An Unusual Exhuming Viola Muse Transcription Zariah Grant Encoding and edition Lucia Mylius

This document was produced as part of the Viola Muse Digital Edition (violamuse.unfdhi.org), based at the University of North Florida.

 USA Florida Jacksonville Jacksonville Historical Society Viola Muse Collection (1959-18) Folder 5, item 1 A story involving bodies from a cemetery which foretold something bad happening (involves the Muse family)

A brief description of the physical object (for example: Handwritten on one side of a single sheet of unruled writing paper, with damage around edges)

Document transcribed and encoded following the criteria of the Viola Muse Digital Edition (violamuse.unfdhi.org), based at the University of North Florida.

Page 1.

Jacksonville

Viola B. Muse

An Unusual Exhuming

There has always been, according to superstition, a belief that anything out of the ordinary happening to dead bodies, forecast a coming calamity.

Before the automobile hearse came to be used, it was thought that horses balking during a funeral procession meant someone else in family was sure to follow. If a horse drawing one of the carriages in the procession balked or rared up, one of the occupants of that particular carriage would soon follow in death.

A new omen, which has found it’s way into the multitudinous group of superstitions already known, was introduced in Jacksonville in 1928 , when the casket inclosed registered by OED as a valid form within a hemeticallyhermetically sealed vault washed up and floated in a spring in Memorial Cemetery.

It happened that a heavy continuous rainfall of several days duration, caused an old spring to rise on the cemetery lot owned by a family named Muse. The bodies of the father and mother of the family, Merritt and Sarah Muse, had previously been buried on the lot and two graves had been cemetedcemented within a voult registered by the OED as a valid form beneath the ground, with only the top of the vault visible above. WhemWhen Mayme Delyons White, a married daughter of the family, died ,her body was placed be- side the cemented vault of her father and mother. Her casket was in- closed registered by the OED as a valid formwithin a hemeticallyhermetically sealed vault.

It had never been noticed before that any upheaval or sinking of earth around about the vault had occured, although the parents have been buried there a long time; to be exact, it had been thirteen years

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Jacksonville

Viola B. Muse

since the father Meritt Muse had died and the same number of years that the two graves had been cemented within the vault. Heavy steady rains had fallen before the occasion mentioned, yet the spring had not shown any evidence of havenhaving risen, as the lot never had a sunken place on it , such as was left at this particular time.

Now, the occasion which caused superstition to creep into the story, and for some to think a supernatural thing had happened, was the fact that following the day that the casket washed up and floated on the water, a son, Levi W. Muse, died agterafter an illness of five days.

A neighbor in the vicinity of Memorial Cemetery who con- stantly visited there, saw the vault floating about in the water and became very much perturbed and at once notified a local un- dertaker, who by incident happened at that very time , to be handl- ing the body of Levi J. Muse, son of Meritt and Sarah. The under- taker in turn notified the members of the family and another grave was quickly dug on a friendsfriend's lot and the casket interred tempora- rily.

Friends and hearers of the happening began talking of signs they had heard of and also introducing new theories concerning the incident in question. Some of them were sure that the washing upwashing-up of the casket containing the body of the daughter Mayme Delyons White was a true sign , which foretold the death of the son Levi J. Muse.

Although many heavy lengthy rains have fallen since that time, the care takercaretaker of the cemetery recently said, when a member of the Muse family inquired as to whether he had noticed the spring

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Jacksonville

Viola B. Muse

rising after other heavy continued rains, that he had not seen it happen during the few years he has been care takercaretaker of the cemetery. He further added that it was only recently that he filled in the large hole , which was left after the casket washed up and the spring receded. The Muse family had not attended to the filling of the hole, it seems, because of the many theories advanced concerning what would happen should anyone of the family attend to it.