As the plots thicken Dead men— and women— to tell tales at cemetery tour

Heidi Nye
-Culture Writer-

Not all ghosts are fixated on frightening mere mortals. Some are no different than the living: they simply want to tell their life story to someone who’s really listening.
Such are the ghosts of Long Beach past who inhabit Sunnyside and Municipal cemeteries. On Saturday, Oct. 25, you can hear 13 of them relate their tales of success and failure, joy and tragedy, acceptance and rejection— the very stuff of our own lives but set in another time.
Now in its 19th year, the Historical Society of Long Beach’s (HSLB) annual cemetery tour bills itself as a pre-Halloween event at which “every plot has a story.” HSLB co-president and tour project manager Roxanne Patmor said that, though this year doesn’t have an overarching theme, the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I and the 85th anniversary of the Long Beach Playhouse figured prominently when she and other society members selected five of the “tour guides.”
Steven Dean Lauria, who was in the original Broadway production of the musical Hair, plays Donald Erickson, a Marine who fought in a battle that shifted the course of the war, while actor Zadie Cannon tells of her ghost brother Otto’s service in the Navy.

Cannon, in a salmon-colored sun hat, matching earrings and green ’40s-style dress for the Oct. 18 rehearsal at HSLB’s museum, 4260 Atlantic Ave., said she retired as a city auditor and immediately took up acting: “I left on a Thursday, and on Monday I was on set.” Though she mainly does TV commercials, she is thrilled to be playing Effie Sanders once again. This is unusual, since, to the best of her knowledge, her character is the only ghost who has made a second appearance. Once they’ve told their story, the deceased are metaphorically buried again to make way for fellow plot dwellers.

When Effie materialized previously, however, she told her own story; this time she’s speaking for the entire Gilmore family, who were “trail blazers,” Cannon said, being a few of the 150 African-Americans who resided in Long Beach in 1920. “The people who are buried here are not just the quote-unquote famous, but regular folks too,” she said. “They too had a story to tell, and now we’re telling it for them.”

Director Denis McCourt helps the actors express their characters’ struggles. To Rae Andrada, who embodies the spirit of Ramona Linares, the owner of a popular Mexican restaurant that faced closure in 1941 due to a complaint letter, McCourt suggested that Andrada recall a time when she had faced prejudice: “Take your own life and substitute it for your character’s pain.” And: “Give yourself the freedom to be her.”
“I am a big believer in the power of personal story,” McCourt said. “The fabric of a community comes through its stories. They are who we are.”

That is certainly the case with Mitch and Jane Nunn, two veteran actors who tell the story of newspaper man Walter Case and his wife, Ethel Case, who founded the Long Beach Playhouse 85 years ago. The Nunns have been acting, directing and volunteering at LBPH since 1979. “We consider the playhouse our second home,” said Mitch Nunn. “I feel deeply connected to the Cases. Ethel’s photo is there whenever I go to the theater. She’s the reason why we’re here.”

Sam Tanng, who plays Japanese-American fisherman Otoji Hara, who fled to Utah during World War II to escape internment, said he too feels a strong connection to his character but through a living person— his 83-year-old father. Like Hara, Tanng’s father provides a lot of background before he gets to his point— what a journalist would call burying the lead. “Hara’s main point is civil rights for everyone,” Tanng said, “but he doesn’t get to that until the very end. This is my father too.”
A ghost not to be missed on this year’s tour is tall-tale teller Capt. Billy Graves (Bob Fetes), whose whoppers about fantastical sea creatures just might have been half-true. “I don’t care how good a story you have,” he said. “It’s how you tell it.” And tell it he does, as if you’re out at sea with him and a storm is soon to engulf your vessel.

HSLB vice president Kaye Briegel said that to find such intriguing characters, she initially walks the cemetery until “names jump out” at her. She then conducts research to uncover their stories. “This gives me the opportunity to do what I did in my job— teach people about Long Beach history,” said the retired Cal State Long Beach professor. “This is not some antiquarian twaddle but something that’s entertaining and alive.”

Briegel and Patmor wrote the majority of the scripts, with Karen Harper writing in the voice of fisherman Hara. Patmor said they don’t have to fret about a shortage of ghost stories: “There are more than 20,000 people buried there. We have material to last us into the next millennium.”

Cemetery tours are Saturday, Oct. 25 from 9am to 2:30 pm. Tickets may be purchased at the gate from 8:30am to noon. Ticket cost is $25 for general admission, $15 for HSLB members and $8 for students 8 to 18 years old. Children under 8 are admitted free. Long Beach Municipal and Sunnyside cemeteries are located at 1095 E. Willow St. For more information, visit HSLB.org or call (562) 424-2220.