Waking the Dead

This morning on the YouTubes I stumbled across a fascinating slide show just posted by a user named "reluctantpaladin." The video, set to the soundtrack from Cold Mountain, features photos taken only yesterday in a place I've driven past a hundred times but never stepped foot inside: the Oakland Cemetery...

By Robert Wilonsky

September 17, 2007

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This morning on the YouTubes I stumbled across a fascinating slide show just posted by a user named "reluctantpaladin." The video, set to the soundtrack from Cold Mountain, features photos taken only yesterday in a place I've driven past a hundred times but never stepped foot inside: the Oakland Cemetery off South Malcolm X Boulevard near Fair Park. It's exactly 100 years old: The cemetery opened in July 1907, commemorated by a story in the old Dallas Daily Times Herald that was headlined, "Plenty of Room Provided for Burial of City's Poor."

For those so interested, an early history of the Oakland Cemetery can be found here. And it says here that buried in Oakland Cemetery is Confederate General Robert Gano -- "related to Howard Hughes," it notes, and who knew? --Robert Wilonsky

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