Flower Woman

Louisville, Kentucky

According to the lengthy inscription on her grave slab, Saundra "Sandy" Curry Twist was a Kentucky beauty queen and fashion model who had "found financial success through wise investments in real estate and oil." She died in 1981 at age 40 when her car hit a tree. Her family commissioned Louisville artist Barney Bright to sculpt a life-size bronze of Sandy, wearing an elegant form-fitting gown. It stands in front of a white marble colonnade, in a place, according to the slab, "where she used to come with us to feed the ducks and geese and swans on Sundays."

Beneath Sandy's statue's bare feet is a low pedestal on which is engraved, "God always seems to pick his prettiest flower." Saundra's languidly outstretched hands are routinely accessorized with flowers even today, although her husband and eldest daughter have long since died. Michael Higgs of the Cave Hill Heritage Foundation told us that the flower tributes appear frequently, and are not placed there by employees of the cemetery.