Cemetery Stories

Cemetery Stories Every person has a life story. © Stephanie Casey and Kaye Fewell, 2022.

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s authors and/or owners is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to either of the editors and Cemetery Stories with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

In the summer of 1968, Richard and Shirley Robison and their four children traveled from Detroit to their cottage near G...
09/03/2026

In the summer of 1968, Richard and Shirley Robison and their four children traveled from Detroit to their cottage near Good Hart, Michigan. They told friends and neighbors they would soon be leaving for a three-week vacation in Florida, even taping a note to the front door that read, "Be Back By 7/10."

Because everyone believed the family was away, no one questioned the silence surrounding the cottage.

On July 22, 1968, after a foul odor was reported, caretaker Chauncey Bliss entered the home and made a horrifying discovery. All six members of the Robison family had been murdered. The victims had been dead for 27 days.

The crime scene puzzled investigators. Only one suitcase had been partially packed, food remained in the house, playing cards were left on the table, and bloody footprints suggested a lone killer had moved throughout the cottage. It was clear the family had never begun their planned vacation.

Investigators eventually focused on Richard Robison's former employee, Joseph Scolaro III. Detectives believed Scolaro had been embezzling money from Robison's advertising business and that Richard had discovered the theft shortly before the murders. Although police assembled a substantial circumstantial case, there was never enough evidence to bring him to trial.

Scolaro died by su***de in 1973, denying any involvement in the murders. To this day, Michigan State Police continue to consider him the primary suspect, but because he was never charged.

The Family is buried in Acacia Park Cemetery, Beverly Hills, Michigan

More than 50 years later this case remains unsolved.

Before the Detroit Tigers became World Series champions, one determined businessman helped transform the franchise into ...
07/09/2026

Before the Detroit Tigers became World Series champions, one determined businessman helped transform the franchise into a baseball powerhouse.

Born in Adrian, Michigan, in 1871, Frank (Francis) J. Navin was one of nine children born to Irish immigrant parents. He studied at the Detroit College of Law and built a career as both a lawyer and an accountant before joining the Detroit Tigers organization in 1902.

Navin began his Tigers career as the team’s bookkeeper, but his sharp business mind and dedication quickly earned him a larger role. In 1903, he purchased $5,000 worth of stock in the club and steadily increased his ownership stake. By January 1908, he had acquired control of the franchise from Bill Yawkey and became the Tigers’ president and principal owner.

Although often described as a careful and conservative businessman often known as a “penny-pincher”, Navin understood the importance of investing in both the team and its fans. He replaced the aging wooden Bennett Park with Navin Field, a state-of-the-art concrete-and-steel stadium that opened in 1912. With seating for approximately 23,000 fans, it was one of the most modern ballparks in baseball at the time. The stadium would later be renamed Tiger Stadium and remain the home of the Detroit Tigers for nearly nine decades.

Navin continued expanding the ballpark as Detroit’s fan base grew, adding a second deck and creating one of baseball’s most iconic venues. Though the original stadium was eventually demolished, the legacy of the site continues today. The original playing field footprint was preserved, and in 2018 the location reopened as The Corner Ballpark, a modern youth sports facility and headquarters for the Detroit Police Athletic League (PAL), continuing the tradition of bringing baseball and athletics to Detroit’s youth.

On the field, Navin helped build one of baseball’s greatest early dynasties. Under his leadership, the Tigers featured legendary players including Hall of Famers Ty Cobb and Sam Crawford and won three consecutive American League pennants from 1907–1909. After decades of building the organization, Navin finally saw the Tigers reach the sport’s highest achievement when Detroit won its first World Series championship in 1935.

A lesser-known part of Navin’s life was his passion for horses. He was an avid horseman and horse-racing enthusiast throughout his life, making the circumstances of his death especially poignant. On November 13, 1935, just five weeks after the Tigers’ first World Series victory, Navin suffered a fatal heart attack while horseback riding at the Detroit Riding & Hunt Club. Navin was buried in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, Southfield Michigan.

Frank Navin left behind a legacy far greater than ownership of a baseball team. Through his leadership, vision, and determination, he helped create the foundation for generations of Detroit Tigers history and built a ballpark that became a symbol of Detroit baseball.

Mount Olivet Cemetery in Detroit Michigan. Sisters and Titanic survivors 🙏🏻
07/08/2026

Mount Olivet Cemetery in Detroit Michigan. Sisters and Titanic survivors 🙏🏻

Find us on TikTok as well. Cemeterystoriesusa.
07/06/2026

Find us on TikTok as well. Cemeterystoriesusa.

In old burial customs, flowers were never only decoration.They were memory, warning, blessing, boundary, and spell.A gra...
06/24/2026

In old burial customs, flowers were never only decoration.

They were memory, warning, blessing, boundary, and spell.

A grave was seen as more than a place of rest. It was a threshold between the living and the dead, the body and the spirit, the earth and the unseen. What grew there mattered.

Rosemary was planted and carried for remembrance, loyalty, mourning, and protection. It held the message that the dead were not forgotten, while also guarding the space where grief had taken root.

Marigolds were linked with the sun, ancestors, offerings, and the guiding of spirits. Their bright colour made them feel like small flames placed between worlds, calling the beloved dead close while keeping darker forces away.

Yew trees stood in churchyards and burial grounds like ancient sentinels. Evergreen, poisonous, long-lived, and deeply tied to death, they became symbols of immortality, endings, rebirth, and the strange life that continues beyond decay.

Lavender brought peace, cleansing, sleep, and calm. On graves, it softened sorrow and offered rest, as though the earth itself was being asked to hold the departed gently.

Roses carried love, blood, secrecy, devotion, and mourning. Their thorns made them protective, their blooms made them tender, and together they became a perfect symbol for grief: beautiful, painful, sacred, and not easily touched.

To plant flowers on a grave was to do more than honour a life.

It was to mark a boundary.

This is where someone beloved rests.
This is where memory lives.
This is where the living may come close.
This is where harm must not pass.

In death magic and folk belief, plants could guard what words could not. Roots held the soil. Thorns defended the body. Scent cleansed the air. Colour called the spirit home. Evergreen branches promised that not everything ended.

Perhaps this is why grave flowers still move us.

Somewhere beneath the custom, we remember the older meaning.

We are not only leaving beauty for the dead.

We are planting protection around love.

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