Ironton Celebrates a Century of Edward Gorey

Some recent comments (Jan. 15, 2025) about noted author and illustrator Edward Gorey from the Ironton (Ohio) Tribune:

Acclaimed author and illustrator Edward Gorey was born on Feb. 22, 1925, and, though he never lived in Ironton, his ashes were quietly interred at the cemetery after his death at age 75 on April 15, 2000.

Gorey’s interment at Woodland was done without announcement and really only became publicly known after the publication of author Mark Dery’s 2018 biography of the artist, “Born to be Posthumous,” which revealed the location of the gravesite (a portion of Gorey’s ashes are also buried at his Massachusetts home, which is open to the public as a museum).  Shortly after the publication of Dery’s book, the news became known here in Lawrence County after a reader of the book, Randy Blair, an Ironton native living in New York City, contacted The Tribune after being surprised by the information.  Since the information became known, Gorey has been added to the Lawrence County Museum’s Historic Cemetery Walk, which takes place each fall, while several videos online have been made by fans to document their pilgrimage to Ironton to visit his grave.

While his mother also did not live in Ironton, she was buried at Woodland, as the city was the ancestral home of the family. The illustrator’s great-grandmother. Charlotte Sophia St. John, who lived from 1811-1895, is the most recent member of the family to have resided here. She shares the same name with Charlotte Sophia, the main character of Gorey’s book, “The Hapless Child.”