Why do historic Victorian garden cemeteries make such thriving habitats for urban wildlife?

Unlike modern corporate cemeteries that resemble manicured golf courses treated with heavy chemicals, Victorian garden cemeteries feature diverse mature flora, decaying heritage trees, and natural water sources. These unmanicured elements provide essential feeding and nesting grounds for native raptors, songbirds, and small mammals. The absence of loud maintenance machinery and active human disruption creates a peaceful, protected oasis within urban environments.

What is the tragic history behind the spectral cornet player said to haunt Tacoma?

In the late 1800s, traveling musician Eben Boyce returned to Tacoma to discover his wife, Louisa, had sold his prized cornet to pay their rent. Enraged, Boyce shot her to death at her cafe job and was subsequently hanged at the county jail. While Louisa was buried in the manicured Tacoma Cemetery, Eben was buried in the adjacent neglected potter's field, and local legend claims his ghostly cornet can still be heard playing near the courthouse in the early morning.

Why is the gravestone of Victorian Tacoma resident Mimi Ailin considered such an oddity?

In the late 1800s, Mimi Ailin made local headlines after luring her extramarital lover to a warehouse, shooting him in the head, and later fatally turning the gun on herself. Despite her scandalous adult crimes, her headstone in Old Tacoma Cemetery is carved with a sleeping lamb, a funerary motif strictly reserved for innocent young children. Researchers still debate whether her family chose the marker as an ironic slight or simply bought an overstocked child's monument on sale.

How did Victorians incorporate the remains of loved ones into wearable mourning fashion?

Before casual photography existed, Victorians frequently crafted intricate mourning jewelry and framed artwork using finely woven hair sheared from the deceased. These tightly braided ropes and hair-flower wreaths served as physical memento mori keepsakes designed to keep lost loved ones close. Because strict etiquette dictated wearing drab, dark clothing for months, hair jewelry offered mourners a rare, socially acceptable way to adorn themselves.

What is the story behind the forgotten pauper's cemetery bordering Old Tacoma Cemetery?

Located at the southeast corner of Old Tacoma Cemetery, this historic potter's field contains more than 1,600 documented burials but only around 19 visible headstones. It served as the final resting place for unclaimed bodies, impoverished infants, and individuals excluded from consecrated grounds, such as executed criminals and sex workers. In the early 1900s, nearby residents frequently protested the city's haphazard, shallow burials, and the site now survives as an uneven, naturally rewilded wooded lot.

Birdwatching with the Dead | Rainy Day Rabbit Holes

What if the best place for bird-watching in an urban landscape wasn’t a secluded nature preserve, but a nineteenth-century graveyard? In this episode of *Rainy Day Rabbit Holes*, host Shay flies solo to welcome writer, illustrator, and cemetery enthusiast Rain Rath for a darkly delightful journey through the hidden life of Pacific Northwest historic garden cemeteries. Drawing from research for her upcoming book with Heyday Books, Rain reveals how these Victorian-era burial grounds serve as vital urban wildlife sanctuaries where mature Douglas firs, owls, and migratory songbirds thrive alongside the quiet company of the past.

Stepping away from the sterile, herbicide-drenched lawns of modern memorial parks, Shay and Rain explore local treasures like South Tacoma’s Old Tacoma Cemetery, established in 1874. Tucked along its perimeter lies an overgrown Pierce County potter’s field, where over 1,600 forgotten laborers, paupers, and outcasts rest in nature's embrace beneath barely a score of surviving markers. This striking contrast sparks an intimate conversation about the evolution of mortality, Victorian spiritualism, and modern alternatives like conservation green burials and body composting in Washington State's memorial forests.

Of course, no stroll through the archives is complete without unearthing juicy historical mysteries and Pacific Northwest true crime. Rain unpacks the scandalous story of Mimi Ailin, an apparently respectable middle-class woman whose infant-style lamb headstone conceals a sensational tale of an illicit warehouse ambush, an unremovable bullet, and a dramatic final stand at St. Joseph’s Hospital. Listeners will also discover the tragic downfall of traveling cornet player Eben Boyce, whose fury over a pawned instrument sparked a fatal confrontation in a downtown cafe—resulting in one of the only county jail hangings in Tacoma history and the chilling legend of a midnight phantom horn still heard today.

From the tactile uncanniness of antique woven hair mourning bracelets to post-mortem photography and a trivia game decoding bizarre historic ailments like dropsy and consumption, this episode immerses listeners in the intricate art of *memento mori*. Pour a glass of wine, embrace your inner goth, and listen in to discover why historic cemeteries might just be the most vibrant spaces in the Pacific Northwest.

What if some of the best places to find wildlife in the city are also full of dead people?

Pour yourself a glass of wine and join Shea and her friend Raine Rath for a wander through the wonderfully strange world of historic Victorian garden cemeteries.

Raine is a writer, illustrator, longtime bird nerd, nature geek, and cemetery enthusiast who is working on a forthcoming book with Heyday Books about the historic garden cemeteries of the West Coast. The project began while she was birdwatching in Tacoma's Old Tacoma Cemetery and realized that these beautiful old burial grounds aren't just repositories of human history. They can also be fascinating pockets of urban nature.

We talk about why Victorians designed cemeteries to feel more like parks and gardens, why old trees and relatively undisturbed spaces can be so valuable for wildlife, and how the Victorian obsession with nature collided with an equally impressive obsession with death.

And then things get weird.

Mourning jewelry. Grave symbolism. Spiritualism. Cemetery legends. And plenty of birds.

We also explore some of the historic cemeteries Raine is researching around Tacoma, Seattle, Portland, Bellingham, and Victoria.

So grab your binoculars, pour a glass of wine, and come take a walk among the dead.

Turns out, they're surrounded by an awful lot of life.

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Birdwatching with the Dead

What if some of the best places to find wildlife in the city are also full of dead people?Pour yourself a glass of wine and join Shea and her friend Raine Rath for a wander through the wonde

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