Grave Problem: Headstone Provides Mystery

Grave Problem: Headstone Provides Mystery

The Ann Arbor Police Department today faced a new challenge: the mystery of the ancient gravestone.

The story began two days ago when officers of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity at 604 S. State St. called police.

“We’ve got an old gravestone in the attic of our house,” the fraternity leaders told a startled desk officer. “What shall we do with it?”

Minutes later a patrol car was pulling up to the fraternity house. Sure enough, fraternity members had uncovered a large sandstone grave marker sculptured in the shape of a cross. Faintly discernible on the monument was the inscription: “John H., beloved son of Anna M. Lecture, died Sept. 14, 1896, aged 17 years.”

The University students told officers they were cleaning out the attic of the fraternity house when the stone was found. They disclaimed any knowledge of the original location of the marker.

Patrolmen loaded the heavy stone into a cruiser and took it to headquarters. Checks made yesterday at city cemetery offices, the central records files in the County Building and the county clerk’s office failed to reveal a deceased person with the name shown on the stone cross. A teletype message to Michigan State Police in East Lansing brought the reply that a request for any death information would have to be in the form of a letter addressed to the State Department of Health.

Local officers today prepared the required letter and sent it off. Now they can only wait and wonder about the weather-smoothed gravestone carved 62 years ago for a teen-age boy.

MYSTERY STONE: Patrolman Marvin L. Dann of the Ann Arbor Police Department inspects the 62-year-old gravestone found in the attic of a University fraternity house.