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It is the story of Ouida Hood.
(The actual story is too long to plagiarize here -- though I certainly tried -- but you can read about it over at Oakwood Cemetery's website. (Hell, you could spend an afternoon reading the profiles of folks who are buried there.)
According to the story, Ouida Estelle Emery Hood died in Michigan in 1930. "Her bereaved and devoted admirer, Franklin Stanley Prikryl, erected a magnificent and costly monument as a testament in her honor with both names boldly engraved in the granite base. Franklin professed his undying admiration for Ouida by announcing his desire to someday be interred next to the most important woman in his life. However, Franklin’s grave beside Ouida remains empty to this day as Franklin, for reasons unknown, even to family members, chose to be buried in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glen Dale, California, destined never to be reunited with Ouida."
The story goes on to say that no good reason was ever given for why Prikryl didn't wind up in Oakwood, other than the rest of his family was buried in California.
But "[o]n a green, tree-crowned knoll in Oakwood Cemetery, rises one of the most beautiful and elaborate monuments in all the southland. Upon this monument focuses a story— a strange story of love, devotion, unselfishness and an unfulfilled promise of love."
There were many admirers but Ouida Emery finally married Wallace Hood, a successful automobile designer who returned to North Carolina, his native state, from time to time during interludes in his professional career in the automobile and truck factories of the North.Then came the World War and the amazing drama of Ouida Emery’s life began to unfold. During this period there was an army training camp near Raleigh. Stationed at this base was a man from Michigan, Franklin Stanley Prikryl (born in Chicago, May 4, 1886), a prospering real estate developer from near Detroit. Prikryl took a liking to Hood who introduced Prikryl to his beautiful wife, Ouida.Prikryl and the Hoods quickly became friends and Prikryl offered to give Wallace a job if the two would move to Michigan after the war.And so it happened. The Hoods went to Detroit and two or three years later they moved to the small farming community of Frenchtown, Michigan, about 30 miles south of Detroit. There the Hoods established themselves in a comfortable country home on Hurd Road. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Prikryl moved in and made his home with the couple....... Mr. Hood , with several Detroit and Monroe investors formed a company to build motor trucks in nearby Monroe. The newly formed company was called the Hood Motor Truck Company. One truck was built and tested. It stood up well and passed the scrutiny of company evaluators with flying colors. However, the Hood Motor Truck Company went bankrupt. When stockholders were asked for additional money to put the truck into production in a price range that would compete with others of its class, they hesitated. The truck might be first-rate, they figured, but it would be too much of a gamble to invest large sums of cash in tools and plants.Meanwhile, his friend Prikryl was more fortunate. His real estate promotions had a way of succeeding. He was president and general manager of four companies and they all were doing extremely well. He soon became known as the most affluent man in Frenchtown. The money that came in was not used for selfish show but spent generously for community activities. Prikryl and the Hoods began to be noted throughout the little farming community for their generosity and community spirit.......Then came a break in the Hood-Prikryl household. Mr. Hood left the state. Before going however, he deeded ownership to the house to his wife. Ouida helped him gather his belongings and pack his bags for travel. There was no hint of hard feelings, separation, or divorce. On the contrary, Mr. Hood quietly departed Frenchtown and its residents never saw him again. (Where Mr. Hood went is unknown to this day.)
Mr. Prikryl stayed on, paying for his room and board in Ouida’s home. As time passed he interested himself more and more in her activities and took an active part in Ouida’s daily life. He spent large sums of money to further the work of the Grange, the Juvenile Grange and other organizations in which Ouida was keenly interested. Like her, Prikryl became locally famous for his generosity. In an interview in 1931, neighbors recalled the time he chartered a bus and took a large group of farmers into Detroit to the Moslem Shrines’ Circus....
... On Sunday evening, February 23, 1930, Mrs. Hood, was, as usual, the center of a chatting group of callers at her home. Suddenly, without warning, and for the first time in her life, Ouida suffered a severe attack of nose-bleed. The next day there were several bouts of the same affliction. Now under a doctor’s care, a blood transfusion was administered, only to be followed by a fatal repetition of nose-bleed on February 27, 1930.
And then began the chain of events that culminated in the erection of the Hood-Prikryl memorial at Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh.
Mr. Prikryl took Ouida Hood’s body back to the “City of Oaks” and purchased two large adjoining lots on a tree studded hill in the most beautiful part of Oakwood Cemetery, known as the Forrest Section.
...
... Ouida Estelle Emery Hood was thus buried, as she had wished, in the city of her birth. However, Ouida lies beneath Michigan soil just the same. At the time of her death, Prikryl hired a young neighbor boy to fill 80 wooden kegs with rich soil from her own flower garden in Frenchtown and shipped it to Raleigh. The Michigan soil, upon its arrival in Raleigh, was spread over Ouida’s grave site so that flowers and grass might flourish as they had in her garden on Hurd Road in Frenchtown.
Prikryl spared no expense in commissioning a memorial for Ouida's grave (pictured), "which is quite distinctive among other elaborate memorials at Oakwood Cemetery."
And that's how a lady in Raleigh came to be buried underneath Michigan soil.
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