Photograph as originally submitted to this page in the Historical Marker Database www.HMdb.org. Click on photo to resize in browser. Scroll down to see metadata.

Taken: Circa 1920
Caption: Blocher Monument, Forest Lawn Cemetery, Buffalo, N.Y.
Additional Description: "By far the most extravagant monument in the cemetery is that of the Blochers. Nelson W. Blocher horrified his parents by declaring his love for their maid upon his return from Yale. To help him forget this mishap that could not be abided (she was far beneath their class and rank), the Blocher parents dismissed the maid and sent Nelson to Italy. He returned a year later to Buffalo to die of a broken heart. Overcome with guilt and grief they built this lavish monument; John Blocher designed the life-size marble sculptures of himself and his wife mourning over their son’s body and a scantily clad angel flying above them. The benevolent angel retrieves her lover to usher him to the great beyond; the maid Nelson loved modeled for that angel. The whole monument is encased in a glass room with a vaulted ceiling weighing more than 300 lbs. It is horrifyingly extravagant, beautiful, and disturbingly romantic. The guilt of the parents seeps from the marble as you peer voyeuristically through the glass and see the adoration and misery on the faces of the angel and son." -- Mary McCall, Love & Forest Lawn Cemetery's Sesquicentennial
Submitted: September 7, 2015.
Database Locator Identification Number: p327624
File Size: 0.203 Megabytes

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