GILLETTE’S FAMILY SINGS AT HIS GRAVE
Burial At Soule Cemetery Two Miles From Auburn.
PATHETIC PRIVATE CEREMONY.
Chester’s Favorite Hymns Were Sung by His Mourning Family—Mrs. Gillette Unable to Travel West With Other Members of Family.
The Norwich (NY) Sun
Wednesday, April 1, 1908
Auburn, April 1.—The remains of Chester Gillette now rest in a grave in a distant corner of Soule cemetery, two miles from the city between Auburn and Syracuse. The burial service took place Tuesday afternoon at 2 o’clock. The officiating clergyman was the Rev. Henry MacIlravy, and he was assisted by Mr. [Frank] Hartman, also of Little Falls.
Announcement was made Tuesday morning by the family that they had decided to have the services here and also the burial. Monday they said that they did not know where the body would be buried but this morning they gave out that the services such as they are permitted by the laws of the state, would be held at 2 o’clock Tuesday afternoon and they were.
Every precaution was taken to keep the matter of the funeral from becoming public until the services were over Since the electrocution the body has rested in the Tallman morgue. Tuesday afternoon, shortly before 2 o’clock a hearse left the morgue with the body in it. The family went by car to the cemetery and were met there by the Rev. Henry MacIlravy of Little Falls and his friend, Mr. Hartman. There the burial service was performed and the body interred.
The singing was done by the family and consisted of three hymns that had been favorites of Chester and that had been sung by the family both at home and in the dark cell in the condemned row of the prison. These were “Abide With Me,” “Joy Cometh in the Morning,” and “Until he Comes.” The last selection was a secular song, “A Little Boy Called Taps.” It had always been a favorite with the mother and Gillette wanted it too, among the hymns.
Gillette had also marked the passages he wanted read from the Bible and the clergyman recited the words solemnly. As his voice died away Mrs. Gillette dropped on her knees and prayed again for the salvation of her dead boy’s soul and even the grave diggers wiped their eyes as they listened.
Those who gathered about the inexpensive coffin in which the body rests were the Gillettes, father and mother and their son and daughter, Paul and Lucille, Miss Bernice Ferrin,* the clergyman, Rev. Henry MacIlravy, his assistant, Frank Hartman, and the two grave diggers. The cemetery authorities kept all others from the spot. There was a nipping March wind and the mourners shivered as the mother knelt beside the grave and prayed.
“Can’t he lie toward the west?” asked Lucille as the mother finished.
“The sun will rise on his grave,” replied Mrs. Gillette, and the little party turned away from the grave.
The relatives took a last look at the body just before the trolley car bore them to the cemetery. The mother was the first the enter the morgue—alone.
“Oh, my poor boy,” she wept. “I can touch your face now. They wouldn’t even let me kiss you goodbye.”
“Don’t go in,” she urged the others later. “It doesn’t look like Chester at all. He hasn’t his old smile. Don’t go in.”
Later, however, she regained her composure and the father and Lucille entered and smoothed the dead boy’s hair as they took their last look at his face.”
Mrs. Gillette was so much overcome by the funeral that she cannot leave with the rest of the family for Zion City, Ill. today, but will join them later.
*Bernice Ferrin has sometimes been referred to — probably inaccurately — as Chester Gillette’s girlfriend. He had become acquainted with her in Zion City, Illinois, where Chester and his family were part of the Dowieite (named after the sect’s founder, John Alexander Dowie) religious community. She was living in Auburn, NY (where Gillette was executed) at the time, and described as a “friend of the family,” was given permission to visit Gillette in prison.
— posted by Roger W. Smith
June 2021
Roger W. Smith's Theodore Dreiser site 