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Forest Lawn Memorial Park
Section M Lot 88888 Tier 2 Space 218
Filename P1410862.JPG
Image © 2021 by Christopher Mills

Forest Lawn Memorial Park
Section M Lot 88888 Tier 2 Space 218
Filename P1430688.JPG
Image © 2022 by Christopher Mills

Forest Lawn Memorial Park
Section M Lot 88888 Tier 2 Space 218
Filename P1410864.JPG
Image © 2021 by Christopher Mills

Forest Lawn Memorial Park
Section M Lot 218 Space 2
Filename P1400673.JPG
Image © 2021 by Christopher Mills

Forest Lawn Memorial Park
Section M Lot 218 Space 2
Filename P1430467.JPG
Image © 2022 by Christopher Mills

People Names and Dates


Full Name	John Bates Davis
AKA Full Name
People ID	137410
Title
First Name	John
AKA First Name
Nickname
Middle Name	Bates
AKA Middle
Patronymic/Matronymic
Priorsurnames
Surname	Davis
AKA Surname
Father's Surname
Mother's Surname
Suffix
Gender	Male
Full Birth Date If Known	1875-08-06
Birth Year	1875
Birth Month	8
Birth Day	6
Full Death Date If Known	1928-12-01
Death Year	1928
Death Month	12
Death Day	1

Events, Dates and Places

Event	Date	Geo Top Level	Geo 2nd Level	Geo 3rd Level	Geo 4th Level	Geo 5th Level
Birth	1875/08/06	USA	Tennessee
Residence	1910	USA	California	San Diego	La Mesa
Residence	1918/09/12	USA	California	San Diego	La Mesa
Residence	1920	USA	California	Los Angeles	Los Angeles	Venice
Death	1928/12/01	USA	California	Los Angeles

Relationships

Relationship	Related To	Relative's People ID	Relative's Birth Year	Relative's Death Year	Other Date (typically Marriage Date)
Father of	Monty Raymond Davis	723432	1906	1967

Military Service

No military service added for this person

Rank If Known Or Highest Or Final Rank	Branch of Service	Beginning Date if Known	End Date if Known

Military Actions Served During

No military actions added for this person

Interment, Inurnment or Memorialization Information


Cemetery	Forest Lawn Memorial Park
Address	1712 S. Glendale Avenue
City/Town	Glendale
County/District	Los Angeles
State/Province	California
Postal/Zip Code	91205
Country/Principality	USA
Section	Section M
Map	1
Lot	88888 Tier 2
Space	218

Organization
Property Type	Ground
Has Marker	Yes
No Marker
Is Cenotaph
GPS/LatLong Coordinates
End of Interment Record	If there are additional interments or cenotaphs for this person they will appear below

Cemetery	Forest Lawn Memorial Park
Address	1712 S. Glendale Avenue
City/Town	Glendale
County/District	Los Angeles
State/Province	California
Postal/Zip Code	91205
Country/Principality	USA
Section	Section M
Map	1
Lot	218
Space	2

Organization
Property Type	Cenotaph
Has Marker	Yes
No Marker
Is Cenotaph	Yes
GPS/LatLong Coordinates
End of Interment Record	If there are additional interments or cenotaphs for this person they will appear below

Inscription Information

No inscriptions added for this person yet

Other Information

Biographical or other information about the person

https://mills-sfv.com/Genealogy/GLS/People/Text/137410.txt

I forget what first clued me in to this, but some time in 2020 or 2021 I decided that something strange was going on with this guy's burial location and/or marker. So I made a concerted effort to figure out what was going on, and I think I now know what happened (although not exactly why it happened).

The Forest Lawn website shows him as being buried in Section M, Lot 88888 Tier 2, Space 218. I did in fact find a marker for him there (linked to this record, it is the image named P1410862.JPG). This part of Section M is very close to the southernmost point in Forest Lawn Glendale, so it's pretty easy to find.

However, on the other side of Section M (near the boundary with Section K, and a very short boundary with Section A) in Lot 218, Space 2, there is a completely different marker for the same man. That marker is the fourth picture down on this page, the photo is named P1400673.JPG.

At first glance the markers appear identical (the text and the style match on both). Only when you take a second look do you realize the fonts are not identical, and the first marker has more blank space around the sides than the second one. This is not a trick of perspective or the camera lens I used; these are in fact two different markers.

I attached three more photographs to frame the markers and document that they are in different spots. P1430688.JPG shows the large memorial structure in Section M from the south. I took it with a prime lens with a small F stop so the marker itself is not in focus, but if you look at the next photo, P1410864.JPG, you should be able to tell that the markers in this photo are the same ones as the photo above, and his marker is legible in this photo.

The last photo, P1430467.JPG is a framing shot for the marker in Lot 218, Space 2. You can tell from this photo it's in a different location than the one on the other side of Section M, that one has other markers all around it and this one is more or less by itself. (I found no markers in spaces 1 and 3 of Lot 218, and I have not found any interment entries on the Forest Lawn website as of May 2022 that show anyone in those spaces).

So, we've established there are two different markers at two different locations within the same section. So one is a cenotaph and the other one isn't, most likely. Which is the cenotaph? My money is on the one in Lot 218, Space 2. If you look at the other people known to be in that lot one died in the late 1930s and everyone else in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. If you look at the dates of the people buried in Lot 88888 Tier 2 next to space 218, almost everyone I can find a date for from spaces 150 to spaces 245 either died between 1927 and 1931 or has a spouse there who died between those years. Out of these 89 people only two are not in that range (they're from 1936, for whatever that's worth). So that indicates this lot and range was primarily an "at-need" section where people were buried chronologically, not by advance purchase of spaces.

This is also the location that Forest Lawn actually shows for his burial, not the other one. They don't seem to have anyone at all listed as being in Lot 218, Space 2. So Occam's Razor suggests the one in 88888 Tier 2 is his actual burial, and the other one is some kind of cenotaph.

As for why there's a cenotaph, my guess is this is some kind of accidental cenotaph. Normally you see these when a married couple places a marker for both spouses when one dies. The spouse that died first is actually buried there, but in some cases the surviving spouse either moves away or remarries, and by the time they die (which could be 50 years later or more) they have made other arrangements, either with the second spouse or in the area they moved to after they relocated.

That's clearly not the case here. My best guess is that someone got confused by the "88888 Tier 2, Space 218" lot and space combination and mixed it up with "Lot 218, Space 2", thought he didn't have a marker when he did in fact have one, and put a new marker on in the wrong location. Whatever the answer is, it's buried somewhere in the records of Forest Lawn. It's possible it may only surface if Lot 218 Space 2 is ever needed for a burial, in which case I expect someone will figure out what happened and it's possible the marker there will be evicted.

I have the death date and place for John's wife Alice Mabel, but don't know what became of her remains. Of his four children, one is buried in West Virginia and I may add him to the database. I haven't determined what happened to the other three kids but I am guessing they are all deceased as they were born between 1900 and 1905. (It turned out there were only three children, one was a duplicate on Family Search. In any event, I've still found the burial location for only one of the three).

I also haven't figured out who his parents are because I haven't found him in any census before 1910, and his name is a common enough one that it could easily lead a researcher looking for matches astray.

The birth date I have for him is from his World War I draft registration. That birth year matches the approximation from the California Death Index. It looks like the year on the marker is just wrong by a couple of years.

The death year on both markers is just a little off, he died in December 1928 and it was apparently rounded to 1929. Both the California Death Index and the California County Birth and Death records show the death date as 1 December 1928.

By the way, the Find A Grave memorial documents the apparent cenotaph, not the actual burial. If someone ever comes along and posts the photo of the other marker on that memorial, it may lead to some confusion, but keeping people on find a grave un-confused is no longer a priority for me after the stunts the people running the site have pulled.

The framing photographs that are dated 2022 were both taken on 31 March 2022 but not posted until today, 11 May 2022. The shot of the cenotaph marker was taken on 25 April 2021, and the marker photo and framing shot taken in 2021 of the burial marker were shot on 6 November 2021.

No keywords added for this person


Small notes (field in database 50 characters max)
Family Search ID	L694-3XY
Find A Grave 1	26573077
Famous per Find A Grave
Famous per Consensus
Find A Grave 2
Find A Grave 3
BillionGraves Record ID
Other websites
Record Entry Date	2011-12-06 01:00:00
Record Last Edit Date	2022-05-12 13:06:52

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