Harry Houdini - Grave

 This is by far the ultimate in magic graves. It's beyond grand and probably out of place in a Jewish Cemetery. But it's all Houdini. In 1916, Harry Houdini decided have a massive marble monument built for the family plot he purchased at the Machpelah Cemetery in Queens, NY. He had his father and mother and older brother Herman moved to the family plot.

The entire Houdini family is here, with one exception, Bess, his wife. She is listed as being buried here but she is not. Because Bess was Catholic, she is in a different cemetery. There are two graves that have no tombstone, apparently the stones need to be repaired and have remained unrepaired for a long time. Those graves are of Leopold and Gladys.

Recently, the Houdini Museum in Scranton PA took it upon themselves to have the bust recreated and restored to the gravesite. The original has been destroyed by vandals and then a duplicate was later stolen. Suffice to say the Houdini grave has not been treated kindly over the years.

It should be noted that Houdini started the tradition of the 'Broken Wand' Ceremony. This is a ceremony conducted after the passing of a fellow magician. A magic wand is broken to signify that their earthly magic has passed on. As far as I know, the Broken Wand Ceremony is carried out every Halloween at the Houdini Gravesite by the Parent Assembly #1.

Carter The Great - Grave

Charles Joseph Carter, better known as Carter the Great was born in 1874 in New Castle Penn. Along with his credentials as a magician, Carter was also a lawyer, he ran an entertainment agency, he was a producer and a journalist running his own entertainment trade magazine for a period of time.

Instead of fighting over the same showbiz crumbs in America, Carter eventually decided to take his show on the road, well actually on the seas and perform around the world! He toured the globe 7 times, though I am not sure the seventh tour was officially completed as he died in while on tour.

The link above give a little more detailed account of his life than I am giving you here. If you'd like a fantastic account of the life of this world traveling performer then you'll want to locate a copy of Mike Caveney's Carter Book. It's simply fantastic. The information comes direct from Charles Carter's scrapbooks and notebooks. The stories are out of this world.

In fact, I'll share with you one quick story that I also mention over at my other blog. At the end of one of Carter's tours overseas, he tried to book passage on a new ocean liner. He was denied passage however because there was no available storage for his props. It seems some very wealthy people had booked passage on this ship as well and took up most of the available storage. It was a good thing too because that ship was the TITANIC!

Charles Carter died while on tour in Feb of 1936. He is buried in the family plot in Calvary Cemetery in Queens NY. The photo below is provided by Richie Magic. I'll try and post another photo of the entire tombstone if/when one becomes available.

photo courtesy of Richie Magic

Robert Heller - Grave

Above is a photo of Harry Houdini standing next to the grave of Robert Heller (William Henry Palmer) the great Victorian Age Magician. He was buried in the Mt. Moriah Cemetery in Philadelphia PA. Houdini discovered the grave after much searching. Within a few years after it's discovery the grave site had fallen into disrepair and SAM Assembly #4 in Philadelphia took it upon themselves to raise money to get the grave cleaned up. Apparently a similar thing happened about then years after that.

2011 marks the 133rd Anniversary of Heller's death/burial at Mt. Moriah and the condition of the grave area is apparently very overgrown and poorly maintained. Actually, for several years there has been NO work done to the cemetery at all. It's a disaster basically. It's a very large cemetery and along with Robert Heller is the famed historical seamstress Betsy Ross. A group called 'The Friends of Mt. Moriah' have come together and organized a number of clean up days. They are seeking volunteers and I have decided to help them and line up magicians to participate as well.


My goal is to clean up the Heller grave and surrounding plots. The date of October 8th has been set for this clean-up. If you are interested in participating, please contact me at carnegiemagic@me.com and I'll add you to the list of people and will contact you via email with all the updates and information you'll need. You're help is certainly appreciated.

Below is a site which shows the condition of the cemetery today. There has been some cleanup since these photos were taken, but we are expecting something like this. http://www.abandonedbutnotforgotten.com/mount_moriah_cemetery,_abandoned.htm 

UPDATE:

I have to regretfully let you know that the Heller Project, the clean-up of Robert Heller's Grave in Philadelphia, is going to have to be postponed. Yours truly has a fever of 102. I've been sick all week and desperately trying to recover in time to make the 3 hour drive but it looks like I'm not going to be able to make it.

I've contacted everyone who gave me their email to let them know. I did state though that anyone who still felt they wanted to help the group 'Friends of Mt. Moriah' with their clean-up, which is still taking place, is more than welcome to go. OUR group was just going to be working on Hellers Grave. So I'm sure the other group could sure use the help if you feel so inclined.

My apologies to all. It's a delay, we'll get out there before too long and restore Heller's Gravesite to friendly and visitable location.

UPDATE 2014: Heller Grave Found!

The Friends of Mt. Moriah recently found the grave of Robert Heller and uprighted the grave stone which had fallen over. If you'd like to see what it looks like today, please visit my other site
http://www.themagicdetective.com/2014/04/robert-heller-returns.html