Abstract
The Wade Chapel in Lakeview Cemetery was built as a monument to Jeptha. H. Wade by his grandson in 1901. The chapel was used as a receiving vault and service chapel and is open to the public for visits or to schedule services (including weddings and other events). The Greek temple design houses the interior by Tiffany featuring a window and side wall glass mosaics produced in New York and shipped to Cleveland during its construction. A detailed description of the interior art and the chapel's use is provided by Wayne Bifano and Mary Krohmer of Lakeview Cemetery.
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Interviewee
Bifano, Wayne (interviewee); Krohmer, Mary (interviewee)
Interviewer
Lanese, James (interviewer); Valore, Kenneth (interviewer)
Project
Sacred Landmarks
Date
8-9-2011
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
47 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Wayne Bifano and Mary Krohmer Interview, 2011" (2011). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 127010.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/372
Transcript
James Lanese [00:00:02] Good afternoon. My name is Jim Lanese. I’m joined by Ken Valore, Mary Krohmer and Wayne Bifano to conduct an interview for the Center for Public Humanities and, excuse me, Public History and Digital Humanities of Cleveland State University to discuss the history of Wade Chapel at Lake View Cemetery. The interview is being held at Lakewood. Excuse me, Lake View Cemetery, located in Cleveland, basically between Mayfield Road and Euclid Avenue. Could everyone please state your name in affiliation with the cemetery and the chapel? Location here, please.
Wayne Bifano [00:00:55] I’m Wayne Bifano, and I’m the guide at the Wade Chapel.
Mary Krohmer [00:00:59] I’m Mary Krohmer and I’m director of Community relations at Lake View Cemetery.
James Lanese [00:01:04] Thank you. And as a starting point, I’d like to get a little bit of background on yourselves in particular and your connection with this facility beyond just your titles and some insights into your.
James Lanese [00:01:23] Shall we Say, history with the chapel and the cemetery itself. Go ahead.
Wayne Bifano [00:01:31] I’m a retired teacher. I taught Latin for 15 years, and I was also a media specialist or a librarian. And after retiring, I got interested in museum education, so I worked for the Western Reserve Historical Society, and now I’m here at Lake View Cemetery. My connection with the cemetery is unusual. My father and grandfather came from Italy to be stone cutters here at the cemetery at the latter part of the 19th century.
James Lanese [00:02:07] Interesting.
Ken Valore [00:02:08] Mary.
Mary Krohmer [00:02:08] I’m director of community relations at Lake View Cemetery, and I’ve been here for just over 16 years. And part of the responsibility of community relations is really, really to invite the general public in to enjoy the beauty and history at Lake View. And that includes supervising both the Garfield Monument and Wade Chapel and our wonderful guides that are in the buildings.
James Lanese [00:02:29] Thank you. And with that, we can move to focus upon Wade Chapel in particular within the cemetery. Wayne, could you give us basically a sketch of the history of the monument and facility there and its use and role here within the cemetery?
Wayne Bifano [00:02:53] Jeptha Homer Wade’s dates are 1811 to 1890, and he was the founder of Western Union Telegraph Company, and he was very philanthropic here in the city of Cleveland. In fact, a great deal of the space that we consider University Circle was part of his gift to the city of Cleveland as a culture base. When he died in 1890, he only had one living biological relative, and that was his grandson. His own son, Randall Palmer, had already died. And so, in order to memorialize his grandfather, Jeptha Homer Wade ii, who was the grandson, commissioned Louis Comfort Tiffany of New York to construct and design an interior for the Wade Memorial Chapel. The Wade family simply turned the whole project over to the Tiffany company And so it is a response to this request for building a chapel. The chapel received its building permit in 1898, and it was constructed. Its construction was completed in 1900. However, it was not dedicated until 1901. Now, the exterior was designed by an architect from Prague, Bohemia, at that time, Czech Republic today, whose name is Dominic Benes. And Mr. Benes was also the architect for some other remarkable buildings here in Cleveland. The Art Museum, Cleveland Art Museum of Art, 1916, and the West Side Market. But the interior was completely done by Louis Comfort Tiffany and his company. I might add that Tiffany had approximately 1,000 people working for him. So he was. He had a great deal of support staff.
James Lanese [00:05:27] Now, would you say that it seems like Tiffany drove the design and Benes worked to house it, or how would that have evolved?
Wayne Bifano [00:05:40] It was a cooperative venture. Obviously, in order to do the interior, Tiffany had to have some idea what was going on in the exterior. And by the way, two things are occurring at the same time. The exterior is being done here in Cleveland by Benes. And by the way, the construction man was Giuseppe Carabelli and his construction people. [00:06:05] And Mr. Carabelli is buried on site here at the cemetery. And of course, he was working in connection with Tiffany and Tiffany with Carabelli and with Benes.
James Lanese [00:06:23] Now, to kind of put it in perspective, Wade Sr., or Granddad Wade, passed away in 1890. Was he here in the grounds at that point prior to the commissioning and development of the Wade Chapel?
Mary Krohmer [00:06:43] Yes, he would have been. In fact, there is no one buried in Wade Chapel. Mr. Wade is actually buried in Section 3, just southeast of Wade Chapel, one of the higher points in the cemetery. But Mr. Wade was buried in section three. And then the family worked with the Tiffany Studios to have the chapel built in his memory.
James Lanese [00:07:04] Now, did they have any specific arrangements or plan with the cemetery in order to, you know, utilize the facility?
Mary Krohmer [00:07:20] Do you want to answer that, Wayne?
Wayne Bifano [00:07:23] There’s no documentation for that, but it would seem appropriate that the chapel be here and be given to Lake View Cemetery as a gift, since Mr. Wade’s the elder. Wade’s connection with the cemetery is so strong. He was one of the founders, and he also was the first president of Lake View Cemetery. So it’s entirely appropriate for the memorial chapel to be done here on site.
Mary Krohmer [00:07:48] As we understand, when the grandson thought about having something built at Lake View Cemetery, he approached the cemetery and said, we would like to build something at Lake View Cemetery in memory of Jeptha Wade. And what does the cemetery need? And at that point, the cemetery Responded that we needed a chapel and a receiving vault. And the Wade family moved forward with that. And as Wayne said, once all the bills were paid, they gifted the chapel to Lake View Cemetery.
James Lanese [00:08:15] I see you had given us a little bit of an oversight prior to our formal interview here. Kind of rehash that explain the design of the chapel.
Wayne Bifano [00:08:35] Well, the chapel was done by Benes on the exterior as a small Greek temple. It’s not a pure Greek temple in the sense that it does have a drive through in the front for the delivery of people and of corpses and so forth, but it has the design on the exterior of a Doric, I’m sorry, an Ionic temple with fluted pillars and scroll work at the top. He also incorporated Ionic features in a porch over the entranceway which permits some light into the chapel itself. The chapel is done in Barrie, Vermont granite. The same type that’s in was the monumentation for Mr. Rockefeller. And the building has two floors. The top floor is the commitment or the funeral chapel. And the lower level, which is entered at a lower level by the lake, is the receiving vault. Now a receiving vault was the storage space in the wintertime for bodies that could not be buried because of the frozen ground. And most of the bodies that were buried had to be buried in ground dug in the wintertime, so the ground was frozen. And so they had to have a storage space. The upper level, which is open to the public, is called the Voyage of Life. And this is the aspect that is such a glorious version of Tiffany’s view of life and immortality.
James Lanese [00:10:32] And what are some of the features that are depicted?
Wayne Bifano [00:10:36] As you walk into the main floor there is a small narthex or a small vestibule. And between the entranceway and the main room there are two large 2 ton each solid bronze doors. They were designed by Tiffany, but they were executed by the Bolton Foundry in the Flats. They are solid bronze and they have rosettes and features on the outside. As you walk into the chapel itself, there’s a main aisle. On either side of the aisle there are. Each side has four pews. Those pews are made of cedars of Lebanon, a wood that only grows in Lebanon. And the reason for it being there is that it’s mentioned 13 times in the Hebrew scriptures. And it’s the building material King Solomon used to build his first great temple in Temple Mount. The main aisle leads up to the front of the chapel and there is a unit called a catafalque. A catafalque is a place to display a coffin. It’s a raised platform. Now, Tiffany had a sense of the surprise. He loved to surprise people who were walking into his rooms. And so the catafalque has another feature besides displaying the coffin. It also is an elevator. In the top portion is a pellet that drops 22 feet into the basement. Now, my theory is that it was used as part of the ceremony. The coffin would be placed on that pallet in the basement. And then when the clergy person would come in and typically open the service with the remarks from the Gospel of John, I am the resurrection. Two men downstairs using manual pulleys would bring the coffin up to the higher level as part of the resurrection story. Now, that’s strictly a theory on my part, but I think knowing Tiffany the way I do, I think that’s probably was in his thinking as well. On either side of that catafalque, there are altar rails, and on each altar rail, there are three candlesticks. And they’re electric. And that’s important because we believe that the Wade Chapel was the first public building in Cleveland to have electric lights as part of its original design. That’s important to remember its original design. And we also believe, and it would stand to reason, because of Mr. Tiffany’s association, that Thomas Edison was the man who did the schematic for the room. Behind each of those altar rails, there is a hanging lantern. And the lanterns each weigh 800 pounds, and each one is carved out of a single piece of alabaster. Of course, the most obvious beautiful image that one sees is a large Tiffany window. It’s done in a process called Favrile, and Favrile was a trademark for Tiffany. It’s glass that was exposed to fumes of metallic oxide. The colors you’re seeing in the glass are not the colors of the glass. The glass is really light blue and dark green. But the colors one sees during the day is caused by light hitting the metal content in the glass, causing the colors to have that iridescent quality that Tiffany was so famous for. The images on the window tell a story. At the base is what would typically be called a cartouche. It’s a rectangular gray space. It’s very linear. It’s very dark. It has no light coming through it. And it’s supposed to be the empty tomb of Jesus. Out of that, the rest of the window becomes spectacular. Out of the empty tomb of Jesus arises flesh flowers of resurrection called Easter lilies. And they are pushing aside on either side of that bank of Easter lilies, poppies, which are usually marked as flowers of mourning. So we have this contrast of these beautiful white lilies pushing aside red and pink poppies. The lilies continue as you’re looking. As your eye moves up from the lilies, it forms into an image of a cross. And Jesus is at the center of the cross. And forming the arms are two banks of angels. Encircling the entire image of the cross is a rainbow. And I’ve always interpreted that as the rainbow given to Noah after the flood as a sign of God’s love for him. Other images, other interpreters have said it’s a sign of resurrection. It’s also a sign of rebirth. So there are various interpretations for the rainbow. Now, Tiffany takes those two iconic forms of God’s love. Let’s say that it is the rainbow of Noah as well as the cross of Jesus. And he carries them out throughout the front of the chapel by using a repeat pattern of half circles in the altar rail and in two benches on either one wall in front of the to the left and to the right of the window. And those benches are called sedilia. And sedilia are simply seats or benches for officials conducting the ceremony, typically clergy people. And it should be noted at this point that Tiffany had an option of studying anywhere he wanted to in the world. And so he chose, of course, he was a New Yorker, so he studied in New York. He also studied in London and Paris and finally in Cairo, Egypt. And so the images that you see on the altar rail and on the sedilia, as well as in those two hanging lanterns I mentioned earlier, have the image that you’d find in the Middle East, especially in a mosque. So he has those half circles reminiscent of the rainbow in the window and in the outline of the sedilia. And as well as the lanterns, you will see crosses. And so he’s carried the theme of cross and rainbow away from the window and into the front of the chapel. Now, the room itself is a metaphor. So as one sits in one of the pews and there are four on each side, there are eight pews all together. One is supposed to be taking a ride because on each wall there is a barge. And the barge has a similar construct. In the back of the barge, closer to the front door, you’ll find a woman on each wall. And the woman is considered the admiral. There will be two lines of people in front of her standing up, and they’re attending a ceremony conducted by an angel. The power of the boat is maintained by seven men crewing on each wall. This is now there are seven men on the Hebrew wall, I call, it and seven on the Christian wall. And when I say they’re crewing, they’re facing the front door, but they’re actually moving toward the wall window so they look as though they’re going backward. Now the walls are subject to interpretation. If you’re a Christian and you want to get some orientation as you’re facing the window, to the left is the Old Testament, to the right the New Testament. I prefer calling them what Tiffany called them, the Old Testament or the Hebrew scripture is called the wall of the law and the Prophets. And the Christian wall is called the wall of the Fulfillment and the enlightenment. The Hebrew wall, as far as the prophets is concerned, reflect the promise of a Messiah. And the law tells us what the Hebrews have given us in the law anywhere in all of the Torah. In Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. On the let’s take a look at that particular wall. The seven men are considered the seven pillars of Wisdom from the book of Proverbs. The woman in charge is called Fear of the Lord or Respect for God. The two lines of people deal with any number of action aspects of the Hebrew faith. Ten commandments are up there. There are, by the way, on that wall there are 37 figures. 37 figures. And they have various things such as the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, feast of the trumpet, Shavuot and so forth. And in the front is Passover. An interesting aspect of this is there was a helmsman at one time. He’s still there, but he doesn’t have any power anymore. He’s called Death and he’s chained to the wall by his chest and his knees. The sword of fate which determines when we die has been driven to the ground and the tiller has been taken from him. And there is an interesting little animal back there called scapegoat. And scapegoat was one of the means by which the ancient Jews would get rid of their sins. They’d gather around a goat and the chief priest would say, put your sins on the goat. Ceremonially they would. And then the chief priest would unleash the goat and the goat would run away. He would escape and in doing so he would take the sins away. In one way or another, he’d be slaughtered. On the Christian wall. We have 59 characters. 59 characters. No, 39 characters, 39 characters. In the back, the helmsman is time. The woman sitting in the throne, who is the admiral is called the grace of God. And she’s surrounded by three children, Faith, Hope and Charity. So this wall depicts the resolution or the fulfillment. In other words, Christ comes to the world and says, I am the Messiah. And the second aspect is the enlightenment. This wall gives us a list of things that we are to do, to carry out, to go beyond the law. And they’re called the Acts of Mercy. Although we can go through all of them. There are such things as to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to forgive the sinner, to bear wrongs patiently, to visit the sick, to take care of the homeless. And then the angel who’s offering up the service in the front is called Supper of the Lord, which is a depiction of holy communion in the Christian church. So in summation, there are four angels. Death in the back on the Hebrew wall, and Passover in the front, called Sacrifice on the wall. He’s in the front on the Christian wall. Time is in the back in that corner, and Supper of the Lord is in the front. The walls are 8 feet tall. The mosaics, they’re 8ft tall and they’re 32 feet long, the length of the chapel, they’re all glass. And they were shipped on the Erie Canal in 1900 in sections. Each wall is made up of six panels. Now they’re not straight up and down, they are vertical, but they’re not straight up and down. And they were cut to minimize any kind of seams. So that’s. And they’re, by the way, they’re done by a man whose name is Frederick Wilson of England. And Frederick Wilson was a major artist in his own right, especially in glass and mosaics in this country when he came to America. But for a short time he was the second in command at the Tiffany Studios. There was a high regard for him. And so the interesting enough, each of the men who are accruing by the way on the Christian war are called the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And they would be wisdom and understanding, knowledge and fortitude, fear of the Lord, piety and counsel. And by the way, they have an interesting different look from the men who are called the Pillars of Wisdom on the Hebrew side. The men on the Hebrew side are very Middle Eastern looking because the message of the Hebrew scriptures is for the people of the Middle East. Whereas when you move over to the Christian wall, they become very Greco Roman. And that’s because Jesus says that the message is for the world. And so the world of Jesus time was the Mediterranean world. So they’re very white, blonde, blue eyed men who look very much our concept of the Greco Roman world. The Last four saints on the. There are seven shields on that side too, for each of the men. And the last four are interesting because they are Patrick from Ireland, David of Wales, Andrew of Scotland, and George of England. And one would wonder, why did you pull those off? Tiffany had a policy that he paid very well. In fact, he’s quite a person that women should love because he paid women what he paid men. He’s very, very ahead of the social justice curve. But he never let people who worked for him put their name on their product. And so he said, it’s my product. You’re working on my time. And so they had to think of some other way of showing that someone other than Tiffany actually did the work in a particular area. He obviously did the whole design, and I think it was a team effort, but there’s no documentation for that. So the people who worked on these projects many times had to find other ways of showing that they had some input. And so Frederick Wilson, being from Great Britain, puts up four saints associated with United Kingdom. Patrick from Ireland, David of Wales, Andrew of Scotland, George of England.
James Lanese [00:29:10] Just a point of clarification, the mosaic panels on each side are glass.
Wayne Bifano [00:29:16] Yes.
James Lanese [00:29:16] And you indicated that they were manufactured in New York, shipped here via the Erie Canal. How are they affixed? Was there a special preparation of the wall prior to affixing them?
Wayne Bifano [00:29:31] Well, they adhered to the wall with cement, but they were. The panels have a backing from New York, so the whole panel be put up with cement.
James Lanese [00:29:46] So one large piece and then they affix the panels respectively.
Wayne Bifano [00:29:52] Correct, correct. By the way, there at an inner wall, there is a space between the mosaic wall and the outer wall. They’re not affixed to the outer wall. I see there is a space between a very narrow space.
James Lanese [00:30:19] Have there been any environmental or climate related challenges to the chapel over the years? 110 years old. Yes.
Wayne Bifano [00:30:34] From my understanding, and Mary can address this. Why don’t you do that, Mary?
Mary Krohmer [00:30:42] We actually do have a staff member that goes in usually every year during our off season and looks at the mosaics, looks at the wall. We have had very little, any type of environmental issues. We occasionally will have just a small tile of gold leaf that has just kind of drifted off the wall. And our staff member does do minor repairs like that. But again, when the Wade family came up with the idea of Wade Chapel, they really thought hard about it because they wanted something that would last at least 500 years. So it’s granite on the exterior, marble interior, and just the workmanship that would last for that time period.
James Lanese [00:31:28] How about the what I’ll call routine use of the chapel? You had alluded to various ceremonies that routinely take place. How does that go? Has it changed over time and so forth?
Mary Krohmer [00:31:46] I think it’s interesting that Wade Chapel was really designed as a chapel and receiving vault. 100 years ago the receiving vault would have been used on a very regular basis because as Wayne mentioned, no cemetery had the equipment to dig in frozen ground. So if grandma passed away in the winter months, you would do the memorial service and then the casket would be placed in the receiving vault probably in the last 20 to 25 years. The thought also came into being of besides using the chapel for a memorial service, how about using it for weddings? Also the theme of the voyage of life we’re talking about marriage is part of that season of people’s lives and also the funerals. So the chapel has changed probably in the last 25 years by having memorials, excuse me, having weddings added. And we do occasionally have other programs that are organized for the general public so that they can enjoy the beauty and history. We do a wonderful holiday program of music and lights in December where we historically have a children’s choir, high school choir sang, and stories read around the holidays. So it’s bringing the general public to enjoy the beauty and history of Wade Chapel.
James Lanese [00:33:04] And is it routinely used extensively, say for funerals or weddings?
Mary Krohmer [00:33:09] Yep, the weddings vary each year. We’ve had as many as 13 weddings in the chapel from basically April through October. Funerals. Again, it depends on family’s wishes. This year it seems like we’ve been having funerals almost every two weeks. But again that is tied to families wishes. But the chapel is available for anybody to have memorial services and also the weddings.
Wayne Bifano [00:33:35] The chapel is also open from April 1st until the 19th of November daily. There’s always a guide there. And the only time that we would close the chapel to the public if there were a private ceremony such as a wedding or a memorial service. But typically guides work around that so that we are aware. Mary will tell us how long the service will be and then we can meet people on the outside and deal with them on the outside and then invite them back later on. So we try to be as open as possible.
Mary Krohmer [00:34:11] Last year we did about 325 walks, tours and special events at Lake View. And that could include a school tour or a civic tour. And our guides, as Wayne said, are there from nine until four daily, April 1 through November 19. And they do greet the general public and they share the beauty and the history so if someone does walk in, the guides are always there to talk about the beauty history. But we also know that we have some people that come in from University Circle. We have doctors and other people who just come in to see the beauty of the chapel. And I think they sit there kind of to recharge their batteries and look at the beauty of the chapel and then leave and go back to their job totally refreshed and recharged. So you’ll see ones and twos, people coming into way Chapel and you’ll see a big bus of 55 people coming into Wade. And our guides are always there to greet, welcome them and spend time sharing the beauty and the history and answering questions about the chapel.
Wayne Bifano [00:35:13] I’d like to add that there are seven Tiffany chapels remaining in America. There were 11 at one time and I’ve seen many of them. And I would say that ours is probably in the best shape of all of them. That we have a real jewel here in Cleveland and guides do entertain people from all over the world. And we are very proud to be part of that. That is a significant piece of history, but also of the aesthetics of Cleveland and so forth. So we are very proud of what we have here.
Ken Valore [00:35:53] I was talking to somebody at lunch and they said that this chapel is the only one that’s basically the original. It hasn’t been altered at all. I don’t know if that’s true or not.
Wayne Bifano [00:36:07] Some have been. Are in very bad repair. So there’s a very good book out that I might suggest. Am I allowed to do that? Suggest a book? It’s called the Mosaics of Louis Comfort Tiffany and it came out last year. It’s a coffee table size book and it gives a great deal of detail on the chapels and where they are. And they’ll even have archival photographs of those that are no longer with us. But. But I would say that indeed ours is one of the very best. And I can talk to you about some of the other ones, but I don’t want to get into that.
Mary Krohmer [00:36:56] I mean, we do know, and it’s in the Morris Museum now in New York, in Florida is the chapel that was in the Chicago World’s Fair has been reassembled there. But I don’t think the columns are actual.
Wayne Bifano [00:37:09] There’s a lot of reproduction there that was done for the 1893 Worlds Fair in Chicago for the Columbian Exposition. And it’s at the Hosmer Morse Museum in Winter Park. Winter park, right. And it is, it’s beautiful now, but much of it is replacement or bits and pieces have been redone.
James Lanese [00:37:39] And again, more of curiosity, just from hearing its use of those who might choose to use the chapel for memorial service. Does it tend to run along any denominational lines as far as religious?
Wayne Bifano [00:38:03] Actually, it is a non denominational building. And I would say this many times people think it’s a reflection of the Wade family. Mrs. Wade belonged to the Unitarian Church, Unitarian Universalist here in Cleveland, first Unitarian. And Mr. Wade, although he contributed a great deal and sang in the choir, he didn’t join the church. So in line with what typically Unitarians thinking as being inclusive, I would think that it’s appropriate for how we use it. And I wouldn’t say that there’s a particular group of people that in my experience, I mean, when I’m here and I see many of the weddings we’ve had anything from religious wedding weddings to secular weddings, we’ve had the mayor, for example, conduct a wedding here and so forth, or a justice of appease and so forth. So I don’t know, maybe Mary knows more about that because she deals with that. But I would say it’s non denominational, it’s inclusive.
Ken Valore [00:39:12] If you have basically the people that have memorial services here, they also buried here.
Mary Krohmer [00:39:20] I would say 95% of the time those that have memorial services in Wake Chapel are also buried at Lake View Cemetery a couple different occasions, generations removed. They do have family buried at Lake View, but again, they themselves are buried in another cemetery. There was one, that memorial service was held last month and I believe the woman was buried on the East Coast. But you’re right, 95% of those that have their memorial services in Wade Chapel are buried at Lake View. In the last two years, we’ve had two descendants of Mr. Wade’s family with their memorial service. One was Jeptha Wade III from Boston, and then Ellen Wade Chin, who is the granddaughter. So we still do see family members of the Wade family coming back with memorial services in Wade Chapel also.
James Lanese [00:40:15] Now, as the Wade family goes, you had mentioned that Wade Sr. Is buried in Section 3 along with other family members. Is there a memorial ground at that site?
Mary Krohmer [00:40:31] Mr. Wade’s monument is a beautiful columned monument with a wonderful winged angel on top. And I always talk about the symbolism because the eyes are kind of casting downward, which to me symbolizes the grief. But the winged angel’s hand and finger is pointing towards the sky, which in my interpretation is pointing towards heaven. So yes, there are a number of Wade family members that are buried in that same section. There are also other Wade family members through marriages and through relatives that are buried in multiple sections in Lake View. And we do know there are still Wade family members that do come into Lake View Cemetery to visit the chapel.
James Lanese [00:41:24] Anything else?
Ken Valore [00:41:26] Not really, no.
Mary Krohmer [00:41:32] I think the other thing I’d like to add is our guides in the buildings just have such wonderful passion for Wake Chapel, sharing the beauty and the history with the general public. And as Wayne mentioned, the chapel, along with the James A. Garfield Monument, are open on daily basis April 1st through November 19th from 9 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon. And the general public is very definitely encouraged to, to come in and view those two very remarkable buildings.
Ken Valore [00:42:00] I guess one question would be, have you noticed any change in the number of people that come over the years? Does it go up and down?
Mary Krohmer [00:42:11] It’s very interesting. We do again with our guides. Kind of a guesstimate of how many people visit both buildings in Lake View Cemetery. I’ve been here for 16 years and when I first started, we had twice as many visitors in the Garfield Monument as we did in Wade Memorial Chapel. And now we’re almost equal in visitation in both of the buildings. Last year we had just over 26,000 people in the buildings in a roughly six month time period. And we have people that come in specifically to view President Garfield’s tomb. They’re visiting all presidential burial sites. But we also have people that come specifically to view Wade Chapel. We’ve had antique Roadshows in because they wanted to look at the remarkable work that Mr. Tiffany had completed at Wade Memorial Chapel. So yes, we do do a guesstimate of how many people do visit both buildings. And it’s 25,000 to 26,000 during that time period. And we have very definitely seen the increase of the public coming into Wade Chapel.
James Lanese [00:43:17] And I recall you mentioning to me there was a WVIZ production did that kind of feature Wade.
Mary Krohmer [00:43:25] It did. In fact, WVIZ was here a number of years ago for their Holy Cleveland program. And while Wade Chapel can be classified as a church, they did do Wade and they also did the Garfield Monument because of the remarkable artwork. And that program is still airing and we do have people that come in because it is has been rebroadcast. And then we also, as I said, had Antique Roadshows here. We like to tell the story. They filmed in the chapel for about 11 hours that day. Just looking at all the beauty and the ink, the detail tied to the tiles and everything. We got three minutes on the national show. We were ecstatic to have the three minutes. But again, Wayne will see people coming in and saying, I just saw this on Antique Roadshows. And we had to come in and see the beauty and history. So that also does. It’s a wonderful tool of educating people. We also, since the buildings have been open, we’ll see children who now become parents, who now bring their children in and say, you know, we were here in a school tour. We’ve since moved away. We’re coming back to visit, you know, my parents. And we had to bring them in to show the beauty and the history. So we’re seeing two generations, if not more, revisiting the buildings, specifically Way Chapel.
Wayne Bifano [00:44:40] We’re seeing more and more Clevelanders come in, which is unusual because in the past we’ve had people from all over the world who are aware of this. But I think it’s because of staycations. People are staying put and not traveling as much. And so they’re looking for those treasures around them. And certainly we have one of them. So you’re seeing more people from northeastern Ohio and just Ohio in general. But on the weekends, I typically see many people from Toronto and Detroit, Chicago and Pittsburgh. That seems to be the feel of the place.
Mary Krohmer [00:45:18] There are also family members. The first thing they’ll say is when we have out of town company coming into Cleveland, we take them to Lake View Cemetery. They visit Wade Chapel. The Garfield Monument pro probably visits Mr. Rockefeller’s monument. But this in some cases does become a tourist destination for people when they have out of town company coming into Cleveland.
Ken Valore [00:45:41] The Rockefeller Monument. Rockefeller is not buried.
Mary Krohmer [00:45:44] Yes, he is. He is. He’s buried there along with his wife and mother and additional family members. The monument actually came in 1897, just around the death of his mother. Mother. And of course, John lived until 1937. But yes, he is buried there. And it’s the largest private family monument at a Lake View cemetery.
James Lanese [00:46:10] Anything else you’d like to add concerning Wade Chapel?
Wayne Bifano [00:46:15] We’d love to have you visit. Anytime, anytime.
James Lanese [00:46:18] Certainly have enjoyed our visit today. Thank you very much for your time and effort and hopefully we can consider other sites.
Mary Krohmer [00:46:28] We’ll keep working on that. Yes, we’ll keep working on that.
James Lanese [00:46:31] Expand our effort here.
Mary Krohmer [00:46:32] Yes. Well, thank you for thinking about Lake View Cemetery in Wade Chapel. It is a true pleasure. And the other thing is there are so many wonderful ambassadors in Northeast Ohio that talk about the beauty and history of Wade Chapel and Lake View Cemetery. It just kind of comes full circle sometimes when we finally meet someone who says, this is what I’ve talked about, but it’s a remarkable building. And as we said, it’s open to the general public to enjoy the beauty and history.
Wayne Bifano [00:47:01] Thank you very much.
James Lanese [00:47:02] Thank you.
Mary Krohmer [00:47:03] Thank you. And, Jim, I will continue.
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