Final home for pets,presidents

By David Maurer

Published: August 17, 2008

When the final grain of sand sifted through Edwin Anderson Alderman’s hourglass of life on April 30, 1931, he was far from home.

The first president of the University of Virginia was en route by train to the University of Illinois to participate in the inauguration of its new president, Harry Woodburn Chase. As the shades of night flicked by the windows of the Baltimore and Ohio passenger train, Alderman suffered a stroke.

The man who had done so much to bring Thomas Jefferson’s university into the modern age died a few hours later in a hospital at Connellsville, Pa.

There was no question where he would be buried.

By the time of Alderman’s passing, the University of Virginia Cemetery had become an exquisite place of tranquil beauty. Mature magnolias, redbuds and mimosa trees shaded the stone markers standing on groomed ground.

Spirit of unity

Since 1905 the Committee for the Continual Care of the Cemetery had ensured its meticulous upkeep. The committee also established a spirit of unity by ruling that no fence, be it iron or wood, could enclose a grave.

Perhaps Francis P. Dunnington can be given some of the credit for helping set the standard for the fastidious attention the cemetery has enjoyed through the years. In 1910 the UVa professor of analytical and industrial chemistry wrote a brief directorate on “Cleaning Discolored Marble.”

In the 82 years since the first marble headstones had been placed in the graveyard, lichens and vegetable growth had plenty of time to darken many of the markers. But “Old Dunny, ” as he was affectionately known by students, had a solution.

Cleaning with lye

“One should mix one box lye in two gallons of water,” Dunnington advised. “Of course this liquid has no effect upon the stone itself, and is most easily washed away so far as the lye falls upon the ground.

“It will improve rather than harm any grass or other plants. Should the lye remain on the skin, it may occasion an ugly sore. If splashed upon the clothing, the prompt application of a solution of sal ammoniac will prevent the corrosion of the goods.”

Although the cemetery had been extended in 1905, and burial restricted to students, professors and family members, the plots were all but gone by 1938. To remedy this, the cemetery was expanded for the final time.

As April blossoms were blooming in 1939, downcast heads and heavy steps followed a painfully tiny hickory casket to a little grave

just outside the cemetery. An estimated 1,000 mourners were in attendance to pay their final respects to a beer-drinking, hamburger-munching dog named Beta.

During his life the “very comical and lovable mutt” had earned the distinction of being the university’s first mascot. On that sad day Dean Ivey Lewis stood next to the flower-covered grave and summed up in one sentence what had been lost.

“There are many one-man dogs and many one-family dogs, but Beta was a whole university’s dog,” Lewis said.

It would have been hard for even the most optimistic soul attending the services that day to have imagined the school would ever be blessed with another dog as noble and loved as Beta. That such a thing actually came to pass just a few years later remains as one of the most improbable occurrences in the university’s history.

Seal, named for his slick black coat, might have come directly from heaven. One day in the early 1940s he simply appeared on the Grounds, full grown and ready to get educated.

The “Great Seal of Virginia,” as he came to be known, had the run of the school. Woe to any professor who would order the canine king from his classroom.

If Seal didn’t feel a particular lecture was interesting, he would simply walk out and search for one that was. Yes, this is the pooch that on an autumn afternoon in 1949 performed masterfully on the gridiron at Franklin Field in Philadelphia.

Seal had traveled with the Cavalier football team to do battle against the University of Pennsylvania. When he took the field he was proudly wearing his blue blanket embossed with a large orange “V.”

At one point in the game Seal trotted across the field and relieved himself on a Pennsylvania cheerleader’s megaphone. This singular act of supposed disdain earned him the title Caninus Megaphonus Pennsylvanus.

Seal’s hourglass of life ran out on Dec. 11, 1953. With more than 1,500 people in attendance he was laid to rest next to Beta. Dr. Charles J. Frankel, the varsity team’s physician, gave the eulogy.

“I can see Seal now, leading the parade in a celestial stadium lined with giant oak trees, golden hydrants and gilded megaphones at his disposal,” Frankel said. “In true Jeffersonian tradition, Seal came from an obscure and questionable beginning and rose to the highest place of esteem at the university.”

Beta and Seal are the only two animals that have earned a resting place next to the cemetery. By 1942 space within the stone walls of the burial ground had become so limited that it was resolved that only full-time officials of the university could be interred there.

The final plots were purchased by Edward Younger and his wife in 1966. Of course, this didn’t stop people who love the university from wanting to be buried near great educators such as William Holmes McGuffey, whose “Eclectic Readers” sold 122 million copies from 1836 through the 1920s.

Leigh B. Middleditch Jr. and others at the university worked for years to find a way to accommodate those with close associations to the school. Their solution was to create a columbarium at the cemetery to hold the ashes of people who met the eligibility criteria.

The first memorial wall containing 180 vaults was finished in 1991. The second wall, completed in 2003, is about a quarter full. The school’s master plan allows for the development of other vaults in the future.

Today, the picturesque cemetery at the foot of Observatory Hill embraces many of those who have loved the university best. And as other hourglasses of life run out, new names and dates will come to this sacred place at journey’s end.