Originally Published Oct. 28, 2006

By JANIS D. FROELICH
The Tampa Tribune

From the description Maureen Patrick offered about her handkerchief, it was obvious she’s a precise person.

As the president of the Tampa Historical Society stood in the center of Oaklawn Cemetery, she lifted her wrist to swish a square of Irish linen.

“The border is black thread, hem-stitched,” she said.

The historian is used to talking in such detail. But she also enjoys a little mischief in her job.

For the past five years, Patrick has led tours of Tampa’s oldest burial ground. Oaklawn, at the edge of downtown between Morgan and Harrison streets, was established in the 1850s.

Portraying the mid-19th century character Miss Prudence Fipwhistle, Patrick will dress in head-to-toe black mourning lace for the one-hour Halloween tour, Gothic Graveyard Walk, at 3 p.m. Sunday.

Although the tour group will view graves among moss-draped oaks, the excursion will be neither spooky nor silly judging by Patrick’s serious research.

“People are looking for something in graves - whether it’s a link to their heritage or a scholarly pursuit,” said Patrick, whose factual tales are marked with reverence for the dead.

Forget about looking for ghosts among the tombstones at Oaklawn, she said. Psychics and others interested in the afterlife have found no evidence of a lively departed.

“The dead are quite comfortable here,” said Patrick, as she picked up her long skirt to walk among the headstones and wrought-iron gates.

A Tampa native, Patrick is well-versed in the stories behind the more than 1,500 graves at Oaklawn. She has a master’s in humanities from the University of South Florida, was curator at the Ybor City Museum and contributes to the H. B. Plant Museum living history project.

“The graves speak for themselves,” she said, standing beside the small tombstones of George M. Buckley, hanged Dec. 16, 1859, and George W. Goodwin, murdered Aug. 24, 1859.

Thirteen mayors are buried at Oaklawn, including the city’s first, Judge Joseph B. Lancaster, who died in 1856 and commands a prominent spot.

Patrick said 10 percent of those buried at Oaklawn are children. The deceased also include slaves, servants, Confederate soldiers and working-class families killed by such diseases as yellow fever.

Patrick also conducts tours in Ybor City, where she said there are haunted locations - or at least colorful stories hinting at that. She began those tours seven years ago.

As for the cemetery locale, Patrick was spending lots of time at Oaklawn trying to painstakingly decipher the inscriptions and grave artwork when she was asked frequently by friends and Tampa history buffs to set up a tour.

Patrick said the Tampa Bay area has done a poor job marketing its past.

“The tourist heritage industry thrives in many cities with less historic significance than Tampa,” she said.

Souls Of The Departed

Dell deChant, a University of South Florida religious studies instructor, said the fall is a time of transition and harvest.

“So this is also when great myths had the souls of the departed coming back to visit the living,” he said.

The rituals for the dead included leaving food.

“So visiting a cemetery would have a special nuance this time of year,” deChant said.

A few burial sites remain available at Oaklawn for people with ties to the cemetery, Patrick said. This fact was brought home to her as she walked near an arrangement of dried flowers left from a recent funeral.

Patrick knew the deceased, Ernest Reiner, a retired South Tampa physician who attended the historical society’s spring cemetery tour. The Reiner name appears on several Oaklawn graves, dating to 1883.

She Must Rent The Cemetery

All of her time spent in cemetery research hasn’t diminished Patrick’s dry sense of humor. She laughs about having to fill out paperwork from the city to rent Oaklawn for the afternoon. Plus, she apologizes to the dead (by name) when someone walks across a burial plot.

And then there’s her attire.

Patrick said the mourning dress she wears for the Halloween event, including a steel-bone corset and veiled hat, sets the proper tone to convey how Americans used to view the passing of a loved one. People would spend a lot of time and money on items ranging from head-to-toe black clothing to photographs of the dead.

“Mourning is now much more simple,” she said. “Like the pendulum swung.”