Listing Through Life

After touring Garfield’s house, we drove about 20 miles into Cleveland to Lake View Cemetery to see his tomb. (A couple weeks later we received a souvenir of this drive in the form of a red-light camera ticket that cost us $100.) We parked behind a car that was festooned with liberal bumper stickers. I was making fun of them as we got out of the car. Just then, the owner of the car came along. He noticed our Illinois plates and started a mostly-one-sided conversation as though we were the best of friends. Among other things, he tried to talk us into an architectural tour of the cemetery with him and his wife. He walked with us to the tomb and we didn’t lose him until his wife intercepted him on the stairs.

We walked inside the main floor, to a room with a statue of Garfield surrounded by stained-glass windows and mosaics. A guy came in and gave us a talk on Garfield and the tomb. Each of the windows represents a different state.

We walked downstairs to the crypt where the caskets of James and Lucretia sit. The urns hold the remains of their daughter Mollie and her husband Joseph Stanley-Brown.

We then climbed the winding steps to the second level where we could look down on Garfield’s statue.

We thought the mural of Garfield’s murder which was painted above the stairs was a bit morbid.

Then up again to the balcony that looks out over Cleveland and Lake Erie.

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The outside of the building was Gothic in style and atmosphere. It had a series of relief sculptures of incidents in Garfield’s life.

My wife thought the entire structure was a bit scary.

I thought the scariest thing was the placement of this wasp nest.

I toured Garfield’s house back in 2001. I remember the guide back then as being conceited and impatient with questions. My blog entry from back then paints a somewhat different picture, but that’s the impression that stuck with me.

My wife hadn’t been with me that trip, so we went back on a Sunday morning for another tour. Our guide this time was much the same — perhaps being full of one’s self is part of the job description … He began his tour by telling us to ask any questions, so I did. But he kept putting me off by saying that he would cover the topic later in the tour. Which he did, but as part of his spiel and not in a terribly interesting way. The one question that I asked that wasn’t part of his spiel, he couldn’t answer: “What denomination was Garfield ordained by?” He kept putting me off and at the end of the tour when I asked again, he said “Anybody with a smart phone could look it up.”

We shared our tour with four others, a lone woman and an Asian couple and their daughter. The man understood no English and spent most of the time wandering off into adjoining rooms.

James and Lucretia were married in 1858. James worked as a teacher, college principal, minister, state legislator, lawyer, Civil War General and congressman before becoming President. They purchased the farm in Mentor in 1876 and enlarged it to accommodate their family of seven children (two of whom died young).

Unlike last time, I was allowed to take photos inside. I’m not sure I remember where in the house all these photos were taken, but I’ll do my best.

The front entrance way.

The summer bedroom downstairs.

The parlor.

The woman in the portrait is Garfield’s mother who lived with the family.

James’ mother’s bedroom. Note all the pictures of James, including the one in stained glass.

Three photos from the dining room. This was our favorite room in the house.

A portrait of James in his Civil War General’s uniform. It was painted by some woman who painted several portraits in the house. The guide tried to make a story of this, but I don’t recall who she was or why we were supposed to care. I think she used her own hands to model his.

Three shots of the library, built by Lucretia after Garfield’s death as a place to keep his books and preserve his papers.

I think this was James and Lucretia’s bedroom. The pattern on the carpet is swastikas.

I forget what these next two rooms were.

The upstairs hallway

I think this was the boys’ bedroom. The painting on the wall is of one of the children who died young.

The bedroom of the oldest daughter.

Garfield’s library with his favorite chair in the middle.

This painting of Falstaff was in the upstairs hallway. The guide asked if any of us knew who it was and when I guessed correctly, he said that I was only the third person in his eight years of guiding who knew. But I think he may have been spouting smoke.

Garfield conducted his 1880 presidential campaign from the front porch of this house.

This photo of Garfield’s family on the front porch was taken shortly after his assassination. The chair is thought to be a memorial to him.

After Garfield was assassinated in 1881, Lucretia remained in the house until her death in 1918. She added to the house and farm, building, among other things, this windmill as a water pump.

I joined my wife in the visitor center, took a quick look at the displays and watched a short video.

A map of what the farm and neighborhood looked like during Garfield’s life.

We drove into the town of Fairport Harbor to get a closer look at the Grand River Lighthouse. It’s now a maritime museum, but it wasn’t open early on a Sunday morning and we’ve toured a lot of lighthouses anyway.

It was built in 1871 and decommissioned in 1925. We parked and walked around for a couple minutes.

The view from the lighthouse out over the harbor with the Fairport Harbor West Breakwater Light in the distance.

And a view of the Grand River Lighthouse from the breakwater.

The parking lot at Headlands Beach State Park was situated in a cottonwood grove. The snow-like seeds were falling everywhere and piling up on the ground in drifts. Occasionally a gust of wind would swirl a clump of it up in the air in a small tornado. In places, the beach seemed to be crawling as the seeds were blown along the surface. We met some locals who said they’d never seen it like this.

On a warm and buggy Sunday morning, we drove to Headlands Beach State Park so my wife could see Lake Erie for the first time. I warned her that it wasn’t all that special — the last time I was there, a green scum covered the water and the lake reeked.

This time the water was fine. It was the air that was unbearable. It was packed with gnats — giant clouds of them that got in our mouths and noses and hair. It was miserable. I wanted to see the Fairport Harbor West Breakwater Light, so we took a half-mile long trail through trees and grass where the bugs almost drove us nuts. Things got a little better once we made it to the beach.

I walked out onto the breakwater and took these photos of the light. It was build in 1925 and replaced the Grand River Lighthouse which is now a maritime museum. Notice the bugs hovering in some of these photos. By the breakwater, there was a second, larger type that was swarming everywhere.

Here’s a shot of the breakwater light from the hill by the Grand River Light. The light still functions as a navigation aid, but the building is privately owned by somebody who wants to turn it into a vacation home.

There’s another short pier head light on the Grand River, but I couldn’t find any information about it online. Note the cottonwood seeds drifting out over the water.

We wanted no part of the trail on our way back to the car, so we walked along the beach, interrupting a photo shoot on the way.