Burlington vampire: why gravestones sometimes don't have death dates

Correction: Thomas Giffin is the president of the Vermont Old Cemetery Association. His last name was misspelled in an earlier version of this story.

On the southwest side of Elmwood Avenue Cemetery, one of Burlington's oldest cemeteries, sits the modest grave of a George W. Greene.

A simple dyer and motorman who lived and died in Burlington, Greene is arguably more interesting in death than he ever was living. He was certainly no Levi Allen or Timothy Follet, two of Burlington's biggest names who were also laid to rest in the historical site located in the city's Old North End neighborhood.

Greene's claim to intrigue? His tombstone. Despite being born in 1860, less than a year before the start of the Civil War, his burial marker does not have a death date.

Is it possible that an immortal Greene, perhaps now with a taste for blood and aversion to sunlight, still prowls the streets of Burlington?

A quick search on findagrave.com tells us unsurprisingly that, no, he in fact died in 1948 at the age of 88.

So, why is his death date not recorded on his tombstone?

Although Greene is an anomaly, he is far from the only dead person in this predicament.

Potential explanations

Since Greene was buried next to his mother and uncle, whom both died decades before him, it's likely the family plot and his tombstone were purchased well before his death. That would explain why his birth year is etched onto his gravestone, even if his death date isn't.

"Often people (my grandparents and parents are examples) would have their stones bought and paid for, placed in the cemetery and would have their dates of birth put on their monument," said Thomas Giffin, the president of Vermont's Old Cemetery Association. Giffin has led several clean-up efforts at Elmwood Avenue Cemetery to repair and revitalize aging gravestones.

So what are possible reasons for the lack of a death date?

"When there's no death date, there's likely no family left," said Holli Bushnell, Burlington's cemetery assistant. "There's someone to bury him but maybe not to coordinate the engraving on the stone. Family also could have moved away or just never got around to it."

According to records from findagrave.com, ancestory.com and the Burlington Free Press archives, Greene did indeed have few remaining relatives at the time of his passing. Preceded in death by his parents, half-brother and ex-wife, Greene was survived only by his adult daughter and his half-sister, the latter of whom was living outside Vermont with her husband and children by that time.

Greene's daughter, Nina May Greene, never married or had children and remained in Burlington until her own death in 1964 at the age of 73 due to a myocardial infarction − a heart attack. Although she still lived in town when he died, her myriad health conditions − including heart disease and rheumatoid arthritis − and likely meager single income from housekeeping may have prevented her from updating her father's gravestone.

"She had a handful of things wrong with her health-wise when she died," said Thea Lewis, a local historian and author known for her Queen City Ghostwalk tours. "And, she was in her 60s when her father passed, so it might just have been that nobody had the money or energy to deal with finishing the stone."

Giffin concurred. He said when his own grandparents passed, the cost of inscribing their death dates on their tombstones was added to the total cost of the funeral.

"Sometimes that detail is forgotten or maybe the family did not have the funds to have it put on the stone," Giffin said.

Still, Greene's predicament is an outlier.

From her research, Lewis noted that if a gravestone only displays one date, it is almost always the birth date that is left out.

"It's fairly unique that there's so obviously a birth date with no death date," Bushnell said.

What's George W. Greene's story?

George W. Greene was born on Aug. 21, 1860, in Burlington to cigar manufacturer and music teacher Edmund Burke Greene (1939-1929) who would serve in the Union Army in the Civil War and Mary Ann Richardson Greene (1839-1861). Mary Ann died when Greene was approximately a year old.

During the Civil War, which lasted through much of Greene's formative years, Edmund Burke served as a private in the16th Connecticut Infantry in Company B. A Burlington census record from 1870, when Greene was 10 years old, suggests Greene may have been raised by his grandparents, Moses E. Greene (1813-1897) and Louisa R. Proctor Greene (1818-1904), even after Edmund Burke returned from battle. As further evidence for this theory, a Burlington Free Press clipping from 1925 reported that Edmund Burke (who by then lived in Windsor, Connecticut) said he had only visited Burlington once since the Civil War. No records could be found indicating Greene ever lived anywhere other than in Burlington.

In 1864, Greene's father was remarried to Mary Cronin Greene, who gave birth to Greene's half-brother Eugene Holmes Greene roughly two years later in Burlington. The couple and their son had moved to Westfield, Hampden, Massachusetts, by 1870 at the latest.

Greene married Georgiana Robinson Green (1858-1926) on June 10, 1883. Their only child, Nina May Greene (1886-1964), was born three years later in Burlington when Greene was 25. Nina May won third place in G. S. Blodgett & Co.'s "handsomest babies under two" contest when she was four months old, as documented by the Burlington Free Press.

According to Greene's obituary, he served many years under Thomas Jones as a motorman for the Burlington Traction Co. Before that, he likely worked as a dyer for Wells & Richardson Co. as a youth.

In 1889, Greene's father got hitched a third time to Julia Sophronia Wyart Greene (1863-1936) in Gill, Massachusetts. Later that year, Greene's half-sister Camilla Estelle (1889-1970) was born in Hartford, Connecticut. No records were found indicating what happened to Edmund Burke's second wife, Mary Cronin.

At some point between Nina May's birth and 1900, Greene and Georgiana Robinson got divorced, as evidenced by a Burlington census record from 1900 that also indicates he was only living with his grandmother Louisa R. Proctor and his maternal aunt, Mary Marie Antoinette Richardson (1827-1910) at the time. Georgiana Robinson's 1900 census also states she was divorced and that only Nina May, now age 14, and two female boarders were living with her in Burlington at the time.

However, Georgiana's census records from 1910 and 1920, Georgiana claimed she was widowed, but that would be unlikely because she died before Greene and there are no records indicating she remarried. Greene's death certificate also indicates he was widowed. Due to the time period, it's likely they wrote they were widowed to avoid societal stigma wrought by divorce.

Georgiana Robinson died in 1926 and was buried in Lakeview Cemetery, which is located on the edge of Burlington's New North End neighborhood, with other Robinson family members.

In Dec. 1929, Greene's father died, and Julia Wyart received his Civil War pension. Seven years later, Eugene died.

In his obituary, Edmund Burke was described as "a well-known and highly respected citizen." He and Julia Wyart are buried at Lakeview Cemetery.

Greene died on Nov. 9, 1948, in Burlington at the age of 88 in the Mary Fletcher Hospital due to a posterior myocardial infarction described in his obituary as a "long illness." A city directory from that year shows Nina May had moved in with Greene, likely to take care of his ailing health. Greene's funeral was held on Nov. 12 in Burlington at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, now called the Cathedral Church of St. Paul.

The last of the Greene family, Nina May and Camilla Estelle (who adopted her husband's last name of Eddy), died in 1964 and 1970, respectively.

Her death certificate shows that Nina May was buried with her father in Elmwood Avenue Cemetery, although her grave is not marked with a stone − likely for the same reasons Greene's tombstone lacks a death date.

To make an appointment to visit Elmwood Avenue Cemetery − and possibly the Greene Family − contact Bushnell at 802-863-2075 or hbushnell@burlingtonvt.gov.

Megan Stewart is a government accountability reporter for the Burlington Free Press. Contact her at mstewartyounger@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Mystery behind Burlington motorman's 19th century grave unraveled