THE IRON HORSE & THE SENTIMENTAL GENTLEMAN

(November 14, 2015) It was a short 5-minute drive from the Gates of Heaven Cemetery to Kensico Cemetery. It was close to noon when I pull through the gates of Kensico Cemetery and it was still cold and the wind was still blowing.  This is a very large cemetery and even with a map that I downloaded off of the internet it was really going to be had to located some of the graves that I was looking for. So even though it was Saturday, the office was open that was more than happy to point me in the right direction.

Lou Gehrig

With the directions I received from the ladies in the office I was able to quickly make my way to the grave of baseball Hall of Famer, Lou Gehrig, who played for the New York Yankees from 1923-1939. Know as "The Iron Horse" of the Yankees, he played in 2,130 consecutive games, a record that stood until it was broken by Cal Ripken, Jr., in 1995.  The  streak ended on May 2, 1939 when Gehrig took himself out of the game and later revealed that he was suffering from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), which is today known as Lou Gehrig's disease.  At the age of 36, the Iron Horse gave his famed farewell address which ended with "I am the luckiest man on the face of the Earth." Lou Gehrig died two years later.

Soupy Sales

From the grave of Lou Gehrig, I made my way down to the "Friar's Club Section" and quickly found the grave of comedian Soupy Sales. Born in North Carolina as Milton Supman he attended school in Huntington, West Virginia where he graduated from Marshall University with a Masters Degree in Journalism.  During his military service he would often entertain his shipmates by doing comedy routines.  After ending his military service he took his comedy talent into show business participating in a number of TV shows. He is best known for his daily children's show "Lunch with Soupy, a fast paced stream of comedy sketches almost always ending with him being on the receiving end of a pie in the face. Later he was a regular panelist on TV shows like "What's My Line," "To Tell the Truth," and "Hollywood Squares." Soupy Sales was 83 years old when he died of cancer on October 22, 2009.

Danny Kaye

One of the more unusual grave monuments in Kensico Cemetery is that of entertainer Danny Kaye, who died on March 3, 1987.  Danny Kaye was an all around entertainer starring on the stage, silver screen and later TV.  He is perhaps best known for starring along side Bing Crosby in the 1954 movie, "White Christmas." He was 76-years old when he died of heart failure in 1987.  He was cremated and his ashes interred here in Kensico Cemetery.  His grave is marked by an ornate bench which contains friezes of a baseball bat, aircraft, piano, a flower pot and musical notes.  His name and dates of birth and death are inscribed on the bench.

Tommy Dorsey

My final stop here in Kensico Cemetery is at the grave of big band leader Tommy Dorsey.  He was known as the "Sentimental Gentleman,"because of his smooth toned trombone playing. He had a string 17 number one hits with his orchestra during the 1930's and 1940's, including "Indian Summer" "The Big Apple," and "Dipsy Doodle." He died on November 26, 1956 and is buried here in Kensico Cemetery along side his third wife, Jane.

By the time I finished at Kensico Cemetery it was mid-afternoon and I still had a couple of more cemeteries that I wanted to visit. So it was off to my next stop, the very large Ferncliff Cemetery in Scarsdale, New York.