Day 4 in Dallas- I see Dead People......

My Aussie mate, Gazza introduced me some time ago to the notion of paying homage to celebrities by visiting their final resting places.  Over the years on his visits, I have dutifully shuttled him to spots around the states- and seen some interesting gravesites.

We have been helped along of course by the website "Find a Grave", which has like 75 million records of dead folks, and directions on how to locate them generally. 

http://www.findagrave.com/

I fired off an email to my pal Gazza to let him know I was heading on down to Dealy Plaza and checking out the 6th floor museum, that I wrote about yesterday, and he of course wrote back about his visits to the graves of JD Tippit, and Lee Harvey Oswald, as he is a true Kennedy Assination student-

Well shoot, says I- maybe I should do that, and while I was at it, I also looked up the records for Metro Dallas, and found amazingly that there is a cemetery in downtown Dallas called Sparkman/Hillcrest Memorial Park that is chock full of famous, near famous, and normal folks. 

So, I had some time this afternoon after we relocated, so off I went. 

Well, the place is right on a main street in the Highland Park area of Dallas, and has about 88 acres of space, including a huge mausoleum that must contain thousands of crypts- It reminds me of the park in San Diego where my brother Mike is buried, huge, huge, huge. 

It's on multi levels, and I was the only person there for about an hour or so that I searched for what I was looking for. 
Here is what the inside of the facility looks like- 

According to Find A Grave, there are 70 or 80 "famous" people interred in this park, including Tom Landry, Mary Kay Ash, Mo Connelley, the tennis star, Les Elgart, music, Greer Garson, actress, Lamar Hunt, Herbert Marcus, Clint Murchinson, John Tower, Mickey Mantle, and several others. 

The main building was busy with what looked like several funerals, so I did a self guided tour, as opposed to getting a map and being able to go right to the places. 

The mausoleum was fairly well marked as to sections, and I quickly found the final resting place of Mickey Mantle and his family. 

He is actually buried with his wife, Merlyn, and two of his sons.  If you look closely on top of Mickey's plaque, you can see several pieces of memorabilia that persons paying respect have left, rocks, lots of pennies, and such.  '

This statue and an autographed photo of Mickey was in the corner.  It said, Best Wishes, Mickey Mantle on it, not sure if a fan left it, or the family did. It was remarkable that it was there- and a nice memory.  I was impressed that the respect clearly shown was evident throughout the cemetery- 

This is the view of the entire family plot, his two sons are buried below their mother and father.  There is room for one more spot, not sure who might be headed there. 

He was one of the greatest, for sure-  I never did get to see him play in person-

Here is the wiki page for him if you would like more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Mantle

Down the hall from the Mantles, I found the Marcus family-  this is the founder of the Nieman-Marcus retail chain that was so famous in Texas for so many years

Herbert was the "godfather," and his sonStanley were also very active in the business.  They were legends in the retail business- When I was in retail in Dallas, we regularly paid homage to the home store with a visit, just to see how it was done in style....

They were always famous for their Christmas Catalogues, and featured his and her gifts, and outrageous other presents, available at high cost! 

Here is the wiki page for them:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nieman_Marcus

I was also able to locate the site for Clint Murchinson-  which actually was in a "plain" location out in the general population of the cemetery. 

Murchinson was a co-founder of the Dallas Cowboys, but later lost his fortune

Here's the Wiki for him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clint_Murchison,_Jr.

I looked in vain for Tom Landry and Greer Garson, and Mary Kay Ash, but were not able to locate them. 

Tomorrow, I'm off to Fort Worth to check out a baseball venue, and will see if I can get to Lee Harvey Oswald 's site, then may try to get to JD Tippit on the way to Grand Prairie for a baseball visit if they are open also.