Father Time or Chronos, traditionally depicted with symbols of an hourglass & a scythe, also receives angel wings in Recoleta Cemetery. Several similar statues can be found either in seated or standing position.
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On a winter morning in 1881, Felisa Dorrego de Miró received an unexpected letter at the family mansion in Buenos Aires. Full of eloquent prose & apologies, Felisa read that the cadaver of her recently deceased mother had been stolen from Recoleta Cemetery & a ransom of 2 million pesos was demanded in 24 hours for its return. Shocked & in spite of threats not to involve the police, Felisa reported the theft.
A big, bulky coffin would have been impossible to sneak out without someone noticing, so police deduced the casket must have been hidden somewhere inside the cemetery. Sure enough, a nearby tomb with a broken chain had the coffin of Felisa’s mom stuffed inside. With part of the mystery solved, the police captured the entire gang by paying the ransom & following the trail. The culprits were bored upper-class “gentlemen” looking for a bit of adventure.
Unfortunately no punishment existed on the books for the crime committed. Each member recevied two years in prison for related violations of the law, & in response a new law was added. Article 171 of the Argentine Penal Code still states that a sentence of 2 to 6 years will be given to anyone who steals a cadaver & demands a ransom for its return. Seriously.
Another interesting thing about this tomb is the sculpture. Copied from Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, the statue depicts the only demon in Recoleta Cemetery. A rather smug angel carries a soul to heaven while stomping on a devil with bat wings, a curly, gruesome tail & a pitchfork. No doubt who won this contest:
The few tombstones scattered around the cemetery, the majority from Irish immigrants, are so worn by the elements that it’s difficult to make out all of the text:
A rainy day does wonders for brining out details otherwise hidden:
As part of an aristocratic family & a successful structural engineer, Manuel Ocampo increased his family’s fortune by constructing railroad bridges in Argentina. He had six children… all girls. The oldest, Victoria, & the youngest, Silvina, became major figures in 20th century Argentine literature.
Like most elite families in Buenos Aires, the Ocampo daughters were taught French as their first language & also learned English at any early age. The family traveled to France for extended stays & lived in Paris for two years. After the death of her father, Victoria used the family fortune to establish the literary journal Sur in 1931. It grew to become one of the most important outlets for upcoming, Latin American authors. Sur also published European writers & established a reputation for having some of the best translations into Spanish. Among those presented to an eager Argentine audience were T.S. Eliot & Henry Miller. But the most important writer in Sur was Jorge Luis Borges, whose career was greatly aided by the patronage of Victoria Ocampo.
Victoria was an unconventional woman of her time. A strong-minded feminist, she felt stifled by traditional women’s roles. Victoria married young as expected, but the union quickly turned into disaster when she fell in love with her husband’s cousin. Divorce was not allowed in Argentina during that time, so she conveniently moved to a different bedroom. The in-family love affair didn’t last, & after her husband’s death Victoria never remarried. However, she had many lovers, particularly foreign intellectuals.
As the matriarch of literary culture in Buenos Aires, Victoria hosted lavish parties at family residences & often provided housing for foreign writers to spend months in Argentina. Among the lucky few were a Nobel Prize winning Indian poet & the acclaimed English author Graham Greene. Albert Camus also was a friend of Ocampo’s. Victoria’s sister, Silvina, is also buried here who married the best friend of Borges, Adolfo Bioy Casares.
Instead of an imposing mausoleum, the Ocampo family opted for a crypt with ample room for underground storage:
Biography kindly provided by Jeff Barry, author of Buenos Aires: City of Faded Elegance. Original copies of Sur can still be found for a few pesos at many of the used bookstores along Avenida Corrientes.
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