Gypsy graves at Spring Grove Cemetery (Cincinnati, Wyoming: apartment, credit, house)

[mike1003]

I did a search and was surprised that there has never been a mention on the gypsy memorials at Spring Grove.

In the back corner of the cemetery, there are quite a few gypsy clan graves. Williamson, Reid and others.

Every year around Memorial Day, there are large displays of flowers and other grave memorials. The cemetery will not comment about it.

We drive through every year. Some yeary more markers up, some years less.

Drive in main gate take road to the left, past the bridge and keep going back into the corner (SE, I think) Usually very interesting sight.

"Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, OH, is another site that attracts Gypsy pilgrimages. Gypsies began burying their family there in the 1800s when a local funeral home director extended credit to an indigent Gypsy. Although Gypsy burials in Spring Grove have declined in recent years, many Gypsies still visit the cemetery, especially on Memorial Day."

[Briolat21]

I've heard of this - don't remember where though!! My brother lives right near there - so perhaps from him. Heard that the "gypsy king" comes and makes pilgrimages to the cemetary to commemorate the fallen of the clans.

Very interesting stuff!!

[goyguy]

Very interesting material indeed!
One of my BIL's grew up in southern Vermont, near an area of open fields bordering a river. During the warmer months of the year you could see a "colony" of gleaming Airstream RV's clustered along the riverbanks in the fields. Seems the fancily painted wooded wagons the "Roma" once used for travel went out with the 19th Century.
For a long time in downtown Boston, women and girls used to stride up to people to pin a paper flower on them and try to shake down "money to help starving Indian children." Then every night a pristine classic T-Bird would roll to an apartment building in my neighborhood and drop off carloads of these beggars. I haven't seen any of this going on for a decade or so.
A couple of the rackets mentioned in mikey's linked article are definitely still being perpetrated. The driveway-sealing scam is a perennial one, and why? Because people continue to fall for it. "Paving material" dries only after a day or so has passed, it washes away with the next heavy rain, and the "contractors" are long gone with the cash they insisted on being paid in. And the Indian Hill caper brought up in the story gets replicated to this day as well. Not too many years ago, a neighbor of my parents in Wyoming heard a noise from inside her house as she gardened in the back yard on a June afternoon. She walked in and confronted two women, who said they were "looking for the missus" - when the missus was standing there lol. They turned tail and hastily left, and it was only later that the missus discovered jewelry was missing. How they find valuables like this isn't a great mystery, but how they do it so quickly and stealthily is.
"Gypsies, tramps and thieves; We hear it from the people of the town, they call us gypsies, tramps and thieves..."

[mike1003]

I decided to run down to Spring Grove and see what was going on. The floral displays are there today

[flowersandfelines]

Mike1003, do you remember the section number? Or how far back from the main gate? thanks.

[mike1003]

Pretty far back in left hand area... I do not have a map.

Look for Williamson, Reid, Johnston and Stewart. Many are red marble. Right by road. Just keep driving around, you should see the graves.

I don't know if floral arrangements survived the rain and wind.

[flowersandfelines]

thanks, my mom remembers those and we couldn't find them.

[stsfirstmate]

Wow I had no idea! Spring Grove used to be a favorite place to go walk in the spring when I lived in Northside.
Of course everyone knows about Johnny Appleseed, Annie Oakley and the Glass Eyes on the monument and the buried greyhounds on their master's grave etc but this a new one for me.
Next time I am back in the area I will check it out.
Regards,
Mary

[wastina]

We pass the gypsies on the way to visit my grandparents in Spring Grove. The lots are nothing out of the ordinary, large but not garish. I couldn't possibly describe how to find it, although administration can, with the names already provided.

There is particular irony in that my grandparents were victim to a spring drive-through; they entered the house and took my grandmother's jewelry while she was in the yard.

[Mike Dunn]

So interesting so see this thread today. I got my haircut today and my stylist had been to Spring Grove to take pictures of the of the gypsy graves. I had never heard about them. Definitely they take their memorials serious.