, trying to occupy our time (Melanie on a cell-phone call to her boyfriend: “No, I am NOT kidding…”), quell our fears about being locked in the increasingly dark and spooky cemetery and consoling ourselves with laughter and assurances that we will neither freeze nor starve: we have half a tank of gas and a box of Cheez-Its.
Not long after, we get a phone call from the Baltimore Police dispatcher. Yes, we are the people locked in the cemetery. Yes, we are STILL locked in the cemetery. No, we do not see the patrol car. She says that it is there, but cannot find us. He is at the wrong gate.
The patrol car finds us and shortly thereafter is joined by another. They are in turn joined by a fire engine: a full blown hook and ladder truck with lights ablaze. (We would later learn that the firemen were laughing about us on their way to our rescue; so amused were they, in fact, that upon arriving, one fireman looks at the lock and says to the policemen, “Why didn’t you just shoot it off?”)
We think the firemen are going to use the ladder to lift us out and we will have to come back for the car in the morning (we even write a note to leave in the car for the morning cemetery staff to find), but instead, the firemen bring out the biggest bolt/chain cutter you have ever seen. One fireman tries to cut through the shaft of the lock. He cannot get it. Joined by a fellow fireman, the two of them together cannot cut the lock. In fact, they hardly dent the shaft. “Man,” we all think, “that’s a good lock!”
After a few moments of consultation, they are joined by a third firemen who is wielding a serious-looking circular saw. The first fireman then climbs over the fence and is handed the bolt cutter, which he uses to hold the lock in place while fireman #3 has at it with the diamond-tipped (we would later learn) circular saw.
A million gold-colored sparks fly in all directions. Combined with the fire truck lights and the Christmas decorations of the houses across the street, it is a festive scene indeed, in it’s own “sucks that we have to go through this” kind of way. We all lament the lack of a video camera.
But the saw stops and the lock is STILL intact. Ut-oh, that can’t be good.
A brief discussion later, they try another approach, this time cutting the top of the curve in the shaft. Lots more sparks.
A crescent of lock shaft falls to the ground, followed by the rest of it’s disembodied host. A cheer goes up. A fireman kicks the pieces into the snow. They are apparently VERY hot…
Heartfelt thanks are offered, hands are shaken and we’re on our way. WE ARE FREE!
Our immeasurable thanks to sister Barbara and the Baltimore Police and Fire Departments for their assistance, the familial residents of Cemetery Number Five for a story that will live in family lore forever… and to the gatekeeper at that cemetery, without whom none of this would have been necessary.
The next time we go out to honor the dead, we are taking blankets and sandwiches…. and a video camera.
“WHAT?” I said to her, in a tone of shock that you can well imagine.
