Speaking of that Grave Topic....

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That unpleasant but necessary thing I did yesterday reminded me of something: I forgot to talk about my cemetery exploits on the last trip! With the Wild West being as wild as it was, lots of famous and infamous people were buried in the various regions. To their credits, the cemeteries I visited are aware of the interest in these people, and many of them had their graves marked with directional signage. (In contrast, you may remember my mentioning that I found Wilson Pickett’s grave completely by accident while attending my aunt’s funeral a couple of years ago....no sign for one of the great R&B voices of all time!) One of the interesting things was that “grave robbing” was a problem back then. (You’d think robbing banks would’ve kept those guys busy. ) That’s why Jesse James’ mother had James buried initially on the family farm: to guard his grave. Speaking of Jesse James, one of the graves I visited was Robert Ford, the man who shot James down for the reward money. An interesting case (besides being mentioned in the title of an Elton John song): Ford actually made money on the “touring circuit” by performing re-enactments of killing James. Ten years after shooting James, Ford was shot down by a man named Edward O’Kelley. “The man who killed the man who killed Jesse James” never gave an explanation for why he did it. Ford was initially buried in Creede, Colorado, where he died. His remains were later exhumed and returned to his hometown of Richmond, Missouri. The Eagles songs mentions “Two brothers lying dead in Coffeyville,” and indeed Bob and Grat Dalton are buried together (probably in a common grave), but the interesting thing is that there is a third Dalton Brother interred at the same cemetery. Frank Dalton, the “good guy” in the Dalton family, was a sheriff’s deputy who was killed in pursuit of a horse thief in 1888, four years before his more infamous brothers were taken out by the citizens of Coffeyville. That left Bill Dalton, who formed the “Wild Bunch” with Bill Doolin. Doolin met his end in 1896 in Lawson, Oklahoma at the hands of Heck Thomas (who was a noted lawman in the region), who also tracked down most of the rest of the Wild Bunch. Dalton is buried in California, where his wife had the body shipped after he died (maybe of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head) in a shootout with the law. Needless to say, I didn’t get there this trip. PHOTO COLLAGE: *Robert Ford, “the man who shot Jesse James,” who was later shot himself. *Bill Doolin, the co-leader of the Doolin-Dalton “Wild Bunch” gang, which he formed after his brothers’ deaths in Coffeyville. *The outlaws’ grave in the cemetery in Coffeyville, where they were buried after the attempt to rob two banks simultaneously. Emmett Dalton, who survived the raid with over 20 gunshot wounds!), put the marker up for his brothers Bob and Grat, and gang member Bill Power.