Sunset Hills is a beautiful
cemetery full of lush lawns, shady trees, classy mausoleums, and a maze of
roads winding between gravestones and mausoleums.
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| Photo by Ari Napolitano |
I didn’t find anything sinister in
this land of the dead, not even the life size bronze statues some people find
eerily lifelike. I suppose if you are not expecting them they can startle you
because several look very real.
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| Photo by Ari Napolitano |
Especially The Gardener, a sideways glance from the corner of your eye…yeah he looks real.
At night, I bet the statues are downright
terrifying. Imagine creeping through the darkness of the cemetery then stumbling
upon a figure standing there in the shadows, not moving. Just watching you…
The most popular statue and the
first to be added to the cemetery is Crack the Whip. It cost a whopping $85,000
and was made by J. Seward Johnson Jr.
Supposedly it was dedicated in 1983
by an anonymous Flint resident that has family buried in the cemetery.
Is there more of a back story to
this sculpture?
Growing up I always heard that
children from the area were playing 'crack the whip' when the little girl at
the end of the 'whip' lost her grip and was thrown into oncoming traffic. She
was tragically hit by a car and died. Part of this legend also claims that the
statue was donated by the girl's grandfather in honor of her memory. I have not
found any confirmation of those claims.
In fact Banana 101.5 did some
research and found that neither version of the statue’s origin story is true.
Banana’s research discovered that
the original Crack the Whip statue was created in 1980. Sunset Hills thought it
would be a nice addition to the cemetery and purchased a recasting in 1983. The
girl at the end of the whip…she was based on J. Seward Johnson Jr’s younger
sister, who is still alive.
The Crack the Whip sculpture
features an Asian girl, two African American kids, a Native American, and four
white kids. The Asian girl lost her sandal. It lies in the grass nearby.
And that sandal is the centerpiece
of the terrifying legends. There are several versions that have floated around
over the years. One legend says if your foot fits in the shoe something
terrible will happen to you. Another, that if your foot fits in the shoe you
will die soon.
I’ve also heard that if you visit
the statue at midnight and your foot fits in the shoe the statues will come to
life.
If you’ve seen the statues at night
you can imagine them coming to life, in fact they almost seem to be alive. The
movement captured in the sculpture makes it easy to believe they are in motion. Imagine them in the moonlight when you catch a glance of them out of the corner of your eye.
Some have claimed to hear the
sounds of children playing and giggling coming from the direction of the
statue.
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| Photo by Ari Napolitano |
The legend of the Crack the Whip
has been around as long as the statue. When I was a teenager in the 1990’s kids
would always dare each other to sneak into the cemetery at night and try on the
shoe. I never did (nor would I let my kids try it on when were there).
However as a teen I did venture to the ruins
of the Walter Winchester Memorial Hospital that was next to Sunset Hills. Teens
would party there all the time. The empty shell of the former hospital was
covered in graffiti and littered with trash. But it wasn’t the trash or the
graffiti that bothered me. It was the gut wrenching, hair standing on end
feeling of horror that made me turn around and leave without ever getting out
of the car. I don’t know what resided in those ruins but I wanted nothing to do
with it.
Thankfully that creepy shell of a
building was torn down awhile back to make way for New Calvary Catholic
Cemetery.
On the sunny summer day I visited
Sunset Hills I was focused on finding all of the statues, I wanted to see if I
could feel anything weird from them. I didn’t. They are beautiful works of art. No creepiness was felt on that hot summer day.
However after I arrived home and
uploaded my photos there was one photo that made me stop and take a second
look, then a third more intense study.
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| Do you see it? |
Most of my photography had been
focused on the bronze statues but near the Crack the Whip statue there is a
bench located in a shady spot on slight hill. It looked inviting so I snapped a
photo.
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| I circled it. |
When I perused the photo on my
computer screen later I discovered a startling human shaped blur sitting on the
bench. I uploaded the photo to Facebook and my friends argued amongst
themselves as to whether or not it was an apparition or simply a lens flare.
Skeptics, of course, claim it to be
lens flare. Believers swear it is a ghost. One of my author friends even
blended the metaphysical with science- “the apparition's energy bent the light
and caused the light flare to take place. It’s like thermal imaging recorders,
the spirit shows up because it's effect on the temperature of the environment
bends and causes it to have shape in the camera because its energy field
creates the shape.” Sounds legit to me.
I find it interesting that this "haunting" blur appears near the Crack the Whip statue, the one with all the legends, rumors and ghost stories attached to it. Perhaps there is "something" to the stories after all.
For those who love cemetery photos here are some of the others taken on our exploration that day. My daughter was in love with this gazebo area. She said "I would get married here." Gotta love it when your kid is more goth than you. The photos below are all hers.
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| this was just laying there, but apparently they were installing it because when we drove by a second time it was gone |
Haunted Flint
Haunted America Series
Roxanne Rhoads and Joe Schipani
Publisher: The History Press
Release Date: September 2, 2019
ISBN-10: 1467143049
ISBN-13: 978-1467143042
Book Description:
Sinister Secrets in Flint’s History
Home to ancient burial grounds, unsolved murders, economic depression, and a water crisis, Flint emits an unholy energy rife with ghostly encounters.
Colonel Thomas Stockton’s ever vigilant ghost keeps a watchful eye over his family home at Spring Grove, where guests occasionally hear the thump of his heavy boots.
Restless spirits long separated from their graves lurk among the ancient stones in Avondale Cemetery.
Carriage maker W.A. Paterson’s spirit continuously wanders the halls of the Dryden Building, and something sinister and unnamed resides in a Knob Hill mansion waiting to prey on impressionable young men.
Join authors Roxanne Rhoads and Joe Schipani on a chilling tour of Flint’s most haunted locations.
