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2025 | A Grim Review · The Grim: Haunted Cemeteries & Graveyard Tales

0:13
Kristin: Grim morning and welcome to the Grim.
0:16
Kristin: I'm your host, Kristin.
0:17
Kristin: On today's episode, we'll be opening the gate and entering 2025, a Grim Review, located at the Grim.
0:25
Kristin: The aroma of coffee mingles in the air.
0:28
Kristin: The gates stand open.
0:30
Kristin: Step carefully.
0:31
Kristin: It's time to descend into the hauntings of history.
0:34
Kristin: Here we are at the end of 2025.
0:37
Kristin: Looking back at the year behind us and peeking forward into 2026, many make New Year's resolutions, commit to dry January, and look ahead to a promising year.
0:48
Kristin: It's also that time of year when you have no idea what day it is, and absolutely no judgment if you haven't left your couch in days.
0:55
Kristin: But what does a new year look like for the Grim?
0:57
Kristin: Hopefully more episodes, better writing, and continued enjoyment on your end.
1:02
Kristin: But I have to be honest, I wasn't always sure the Grim would make it this far.
1:06
Kristin: In today's world, podcasts feel endless.
1:09
Kristin: The numbers are staggering, but the survival rate is absolutely brutal.
1:13
Kristin: Nearly 47% of podcasts don't make it past episode 3, and a staggering 94% never reach episode 100.
1:21
Kristin: Out of roughly 2.5 million podcasts, only about 17% are active.
1:26
Kristin: And within a year, that number drops to just 10%.
1:29
Kristin: Even more striking, only around 8.5% of podcasts ever reach episode 50, where not all Joe Rogan's here.
1:37
Kristin: So publishing episode 73 feels like something worth acknowledging.
1:41
Kristin: Between being told I sound like AI, receiving the occasional one-star review, and choosing to live in a very niche corner of the podcast world, I'm either a little bit stubborn, or the grim is truly the little podcast that could, and that's because of you.
1:56
Kristin: So thank you for truly making 2025 possible.
1:59
Kristin: Thank you for listening, for returning, and for spending time with these stories.
2:04
Kristin: Whether you've been here from the very beginning or found the grim along the way, I'm grateful you're here.
2:09
Kristin: So here's too another year ahead, and another year of the grim.
2:13
Kristin: But before we look ahead into 2026, let's take a moment to look back.
2:17
Kristin: Most of the time when I write the grim, I focus on historical accuracy, layered with tales of hauntings and strange happenings.
2:25
Kristin: My personal feelings about each graveyard usually stay in the background.
2:29
Kristin: That's not typically what you're here for.
2:31
Kristin: This episode though gives me a little more room to step outside that boundary.
2:35
Kristin: Talk about which places truly fascinated me while researching them, and what it felt like to retell their histories.
2:41
Kristin: I began 2025 with Custer's Last Stand, an interesting choice, and one that's at the tone for the year.
2:48
Kristin: Cussard is a deeply controversial figure in American history, and honestly not a hero.
2:55
Kristin: His end given his actions often feels less tragic and more inevitable, but history is a very fickle thing.
3:02
Kristin: In recent years, especially through social media, more Americans have begun learning about indigenous communities and seeing how long celebrated narratives and even holidays can look very different through indigenous eyes.
3:14
Kristin: That shift changes how we understand our past, and it changes how places tied to that history feel when we stand on that ground today.
3:23
Kristin: Because of that, places like Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument don't feel the same anymore.
3:29
Kristin: They sit heavier now.
3:30
Kristin: They ask us not just to remember what happened there, but to slow down and think about how the story has been told and who was allowed to tell it.
3:38
Kristin: I've always though been drawn to parts of history that felt unfinished, the darker edges, the chapters we skipped in school, those thick textbooks we lugged around where somehow we'd start at chapter 7 instead of chapter 1.
3:52
Kristin: I remember wondering even then, why, what happened before this, who decided it wasn't important enough to include chapter 1?
3:59
Kristin: If you're someone who asks those types of questions, you're not alone, and you're exactly where you're meant to be.
4:05
Kristin: I then decided to tell the story of Ross Bay Cemetery, a place that surprised me with its past and beauty.
4:12
Kristin: A very good friend of mine lives in Canada, and sometimes it feels like a whole different world.
4:17
Kristin: But walking through Ross Bay, it felt familiar.
4:20
Kristin: Like our Victorian cemeteries here, beautiful, weathered, full of stories, and yes, very haunted.
4:26
Kristin: One of my favorite parts about researching a cemetery, aside from the graves themselves, is learning what the land was before it became a burial ground, what stood there first, who walked long before headstones arrived, whether it began out of necessity or because someone looked at a stretch of farmland and imagined a Victorian masterpiece.
4:46
Kristin: All of it is part of the full picture.
4:48
Kristin: And I think that curiosity, how we relate to these places, still shows up today, just in very modern ways.
4:56
Kristin: You can actually read cemetery reviews on Google, and honestly, there's something else.
5:02
Kristin: How do you give someone's final resting place one star?
5:05
Kristin: Did it go spill on your coffee or something?
5:09
Kristin: I don't know, but it never stops fascinating me.
5:11
Kristin: Over on the groom's YouTube, I've seen quite a few requests for another Canadian graveyard, and that is coming in 2026.
5:19
Kristin: I'm really excited about it.
5:20
Kristin: Rospay definitely wasn't a one-time visit north of the border.
5:24
Kristin: And I want you to know how I love seeing your messages, your requests, your stories, and your comments.
5:30
Kristin: When I research, I do my very best to honor these places.
5:34
Kristin: But if someone has a personal connection, a relative buried there, or a story that deserves to be told, I want to hear it.
5:40
Kristin: You can DM me, you can email me.
5:42
Kristin: Those stories are very welcome here, always.
5:46
Kristin: We also opened the gate in Peru this year, a place I wasn't familiar with before and one that completely pulled me in.
5:53
Kristin: Peru first caught my attention years ago while watching A Long Way Up with Ewan McGregor and Charlie Borman.
5:59
Kristin: If you love travel, I can't recommend their series enough.
6:02
Kristin: Seeing South America through their eyes didn't just make me want to go, it made me want to understand it.
6:08
Kristin: And eventually that curiosity led me straight to its graveyards.
6:12
Kristin: I fell in love with the Presbytero Matthias Maestro Cemetery, not just for its history, for how it embraces its haunted side while also telling visitors its story.
6:22
Kristin: It even offers night tours, which I think is absolutely worth anyone's time if you're in the area.
6:28
Kristin: Another lesser-known cemetery I wanted to highlight is Montmartre in Paris.
6:33
Kristin: It's often overshadowed by Pierre Lache, but wandering its past reveals some of the most fascinating spots you won't find on standard tours.
6:41
Kristin: Its history is rich and the people resting here are equally compelling.
6:46
Kristin: Places like Montmartre are the kind you stumble across and suddenly realize what a hidden gem you've found, which is why I wanted to include it in this year.
6:55
Kristin: Most people expected Pierre Lache, but Montmartre is just as historic and just as alive with stories waiting to be discovered.
7:04
Kristin: One that particularly fascinated me was the mass grave from the French Revolution.
7:08
Kristin: My knowledge of French history isn't bad, but details like this aren't often retold in our textbooks.
7:14
Kristin: What became of these sites over time, how cities reshaped around them, how the dead were quietly folded into the landscape of the living.
7:23
Kristin: Which brings me to Campo Santos, a cemetery where graves are literally paved over to make way for a growing city.
7:30
Kristin: It's a harsh reality.
7:31
Kristin: The dead can outnumber the living, and urban growth forces impossible choices.
7:37
Kristin: Exhume, move, or build over burial grounds.
7:40
Kristin: Most people forget these details over time, but relearning them gives them a fresh perspective on the surrounding areas and on the cemetery itself.
7:50
Kristin: It challenges morals, ethics, and the way people hope to be remembered, things we often don't think about until later in life.
7:58
Kristin: I also wanted to explore in the bone chapels of Europe, and Portugal felt like the perfect place to start.
8:04
Kristin: My husband is first-generation Portuguese, so it was a bit different but a fun way to explore his heritage.
8:10
Kristin: Many times you see pictures or hear about these chapels while traveling, but they're easier to forget in the moment.
8:17
Kristin: Researching them firsthand and asking him questions along the way made it both educational and personal.
8:24
Kristin: I didn't realize how many of these chapels existed worldwide, which makes me even more excited for future episodes.
8:30
Kristin: Later this fall, I featured two Italian bone chapels, which were equally fascinating.
8:36
Kristin: Learning the history and the why behind these stunning sights brought these stories to life.
8:42
Kristin: One of my favorite episodes this year was Meet Me at the Gravediggers and Glassnevin Cemetery in Dublin.
8:48
Kristin: Its history is full of brutal survival tales, yet its people remain incredibly charming.
8:54
Kristin: Glasnevin honors every bit of that history in a modern, beautiful way.
8:58
Kristin: One story that stayed with me was about a historian there who recently passed away.
9:03
Kristin: He had spent his life educating visitors, and knowing he would one day rest on those grounds himself, planned accordingly.
9:10
Kristin: That kind of dedication to preserving history made researching the cemetery feel even more meaningful.
9:17
Kristin: My second favorite was Bennington Center Cemetery in Vermont.
9:21
Kristin: It's a picture-perfect New England cemetery with beautifully carved Puritan headstones.
9:25
Kristin: If A were to conjure an image of a fall graveyard, Bennington would be in.
9:30
Kristin: What made it even more intriguing was the grave of a British soldier.
9:33
Kristin: His bones had been preserved for medical study, stowed away in an attic for years, and only later returned to the burial ground.
9:42
Kristin: That story, part of the American Revolution, is both surreal and fascinating, and I have to admit, the name Redcoat Skeleton was one of my favorites.
9:51
Kristin: Two episodes this past year featured killers.
9:54
Kristin: One committed a crime within cemetery grounds, the other was a cold case that led back to a grave.
10:00
Kristin: People always expect graveyards to be creepy, haunted, and unsettling.
10:05
Kristin: But the truth, sometimes I'm writing about gates I've wandered through in 90-degree heat.
10:10
Kristin: And if I were a ghost, I wouldn't be bothering anyone in those temps.
10:14
Kristin: There's nothing spooky about sweltering through a cemetery tour in July.
10:18
Kristin: Still, true crime and cemeteries go hand in hand.
10:21
Kristin: The quiet, the history.
10:23
Kristin: The story is literally buried within.
10:26
Kristin: When violence touches these places or when they hold the answers to mysteries, they become something else entirely.
10:32
Kristin: We'll explore more of these tales in 2026.
10:36
Kristin: I also featured asylum cemeteries in two episodes this year.
10:40
Kristin: Places most people don't think about when they picture graveyards.
10:44
Kristin: We remember the patients while they lived, but their stories often vanish the moment they die.
10:49
Kristin: Many were ignored, silenced, buried without names, and not all of them were even mentally ill.
10:55
Kristin: Some were just inconvenient, different, aren't wanted by families who could afford to make them disappear.
11:02
Kristin: Society is slowly waking up to a better understanding of mental health, but the horror-filled past of these institutions still lingers in their burial grounds.
11:10
Kristin: These stories deserve to be told, and they're worthy of the grim.
11:15
Kristin: Then there was Friedrich Aufstorff, a cemetery I chose because of its complicated history.
11:20
Kristin: I say complicated because both of its ties to world wars and the Nazis.
11:25
Kristin: The story was worth retelling, even as I wrestled with some of the individuals buried there.
11:30
Kristin: One of them, a chancellor who served during World War II and grew up in the Hitler youth, made me question whether to include him as a significant burial.
11:39
Kristin: In the end, I decided it was necessary.
11:42
Kristin: History doesn't give us the luxury of a mission.
11:45
Kristin: Even the villains played a vital role in shaping the world we live in today.
11:49
Kristin: And that cemetery reflects that history.
11:51
Kristin: People often forget that the Nazis held power for 12 years, not just the six years of the war.
11:57
Kristin: They left a lasting impression on history, on the people, and on our modern world.
12:03
Kristin: A truth that must be remembered, lest it be repeated.
12:06
Kristin: Then before taking a much-needed break, the Grimm opened the gates to St.
12:10
Kristin: Paul's Cathedral's crypt, along with the history of the cathedral itself.
12:14
Kristin: Back when I lived in London, St.
12:16
Kristin: Paul still towered above much of the city, a breathtaking sight I always loved.
12:21
Kristin: The story of how the cathedral was protected during World War II is remarkable, and it cast a kind of quiet glow over the crypt below.
12:29
Kristin: And then there's the cafe in the crypt, an absolute delight for any tafophile.
12:34
Kristin: I mean, who wouldn't want to enjoy a latte while sitting next to some of Britain's most legendary figures?
12:40
Kristin: The breakthrough gave me time to open the gaze to larger and grander grounds, like Pierre Lachey, Recoletta, and Greenery Burying Ground.
12:48
Kristin: Their history scale on the residence felt a bit daunting during my first year of the Grimm, and I wanted to gain more experience before diving in fully.
12:57
Kristin: That being said, I know another episode will feature even more residents, especially from Pierre Lachey, given the sheer number of notable figures buried there, along with some hauntings I've saved for the future.
13:08
Kristin: While I also covered Trinity Church, including Alexander Hamilton, I felt it was important to diversify the grounds we explored.
13:17
Kristin: That led me to the Tobit of Carthage, an intriguing site full of controversy and history that even today we as a society don't fully understand.
13:27
Kristin: It's the kind of place that challenges how we see the past and makes you wonder what other stories are still waiting to be uncovered.
13:34
Kristin: While the Grim one day will touch all the historic graveyards of the world, I know there's still incredible stories ahead in 2026.
13:42
Kristin: 2025 was a remarkable year for this little niche podcast, but 2026 is already shaping up to be even better.
13:49
Kristin: You'll find us at theshgrim.com, where the stories continue between episodes, and in a world that often feels unkind, your support reminds me just how much the grim means, not just for me, but to all those who walk these paths together.
14:04
Kristin: For now the stories of 2025 slip back into stone, and the dead return to their uneasy rest.
14:11
Kristin: Yet they're never silent for long.
14:13
Kristin: Thank you for walking with us through the veil into 2025, a grim review, descending once more into the hauntings of history.
14:21
Kristin: The gate is sealed, the veil drawn, yet death keeps no calendar, and so we shall return in 2026, as we always do, on the grim.