In Mt. Hope Cemetery, Hiawatha, Kansas, the grave memorial of John M. Davis includes ten life-size, Italian marble statues that depict Davis and his wife at various stages of their lives. The eleventh statue is made of granite, because Davis had exhausted his life savings on the monument.
"The Vacant Chair" is where his wife would have been seated, had she not died seventeen years before Davis's death (at age 92 in 1947). The elaborate memorial has attracted visitors for over half a century. In fact, Davis enjoyed spending his last lonely years hanging around the work in progress and explaining it to visitors.
The last statue of Mrs. Davis, as an angel kneeling on Mr. Davis's tomb, has been mysteriously decapitated. Victim of the local Halloween Frolic? Teens at the Hiawatha Pizza Hut had some leads.
"That head was throwed in a pond is what we heard."
