Mystery surrounds headstones found in east-side Detroit neighborhood
After 30 years of living in her Detroit home, Kathy Tolbert was stunned when her 12-year-old grandson stumbled upon a mystery.
Tucked underneath a tree in the vacant lot near her house on the city's east side are a smattering of what appear to be headstones dating to the early 20th century, one leading to the other and packed close, forming a path. One, right at the base of the tree, is upside down and partially uprooted. Another is split in half.
The stones are engraved with names and carry birth and death years, too. But it's unclear why the markers are there in the first place.
"I was very shocked and surprised," Tolbert said about the discovery.
The stones — located on Doyle Street off of Van Dyke Avenue — were found where vacant homes once stood, according to Tolbert. Several houses were demolished late last year, she said. Now, the street is mostly empty, aside from Tolbert's home and a couple others, a church and boarded-up buildings.
It's unclear how the stones ended up in a residential neighborhood. The 1946 edition of Baist's real estate atlas — a book mapping out city streets and buildings — at the Detroit Historical Society shows a brick house in the area where the markers were found, in a street mostly filled with timber and brick homes.
Today, hidden under overgrown grass on an empty field on that same street are five engraved stones. It's unlikely that anyone is buried there, according to death records and experts.
"Unless the markers were arranged in such a way that … they were spaced like it would be a cemetery, I would probably discount that theory since there are fairly large cemeteries quite close by," Thomas Koselka, president of the Detroit Society for Genealogical Research, said.
Doyle Street sits near three Detroit cemeteries — Mount Olivet, Forest Lawn and Sacred Heart of Saint Mary.
What we know
One stone is engraved with the name Mary Tabaczynski, alive from 1886 to 1941. It reads: "forever in our hearts." A death certificate for a person with the same name, but a different birth year, indicates she was buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery, located less than a mile north of Doyle Street on Van Dyke. Mount Olivet confirmed that Tabaczynski was interred at the cemetery and has a flush memorial marker there.
A death certificate for a Father Peter Wiesenhoefer, born in 1872, shows that he was laid to rest at Mount Olivet. The cemetery's records show that although he was originally interred there in 1932, he was moved. Wiesenhoefer was buried in a family plot at Southfield's Holy Sepulchre Catholic Cemetery in September of that year. He has a grave marker at Holy Sepulchre, according to Holly Fournier, associate director of communications for the Archdiocese of Detroit.
On Doyle Street, there's also marker for a Mother Anna E. Gilling, who was born in 1862 and who died in 1947. Her death certificate shows that she was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery, south of Doyle Street on Van Dyke. Gilling was born in Sweden and lived in Detroit.
A death record for an August Grosshans, born in 1856, indicates he was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery as well. He died in 1926.
Ethel Vermeulen, of Warren, lived from 1902 to 1947. Vermeulen is buried at Grand Lawn Cemetery and has a marker.
What we don't know
The mystery remains as to why there are headstones in a Detroit neighborhood.
Koselka theorized that there might have been a monument maker that had made a mistake on the stones. Marcus Julian, director of the Mount Olivet Cemetery, also pointed to this scenario as a possibility. The markers may have been castoffs from a monument company and they could have been damaged or had spelling errors, he said. At the time, there were several monument companies on Van Dyke.
In other cases, a family may have purchased a replacement marker or headstone and would have been able to keep the old one. Not having any use for the previous headstone, they could have discarded it or left it behind at their property, he said.
Both scenarios were common around the time. It's "extremely unlikely" however that anyone is buried at the lot under the stones, he said.
The address is also not affiliated with any abandoned cemeteries known to the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs.
Meanwhile, Ron Stockton, a retired political science professor who has done research on graveyards and gravestones, said the markers on Doyle Street may be cenotaphs — a tomb or monument for a person whose remains are located elsewhere. They might be affiliated with the church nearby, he guessed.
The Fraternite Notre Dame said it does not know anything about the stones, a woman who answered the phone on Thursday said. The premises also includes a rectory, convent and school. The original church was built in 1919 and closed in 1990 as part of a sweeping plan to reorganize urban parishes at the time, newspaper archives show.
It's not surprising to find the markers, said Stockton, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. But they look as if they were positioned, he said, and not thrown away.
Contact Nushrat Rahman: nrahman@freepress.com. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter: @NushratR.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Headstones found at vacant lot in east-side Detroit neighborhood
