Dorothy Parker has come home to New York. On August 22–the 127th anniversary of her birth–the poet’s cremains were buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx beside her parents and grandparents. In a small private ceremony witnessed by less than 12 people, the urn containing Mrs. Parker’s cremains ended a 53-year odyssey.
The story was revealed Friday in The New Yorker. Parker contributed a review in the magazine’s debut issue in February 1925 and wrote for it for thirty years.
I was the representative of the Rothschild family descendants, who could not travel due to COVID-19 restrictions. I welcomed Dr. Hazel Dukes representing NAACP Empowerment Programs, Inc. and Parker’s estate; Bill Zeffiro for the Dorothy Parker Society, and Susan Olsen, Barbara Selesky, and Meg Ventrudo from the Woodlawn Cemetery and Conservancy.
This completes the journey of the cremains that started with Parker’s cremation at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York, on June 8, 1967. Parker’s executrix, fabulist-author-playwright Lillian Hellman, never collected the urn. Years later it was sent to the law offices of Parker’s deceased lawyer’s partner, Paul O’Dwyer. The urn stayed in his Manhattan filing cabinet until 1988, when it was brought to the Algonquin Hotel and turned over to the NAACP, which controls the Parker estate. The urn was brought to Baltimore and placed in a specially designed Memorial Garden at its national headquarters in October 1988. Six months ago the NAACP moved out of its headquarters and into an office tower in downtown Baltimore. The Rothschild family descendants had been making inquiries since 2006, which ultimately led to the transfer of the cremains.
The urn was removed from the garden on August 18 by a team of three workers headed by Robert Harris of Gambino Construction. In a 2½ hour project, the urn was taken out of the memorial garden the NAACP has lovingly maintained for almost 32 years. It was underneath hundreds of pounds of bricks, cement, and earth. A brief ceremony was then held under the auspices of the NAACP. Janette McCarthy Louard, NAACP deputy general counsel, led with remarks saying that Mrs. Parker was returning home. In a poignant touch, the same rabbi who attended the ceremony to inter the cremains in 1988 returned to watch them come out. Rabbi Floyd L. Herman, of Har Sinai Congregation, a Reform Jewish synagogue located in Owings Mills, Maryland, served as the congregation’s rabbi from 1981 to 2003, and now serves in emeritus status. He said the Kaddish. I served as the Rothschild family representative, accepted the cremains, and escorted them back to New York.
Dorothy Parker’s cremains left Maryland on Amtrak Train 94 from Baltimore Penn Station and arrived at New York Penn Station. After a few nights back on the Upper West Side, the urn was carried from Manhattan and brought to Woodlawn Cemetery.
The plot contains her mother, Eliza Rothschild, who died in 1899 at age 44; her father, Jacob Henry Rothschild, who died in 1913 at age 62, and her maternal grandparents, Ellen C. Marston and Thomas P. Marston. Mrs. Parker is buried closest to her mother. The location is the Myrtle Plot on White Oak Avenue (click here for how to reach the cemetery and plot today).
The small ceremony on August 22 was attended by 12 people. Susan Olsen, the historian at Woodlawn Cemetery whom I have been working with since 2006, was the first to speak. She welcomed Dorothy Parker to her new final resting place.
“Today is one of the most neat days as we bring somebody back,” Olsen said. “I have served as the historian for Woodlawn for almost 20 years. What I’ve learned, in Dorothy Parker’s era, the Algonquin era, was Woodlawn was the place to be. We were the most famous cemetery in the world. If you died in New York, even if you were an opera star or stage star, before you went back to Poughkeepsie with your family, the funeral was held here. Many of the literary and theatrical crowd whose funerals were held at the Little Church Around the Corner, you were brought to Woodlawn, put into a receiving vault, so that your obituary said, ‘Going to Woodlawn Cemetery.’ Many of Parker’s contemporaries, those who she had accolades for and barbs for, and cocktails with, are here at Woodlawn. She has finally come home not only to be with her family, but also to be with the people that she loved, criticized, supported, and she saluted in her days at the Algonquin.”
“For us, we live in an Ancestry.com era as more and more people are researching their history and their lineage. And I can’t say enough about the family. You cannot be buried here unless you fill out the paperwork that proves you have the right to ownership as one of the descendants. So we worked with her relatives to make sure that they could prove that they were the descendants of the individuals who are buried here. So they could sign off on Dorothy coming home. Fortunately though in Dorothy’s lifetime she had signed off that she was actually a lot owner… We pulled out all the old paperwork. We know it was always her intent to be here. She would not have filled out an ownership affidavit, declaring her as a current owner, unless it was Dorothy’s intent to be here. She signed off on her parents being buried here, she knew this was her family, and I think that’s one of the most endearing things to me. To have such a colorful character who did all these celebrated things during her life, but when it came to the end she wanted to be with her family.”
“I can’t say enough about Kevin, endearing, and making this happen, it has been a long haul to get this going. I think of the challenges the NAACP has had in receiving an urn in the era of cremation. We have lots of people who go, ‘Now what do I do with it? Why did we get this?’ The challenge of honoring somebody who was so respectful of the cause she gave her funds to, believed in, and what do you do with cremains when you are not a cemetery. To the NAACP, our hats are off to you for accepting that challenge, and working with Kevin and the family to do the right thing. I’m so glad everyone is gathered today. I’m sure she will get an outstanding marker. The biggest challenge is what quote do you put on Dorothy Parker’s grave. And I don’t know how and who will select that. Many of our celebrated figures, like Countee Cullen, there’s no passages from his poems; Duke Ellington’s songs are not on his grave. But I don’t think Dorothy can be laid to rest without a quote. I want to thank all of you for coming together today, especially Kevin and the NAACP, because you’re the ones who made it happen and brought her home.”
It was a big honor to welcome Dr. Hazel N. Dukes to Woodlawn. She is President of the NAACP New York State Conference and a member of the NAACP National Board of Directors, a member of the NAACP Executive Committee and well as an active member of various NAACP board sub-committees.
“On behalf of our chairman, Mr. Leon Russell, and our president, Derrick Johnson, who could not be here today, I am the only living former president of the national board of directors. And for Mrs. Mildred Roxborough an integral part of the NAACP could not come today. But she knows the whole history. I was thinking last night, as we look at New York and the world, the Association was founded here, on Fifth Avenue, so it is no coincidence that she wanted to come home to New York. It’s our home too, founded here in 1909. So we are here bringing this great, honorable, woman who gave to the cause when it was not popular. It was not popular at the time that Dorothy Parker began to associate with the NAACP. There were many names called as we see today (such as) communists. People who wanted to assist those who were less fortunate. I’m honored to be here today to welcome her home, back to New York, the founding of the NAACP. I’d like to say to the family and to Kevin thank you so much for including us. And we endear her, so much, at the NAACP. The late Dr. Benjamin Hooks always said, ‘Whatever you do, don’t bother Dorothy Parker.’ He made that very clear. We welcome you home, and we thank you for all you’ve done, and your spirit will continue to lead us in the country to be better than what we have been and what we know we can be.”
To represent the Dorothy Parker Society, founded in 1999, composer-performer Bill Zeffiro performed one of the few songs Dorothy Parker wrote. “Mrs. Parker didn’t write many lyrics,” he said. “She wrote–it depends on which one of our song maven folks you talk to–two or three songs. But she was a very good lyricist. I think this her most famous, it was written in 1934 with composer Ralph Rainger, called I Wished on the Moon.”
I wished on the moon
For something I never knew
I wished on the moon
For more than I ever knew
A sweeter rose, a softer sky
An April days that would not dance away
I wished on a star
To throw me a beam or two
I begged on the stars
And asked for a dream or two
I looked for every loveliness
It all came true
I wished on the moon for you
I wished on the moon
For something I never knew
Wished on the moon
For more than I ever knew
A sweeter rose, a softer sky
An April days that would not dance away
I wished on a star
To throw me a beam or two
I begged on a star
And asked for a dream or two
I looked for every loveliness
It all came true
I wished on the moon
Wished on the moon
Wished on the moon for you
I then spoke to the small group and gave appreciation on behalf of the family who could not travel due to the pandemic. I decided to read a selection from “My Home Town,” which Parker wrote for McCall’s in 1928. To me, it is a more powerful statement about loving New York City than even E.B. White’s classic “Here is New York.” A part of the essay concludes with:
London is satisfied, Paris is resigned, but New York is always hopeful. Always it believes that something particularly good is about to come off, and it must hurry to meet it. There is excitement ever running in its streets. Each day, as you go out, you feel the little nervous quiver that is yours when you sit in a theater just before the curtain rises. Other places may give you a sweet and soothing sense of level; but in New York, there is always the feeling of “Something’s going to happen.” It isn’t peace. But, you know, you do get used to peace, and so quickly. And you never get used to New York.
At this point, the constant drumming of the raindrops on our little Woodlawn tent ceased. I would like to say a double rainbow came out and landed on the grave, but that did not happen. What we did next was very special. The hole in the ground had been covered by the cemetery crew, which stood by in the rain. It was uncovered and a small pile of earth was next to it. The hole is immediately to the right of Eliza Rothschild, who died when when Dorothy was a month shy of turning five years old. The pine box containing the urn was lowered into the ground. It had been my idea to ask those gathered to throw a handful of dirt onto the grave, following the Jewish tradition, even though Parker wasn’t really a Jew. It would be nice. But at the last moment we decided to use a shovel, which was waiting, of course. First was Hazel Dukes representing the NAACP. Then Susan Olsen, to welcome Parker to Woodlawn. Bill Zeffiro represented all of the scores of Parker fans with a shovelful. Then I was last, and placed six shovels in, one for each of the Rothschild descendants in upstate New York who were not there, and finally one for myself.
But the next part was equally poignant to wrap up the small ceremony. I didn’t think a Bible verse of quotation would ring true for Parker, so I thought a poem from a contemporary poet would be appropriate. And really the only one to come to mind was Countee Cullen, also a New Yorker, from Harlem, and interred in Woodlawn Cemetery. Both he and Parker are in the New York State Writers Hall of Fame. I passed around the poem and together we recited:
I Have a Rendezvous With Life
Countee Cullen
1915
I have a rendezvous with Life,
In days I hope will come,
Ere youth has sped, and strength of mind,
Ere voices sweet grow dumb.
I have a rendezvous with Life,
When Spring’s first heralds hum.
Sure some would cry it’s better far
To crown their days with sleep
Than face the road, the wind and rain,
To heed the calling deep.
Though wet nor blow nor space I fear,
Yet fear I deeply, too,
Lest Death should meet and claim me ere
I keep Life’s rendezvous.
To conclude the day, and since it was also Dorothy Parker’s birthday, I asked Bill to perform the song he wrote in 2008 about her, Happy Birthday, Mrs. Parker. (Listen to a stream of it here and read the lyrics).
By now the sun was in full sunshine. It was a blazing warm summer afternoon. The grave was covered with fresh dirt, and a temporary grave marker was placed by the Woodlawn staff. It reads:
Dorothy Parker
1893-1967
The next steps will be the gravestone unveiling, hopefully in 2021.