While touring through Gibsonton, Florida, I learned that Al and Jeanne Tomaini were buried in a little “orphaned” cemetery off of Palm Cover Road. So I jumped in my car and decided to check the place out. (For those of you who don’t know, Al and Jeanne were famous carnival workers who ran the Giant Cafe in Gibsonton. Al was 8’4″ tall and Jeanne was 2’6″)
At first I was taken aback by the appearance of the cemetery. But then I realized that most of the graves were probably created by the poor, transients, carnival workers, and immigrants. Of course, there are also many locals laid to rest in the cemetery. Grave stones dated to the 1880, but most people will tell you that the cemetery started in the mid 1800s. There were a large percentage of graves. Those graves were covered in the toys of the children.
This cemetery was unlike any other that I have ever visited. It was in ill repair, it had many hand made grave stones, and it was just a bit “carney” in appearance. There was a “biker’s only” section, war veterans and carney legends, and scattered items of personal memorabilia.
Here are the first 21 pictures from my journey through the cemetery:
Picture 1) A sign reminding people not to dig up the graves. It is sad that such a sign is needed.
2) Look how high the sign was. It had to be 30 feet in the air. Odd.
3) Rita Raulerson had a tin sign. There were a LOT of these. I had never seen them in cemeteries.
4) Sheppard Herring’s grave was made of four by fours.
5) Jimmy Ray Jr. died when he was 22 years old. I like the picture though. Although dated, it adds a personal touch.
6) Jimmy Lee Peeples Jr. died young too. Another interesting picture of him on the stone.
7) Joseph Bathe died when he was 30. Maybe a fisher. That makes sense, as there are a lot of fishers in the area.
8) Phyllis Soper’s grave was interesting as it was surrounded by garden gnomes.
9) Debra Ann Hoover also died young, but her stone was one of the nicer ones there.
10) Ruben Weaver was born in the 1800s. He had one of the older stones.
11) This angel was being returned to nature.
12) I just thought the contrast of the mildew and the angel was interesting.
13) This was another 1800s stone that was overtaken by the elements.
14) Four year old Ivory Nicole McFarland’s hand made gravestone broke my heart.
15) This live oak tree is amazing.
16) I hope this tree is around for another hundred years.
17) Dora Ann Tedder didn’t even live a year. I kind of wanted to clean up her stone, but I also didn’t want to disturb her grave.
18) A close up of Mr. Tedder’s angel.
19) The center oak tree again.
20) Jesse Lee Schneider lived less than a year. His grave was covered in toy cars. I wish I knew the story behind these cars. Gravedigger, among other monster trucks, sit waiting for him.
21) Gonzalo Cazarez was another child grave.
Check back for future posts, as there are plenty of other interesting pictures coming.
Articles of interest…
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/feb/17/groups-seek-preserve-areas-orphan-cemeteries/
http://www.hillsboroughcountycemeteries.com/samford/index.html
http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/article967629.ece
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Samford-Cemetery-RiverviewFL/
** There is a cleanup event on the second saturday of every month.
Quite entry. I just stumbled upon your blog and so wanted to proclaim that I have really enjoyed reading your blog posts. Any way I’ll be subscribing to your feed and furthermore I hope you post again in a little while.
I have been conducting paranormal investigations at Samford Cemetery for well over 10 years. I have numerous paranormal pics from that location as well as EVP’s. I have had many different experiences and saw pretty interesting stuff. When I first started going out there in 2000 it was completely over grown and basically wild. You couldn’t find half the gravestones and there was evidence of ritual ceremonies left through out the location. I believe that’s why the place felt so negative at times.
In reference to “AL”…. I took a good friend who is a talented medium out there and she told me that Al was one of the many spirits I have gotten pictures of. I looked that location over during the day and could not find Al’s headstone. A few years later when they did the clean up out there they uncovered Al’s grave.
One night while doing an investigation 2 women approached us thinking we were up to no good. One introduced herself as Valerie and told us she had a baby girl buried in that cemetery. Apparently the old lady who lives across the street from the cemetery called her to tell her there were people out there…so she came to see who we were and to make sure we weren’t disturbing the graves.
It may appear to be a sad cemetery now, but it looks a lot better then it did 10 years ago. I would like to see if anyone wants to pitch in to put gates on the cemetery to keep the people out who just want to go out there to do rituals and vandalize the cemetery.
Your article is more then awesome. If you want to see some of the pics I have gotten out of the cemetery shoot me an email and I will be more then happy to email them to you. I will also contact Valerie and tell her about this post. She has some interesting information about the cemetery you may want to know.
Jill
Hi Jill,
Thanks for the comment. I have more pictures on here, so please check the other posts abotu the cemetery. Do you know of other cool local places to explore?
Samford is one of my favorite places to visit. :)
Actually yes I do. There is a very interesting cemetery in Springhill Fl. called Old Springhill Cemetery. It’s an old Slave cemetery that has a lot of cool history attached to it. Just don’t get caught out there after dark because the local police patrol it nightly.
We got caught out there one night and while one officer was running our names the other was more interested in telling us all the reasons NO officer wants to go out there to patrol. It is a known haunted location, were more then one person has experienced something paranormal which includes full body apparitions and hearing voices when no one is around.
I would love to get more history on the location; I just haven’t had the time to go back to Springhill to do the research.
Woodlawn Cemetery in Tampa off North Blvd and MLK Jr. Blvd is also interesting. Not only is it the size of a whole city block. But there are I believe 7 different cemeteries at that one location. One is a Circus People Cemetery. Years ago while doing a midnight investigation of the location I commented that I kept smelling Cotton Candy. And the security guard on duty said. Oh well that’s probley because the front cemetery is for the circus people and there are people like the Fattest Lady in the World buried there. I never verified that information. But I don’t think he had a reason to lie to me. In addition to that, you will find that many people who are buried there died between 1910 and 1912. I believe TB was a big problem at the time.
There is also an old TB hospital being used as a State building on MLK Jr. Blvd and Lois. I would love to have permission to do an investigation there.
Anyway, good luck. I will check out the other pics. Have a good day
I will post more pics of these places in the coming weeks… so please check back! Thanks again for the comments. It is really nice.
How do I get to the Springhill Cemetery?
I see it is on:
9380 Bodega Highway on the edge of the Analy Township between Freestone and Sebastopol