ladies of lake view cemetery

by Kaylah Stroup
lakeview cemetery, cleveland

I’ve spent a few days over these last few weeks hanging out at Lake View Cemetery. Lake View Cemetery is what I would consider Cleveland’s best known cemetery, occasionally referred to as “Cleveland’s outdoor museum.” It occupies 285 acres and more than 107,000 people have been laid to rest there, including President Garfield.

In 2013, before living in Cleveland was ever even a spark of an idea in my mind, I drove up to photograph the cemetery. I was enamored! I wished so badly it was closer to home. Now I’m a mere fifteen minutes away… and never really spend anytime there. Then I saw that there were more than a handful of geocaches located in the cemetery. That was just the motivation I needed to get out and do some more exploring!

After two days of wandering around the grounds I still haven’t gotten all of the caches and definitely haven’t seen all of the cemetery. I’ve been parking my car in a random section then just walking  from cache to cache (gotta get them steps on my Fitbit!) which is fairly exhausting. Lake View is very hilly, and the caches aren’t exactly close to each other. All that walking has given me lots of time to check out headstones. There are tons of incredibly interesting things to see here but I just kept noticing the statues of women. Some angels, some represent deceased, and others are mourning lovers. The detail is just mind blowing. I can’t even imagine how much work it took to carve these or how much money it cost.

lake view cemetery, angels, headstonecrying angel, headstone, lake view cemetery, angel of death victorious

Although the post is titled “Ladies of Lake View Cemetery” I had to add these two. Above is the Haserot angel, or sometimes also called “The Angel of Death Victorious.” He holds an upside-down torch to symbolize a life extinguished. Due to weathering he has tear stains running down his cheeks. It’s one of the cemeteries most notable monuments. Not far from the Haserot angel I found the dude below who, in my opinion, is just as creepy! He also looks like he’s crying and I swear those eyes followed me everywhere I moved. The Haserot angel seems like he’s slightly less than life size… or maybe he’s just smaller than me but the guy below was life sized and it felt like he could just walk over to me when I wasn’t expecting it. I’m not one to be frightened by cemeteries, headstones, or anything like that but I was definitely happy to get my shot and get outta view of him.

I’m sure I’ll be back at Lake View again sometime soon to find the rest of the caches and take more photos. It was fun to choose a theme to photograph since it’s easy to be overwhelmed with what to shoot in there because of the size. Until next time, Lake View…
xoxo

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21 comments

M&M FASHION BITES March 21, 2016 - 12:59 pm

Nice photos 🙂
BLOG M&MFASHIONBITES : http://mmfashionbites.blogspot.gr/
Maria V.

Kaylah March 21, 2016 - 1:20 pm

Thanks Maria. 🙂

Katie Bedlow March 21, 2016 - 1:02 pm

A facinating tour, I will always stroll around a Victorian cemetery over here in the UK in the hope of discovering creepy beauty film angels such as these, hiding amongst the ivy and brambles! Thank you for taking us along with you! Katie X

http://long-may-she-rain.blogspot.co.uk

Kaylah March 21, 2016 - 1:20 pm

Glad you enjoyed Katie! 🙂

Mindi Wooley March 21, 2016 - 1:40 pm

Wow, the detail is really incredible. Im a HUGE fan of anything dark and creepy, and those guys at the bottom are the perfect balance of creepy, haunting, enchanting, and beautiful all at the same time. I would have wanted to be out of their sight pretty quick too though to be honest. Also, i love the 8th photo. So beautiful!

Kaylah March 22, 2016 - 12:13 pm

Thank you Mindi! 🙂

Riana Johnson March 21, 2016 - 3:48 pm

I love this post! What a cool way to celebrate a cemetery!

Kaylah March 22, 2016 - 12:14 pm

Thanks Riana! 🙂

Alexandra March 21, 2016 - 4:01 pm

So beautiful! Another Ohio destination I never visited when I lived there 🙁 Definitely need to come back soon.

Kaylah March 22, 2016 - 12:16 pm

Yeah, come back and hang! It drives me nuts that we have so much in common and that you USED to live here. Like if you were from all the way across the country it wouldn't be that big of a deal.

Stefanie Meier March 21, 2016 - 5:28 pm

Honestly I'm always so inspired by your posts and how unique and different they are x
Stefanie | Casualllyawkward | Bloglovin'

Kaylah March 22, 2016 - 12:17 pm

Thank you so much Stefanie! 🙂

danaelismyname March 21, 2016 - 5:32 pm

Thanks for sharing these beautiful photos. These statues are a true inspiration… I love the hooded one

Kaylah March 22, 2016 - 12:20 pm

I wish I could share allll the photos I took, especially of that one. She's actually life sized and not attached to anything else. So basically it's just a hooded woman who totally looks real, especially when you catch her out of the corner of your eye.

Morgan Smith March 21, 2016 - 6:15 pm

The statues are so beautiful! They seem worthy of a museum, but I guess that's kinda what a cemetery is. I love that people used to spend money to have monuments like these erected for their loved ones. I work as a genealogist so I, too, am enamored by cemeteries and all the beauty that is often found there! <3

Kaylah March 22, 2016 - 12:21 pm

Cleveland's outdoor museum! 🙂

Kaili Willows March 22, 2016 - 12:17 am

Wow, those are some gorgeous shots. You are lucky to be so close to such a beautiful cemetery with so many well-crafted statues!

Kaylah March 22, 2016 - 12:21 pm

Thanks Kaili! 🙂

Mag Zilla March 22, 2016 - 5:16 am

DON'T BLINK.

Sorry, I think my inner Whovian just popped out of the box to say hello.

Magdalena Kucharska March 22, 2016 - 10:02 am

Great photos! My town has one of the biggest cemetery in the world (third in Europe). Take a look:
http://zabie-sprawy.blogspot.com/2015/10/cmentarz-centralny-czyli-halloween.html

Kaylah March 22, 2016 - 12:23 pm

Wow, that's so awesome! I'd LOVE to visit someday.

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