Robert Wadlow

popular name: Berrien Upshaw

date_of_death: January 12, 1949

age: 47

cause_of_death: Suicide - leaped from building

claim_to_fame: The Odd and the Interesting

best_know_for: Berrien "Red" Upshaw was a mean, nasty, ill-tempered loser and wife beater - and those were some of his good qualities. But he did have one quality that served him well - he was known as a suave and charming man to the ladies. His charm wooed a young Margaret Mitchell and she married Berrien “Red” Kinnard Upshaw, an ex-football player from a prominent Raleigh (North Carolina) family, on September 2nd 1922. But after after 4 months Upshaw took off to the mid-west and engaged in bootlegging and other illegal pursuits. He returned back to Margaret but the family wanted nothing to do with him. The marriage was annulled two years later and Margaret married John Marsh (Red's best man at the wedding). Margaret went on to write the best-selling novel Gone With The Wind while Upshaw continued to drink heavily, was institutionalized briefly in the early 1940s and leaped to his death from the 2nd story of a Salvation Army flop-house in Galveston, Texas in 1949. In the end, Berrien Upshaw was so disliked, even by his own family, that his family in the last line of his brief obituary specifically requested no flowers be sent.

popular name: Julia Lennon

date_of_death: July 15, 1958

age: 44

cause_of_death: Blunt force trauma - stuck by automobile

claim_to_fame: The Odd and the Interesting

best_know_for: Julia Lennon was the mother of English musician John Lennon, who was born during her marriage to Alfred Lennon. After complaints to Liverpool's Social Services by her eldest sister Mimi Smith (née Stanley), she surrendered the care of her son to Mimi. She later had one daughter after an affair with a Welsh soldier, but pressure from her family made her place the baby for adoption. Later she had two daughters, Julia and Jackie, with John "Bobby" Dykins. She never divorced her husband, preferring to live as Dykins' common-law wife for the rest of her life. She was known as being high-spirited, impulsive, and musical, and for having a strong sense of humour. She taught her son John how to play the banjo and the ukulele. She kept in almost daily contact with him, and when he was in his teens he often stayed overnight at her and Dykins' house. John was traumatised by her sudden death and wrote several songs about her, including "Julia," "Mother," and "My Mummy's Dead." Biographer Ian MacDonald wrote that she was, "to a great extent ... her son's muse".

popular name: Florence Bernardin Rees

date_of_death: February 7, 1862

age: 2

cause_of_death: Scarlet Fever

claim_to_fame: The Odd and the Interesting

best_know_for: In 1862 two-year-old Bernardine died from Scarlet Fever and her grave is often found adorned with trinkets, toys, rings, flowers, and stones. But what makes Bernardine's final resting place such a tourist draw is that it is guarded by a black iron dog. How did it get there? Before the Civil War, the Richmond dog stood at a storefront of photographer Charles R. Rees (whose name is on the cemetery plot). Children loved the dog and his young niece was no exception. When his niece contracted Scarlet Fever and passed away (that area of the cemetery is loaded with plots of young children who passed in similar fashion) Charles had the statue moved to her grave as a tribute. Today the Iron Dog (aka the Black Dog) is one of the most visited gravesites in Hollywood Cemetery.