Extra Credit Questions

[L Verge]

I have never been able to prove this story, and the folks at Stratford Hall (Lee's birthplace in Virginia) deny it. However, my grandmother visited Stratford Hall around the turn of the 20th century. She swore that she was told by staff there that Lee's mother suffered from epilepsy and that severe attacks would leave her in a catatonic state. After one such seizure, she was declared dead and buried in the family cemetery near the mansion.

A slave passing by late at night heard sounds in the cemetery and ran to get the family. Mrs. Lee was dug up and rescued from her coffin. She continued to live and produce children, one of whom was Robert E. Lee.

I can see where staff at the museum would deny such a thing, but I have often wondered if the episode didn't make it into someone's journal, diary, or letters. My grandmother had only a sixth grade education, but she adored history and I don't think she would have made this story up on her own -- not to say that the guide she heard it from didn't make it up!

I have also read of corpses being buried with loud bells that they could ring if they would awake from the dead. This makes embalming even more important. Speaking of which, I have also heard that George Washington was preserved in alcohol and in a coffin with a glass lid. Throughout most of the 19th century, the wooden top of the casket would be removed on his birthday so that the public could view the father of their country. Supposedly the glass cracked one year as the wood lid was sealed down, and air seeped in enough to evaporate some of the alcohol. When the coffin was opened the next year, a portion of Washington's nose was exposed to the air and disintegrated.

Now, your assignment, should you choose to accept it is to prove or disprove these two stories.