Anything but Stiff
Dig these local cemeteries' offbeat offerings
By Felix Winternitz

Photo: Jymi Bolden Walnut Hills is one of the city’s most unconventional cemeteries, annually hosting the CF Foundation’s “Run Like Hell” event.

Here’s a grave thought: Cincinnati is the city where the American Cemetery Association was founded. The plot thickens even more: The town is also home to Spring Grove, one of the country’s largest graveyards. Stiff competition, that.

OK, enough puns. Beyond the obvious purpose of these cemeteries, the following offer something unusual to those interested in local flavor. Join us on a survey:

Best Graveyard to Run Like Hell in:
One of the city’s oldest operating establishments, Walnut Hills Cemetery, where each October WEBN-FM hosts a “Run Like Hell” 5K run/walk to benefit the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Approximately 3,000 runners dash through the graveyard, which the Bittner family graciously opens to help the cause.

Best Graveyard to Spot a (Dead) Celebrity:
Take your choice of Forest Lawn Memorial Park, where such luminiaries as Hee Haw star Kenny Price are buried, or Gate Of Heaven Catholic Cemetery, where longtime TV personality Paul Dixon and Reds first baseman Ted Kluszewski, among others, are interred.

Best Graveyard to Unearth History:
Spring Grove Cemetery, home to the town’s first millionaire, Nicholas Longworth; Salmon P. Chase, Lincoln’s treasury secretary and a Chief Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court; inventor Powel Crosley Jr.; William Procter and James Gamble; and nine Ohio governors, 25 Cincinnati mayors and the parents of Presidents Taft and Grant.

Best Graveyard to Plant Fido:
Pines Pet Cemetery in Lebanon, with separate areas set apart for cats, dogs and horses.

Best Graveyard to Spot a Gypsy:
Spring Grove, where gypsies from all over the country gather each Memorial Day for a special tribal celebration. The gathering began after Spring Grove allowed one of the gypsy kings, who happened to be traveling through Cincinnati in the 1940s when he died, to be buried for free. The gypsies return each year for this secret pilgrimage to the cemetery, according to the Cincinnati Historical Society, all driving the same kind of car — it used to be Cadillacs, but now it’s a particular brand of SUV. If the caravan of identical SUVs doesn’t tip you off, look for the mourners all carting lavish orchid arrangements.

Best Graveyard to Rub Tombstone Etchings:
Northside Wesleylan, one of the oldest and busiest (the cholera epidemic guaranteed 25,000 burials by 1880) or Mount Washington Cemetery, in the shadow of the water tower, which is brimming with fascinating markers.

Best Graveyard to Dig Our Roots:
Pioneer Cemetery, one of the earliest graveyards, located across from Lunken Airfield.

Best Graveyard Marker:
The one at United Baptist in Cleves, with a beer can etched and the words “The man obviously liked his Bud.”