Love is fleeting. And nothing is set in stone, right? One Kansas resident set out to trump both of these clichés by ensuring his love would live on forever, and in stone no less.
When Sarah Davis died in 1930, her loving husband, John Milburn Davis, immediately began erecting for her a memorial unlike any other. Her grave, located in the Mount Hope Cemetery in Hiawatha, Kansas, is huge and elaborate, and contains a number of statues depicting likenesses of Sarah, of her husband John, and others. The entire site is carved out of Italian marble. It’s estimated that John Milburn Davis spent over $200,000 on his wife’s grave. This is a staggering amount of money by today’s standards––now consider that the grave was built during the height of the Great Depression and you’ll see exactly how far Davis went to immortalize his love for his wife.
Davis was regarded as a foolish and selfish man for spending so much money on the grave during such economically desperate times. But Davis also gave much of his money away to other residents of Hiawatha who had fallen on hard times, although these donations were done in private and garnered less attention than his wife’s grave.
The Davis Memorial still stands today. Hundreds of people travel to Hiawatha to visit it each year.
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