Eloise Cemetery

Eloise Cemetery was the name applied to cemeteries used by the Eloise hospital complex located in what was then Nankin Township in western Wayne County, Michigan, and is now Westland, Michigan. The patients buried in the cemetery were from the Infirmary Division, the William P. Seymour General Hospital, the T.B. Sanitarium and the Eloise Hospital (Psychiatric Division). In the United States at the dawn of the 20th century, tuberculosis was the leading cause of death, and that was true here. The majority of burials were from the Infirmary Division which was the largest of the three divisional housing up to 7,000 patients at a time. Most burials were of adult males, but there are women and a few infants and children.

The first notation made of an institutional cemetery was in 1892 when the Hospital arranged with Catholic Bishop John Samuel Foley to move bodies which had been buried northwest of the County House to an island in the middle of the reservoir. This move was made to enable the first paving of Michigan Avenue which occurred in 1910. Part of the artificial lake at that time had to be filled in. There were actually two other cemeteries that were used to bury Eloise patients after the turn of the century. The first was on the northeast corner of farmland south of Michigan Avenue and one further south on the farm site facing Henry Ruff Road. The second cemetery is surrounded by pine trees and is the one used from 1910 to 1948.

In effect, this was operated as a "Potter's Field", that is a publicly run place to bury the poor unclaimed dead at the public expense.

In the early days patients were buried by inmates or employees of the institution. In 1937 the contract was given to Charles C. Diggs, Sr., who founded "The House of Diggs" (reputed to be Michigan's largest funeral home at one time) and a politician, to handle burials in the cemetery and transfers to Wayne State University School of Medicine as state law mandated that these functions be handled or supervised by a licensed mortician. Charles Diggs, Jr., then 15 years old, would drive his mother from Detroit to the morgue which was a red brick building at Eloise called the round house because of its shape and they would prepare the body for burial. White sheets were used to line the wooden coffins and, unless the patient had clothing, they were covered in another white sheet. If family or friends were present there would be an interment service; if not the deceased would just be buried by inmates.

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