The TalkDeath Cemetery Scavenger Hunt encourages people to appreciate and learn about local cemeteries and their histories. It invites community members to visit cemeteries, reducing stigma and demonstrating that cemeteries can be spaces for the living. Participants learn about memorial iconography and history, connect with their community, spend time with friends and loved ones, and reflect on mortality.
This year’s Cemetery Scavenger Hunt will be on Sunday, October 26th at 2:30 pm ET/ 1:30pm CT/ 12:30pm MT/ 11:30am PT! You can attend and participate at any local cemetery of your choice that is open to the public. While we strive to include a spectrum of clues, the more historic and diverse your cemetery, the wider variety of clues you’re likely to find (think older cemeteries that have upright monuments and gravemarkers). We cannot guarantee that every cemetery has every clue, but we do try our best to ensure folks participating across diverse regions and cultures will be able participate, learn more about their cemetery, and have a good time.
Jump to: Cemetery Partners / Death Work Partners / Participating Vendors
TalkDeath 2025 Halloween Cemetery Scavenger Hunt
How TalkDeath’s Halloween Cemetery Scavenger Hunt Works:
Invite your friends and check in with your local death collectives to see if they are participating as well. The more, the spookier!
- Arrive at your local cemetery of choice at least 10 minutes before the start time
- Wait for the clues to drop at at 2:30pm ET/ 11:30am PT (clues are simultaneously posted on our Instagram, Facebook, and our website)
- Explore the cemetery looking for monuments that match the clues (think symbolism, names, dates, etc.) within 45 minutes
- When you find a clue, take a selfie with it (selfie can simply include your hand – something to identify it’s you in all photos)
- Upload all found clues in the provided form and submit before the end of the 45 minutes (link to form will be shared closer to event date)
- Winners will be announced an hour after clues are due
- Prizes will be awarded to whoever finds 13 clues first, the highest number of clues found, and accolades such as most creative photography!
More details, rules and clues to come, so stay tuned on our socials to keep in the loop!
Raising Funds for The Black Cemetery Network
We are so excited to share that this year’s event is especially special as we’ll be raising funds for the Black Cemetery Network. The Black Cemetery Network (BCN) is a national platform for highlighting activities to identify, interpret, preserve, and record African American burial grounds and their histories. Emphasis is placed on identifying, honoring, archiving, and preserving historic Black Cemeteries that have been erased, marginalized, underfunded, unmarked, or abandoned. These cemeteries contain stories about people, places, and families that are often missing from hometown histories and the larger public narrative.
By working in partnership with people and organizations actively engaged in protecting the legacy of Black cemeteries in their communities, the BCN is helping to ensure that stories told on their platform may be shared for years to come.
Support the BCN
You can support the BCN by making a donation or buying some limited edition tote bags!
- Purchase a tote bag here
- Make a donation to the BCN (without purchasing a tote)
- Visit one of our Death Work partners during the scavenger hunt and purchase a tote bag in person
This Year’s Cemetery Partners
We are honored to partner with some amazing cemeteries this year! Our partnering cemeteries will be welcoming guests to their grounds for the scavenger hunt (and some of the TalkDeath staff will be there handing out some free merch).
*You can however attend any local cemetery (that is open of course) near you!*
Elmwood Cemetery (Columbia, SC)
Elmwood Cemetery is a historic rural cemetery located at Columbia, South Carolina. It was established in 1854, and expanded in 1921.It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. |
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First Parish Burial Ground (Newbury, MA)
This historic colonial cemetery dates back to the mid 17th century. Oldtown Burial Ground was an earlier name of First Parish Burying Ground, Newbury, Essex County, Massachusetts, as the cemetery expanded, it became known as First Parish Burying Ground, being located across from the First Parish Meeting House, and now across from the First Parish Church of Newbury, Massachusetts.A committee of Parishioners and community members are active in restoring this sacred and historical site. |
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Forest Lawn Cemetery (Buffalo, NY)
There’s no place like Forest Lawn. As one of the first deliberately designed and professionally landscaped rural cemeteries in the United States, its first interment took place in 1850. Today, there are more than 165,000 permanent residents in this 269-acre, not-for-profit cemetery, where all are welcome. |
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Graceland Cemetery (Chicago, IL)
Graceland in Chicago, IL: Graceland was established in 1860; its innovative design used native plants to create the cemetery’s pastoral landscape, which today makes it one of the most beautiful places in Chicago for residents and tourists to visit. |
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Green-Wood (Brooklyn, NY)
Green-Wood in Brooklyn, NY: Founded in 1838 and now a National Historic Landmark, Green-Wood was one of the first rural cemeteries in America. After almost two centuries, Green-Wood is as beautiful as it was at its founding. |
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Greenwood Cemetery (Orlando, FL)
Established in the 1880s, Greenwood Cemetery is the final resting place of over 40,000 Central Florida residents. For its first four decades, the cemetery was known as Orlando Cemetery, with the name change reflecting both the vast green landscape and the name of the prominent street at the cemetery’s entrance. The cemetery includes the graves of many prominent citizens whose stories have shaped the history of Orlando. |
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Lake View Cemetery (Seattle, WA)
Lake View Cemetery, in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle, is home to a rich history, stunning views, and its fair share of celebrity interments. It presents a beautiful opportunity to honor the rich history of the region and its many generations of inhabitants. |
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Lone Fir Cemetery (Portland, OR)
Nestled in Southeast Portland, Lone Fir Cemetery is one of Oregon’s most treasured historic places and Portland’s second-largest arboretum. Lone Fir is one of Portland’s oldest continuously used cemeteries and is now a de facto arboretum, with more than 700 trees representing 67 species. |
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Monroe Street Cemetery (Cleveland, OH)
Monroe Street Cemetery was designated a Historic Landmark by the City of Cleveland Landmarks Commission in 1973. The Monroe Street Cemetery Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, all volunteer organization was established to preserve and enhance the historic cemetery grounds, headstones, monuments and burial structures, as well as providing educational opportunities for the general public and other public awareness activities. |
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Mount Moriah Cemetery (Philadelphia, PA)
Since its establishment in 1855, the rolling landscape of Mount Moriah Cemetery has been an inclusive final resting place for Philadelphia’s diverse population, welcoming of all races and incomes, and adapting to changing burial needs of its diverse communities. Once one of Philadelphia’s grand rural cemeteries, Mount Moriah Cemetery and Arboretum is approximately 200 acres that spans across Southwest Philadelphia and Yeadon Borough. |
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North Burial Ground (Providence, RI)
The North Burial Ground (NBG) opened its gates in 1700 and is the largest municipal cemetery in the region at around 110 acres and with more than 40,000 gravestones. The cemetery contains an eclectic collection of funerary sculptures ranging from simple slate markers to elaborate mausoleum structures. North Burial Ground celebrates the diversity of Rhode Island’s history by caring for the burial sites of Black people, Indigenous people, immigrants, religious minorities, and the poor. NBG is an active cemetery with over 200 burials a year. The NBG mission is to remember the deceased, comfort the living, and preserve the historical destination for the community. |
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Riverside Cemetery (Waterbury, Connecticut)
Riverside Cemetery is significant for its landscape architecture, which beautifully reflects the natural landscape style and rural cemetery design introduced in the 1830’s. The landscape is graced with winding paths, ponds, and ornamental plantings. |
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This Year’s Death Work & Collective Partners
In addition to cemetery partners, this year we are collaborating with some incredible collectives, individuals, and death-adjacent groups to bring you merch and death education. If you live nearby one of these cemeteries, please come out to meet them and get a treat!
Angel of Death and Friends Podcast @ Graceland Cemetery (Chicago, IL)
Angel Luna is a comedian, musician, and sometimes magician, he is the co-host of the podcast Death and Friends. The show examines key moments in the cultural history of deathways, with a lack of maturity and jokes at the expense of his cohost. He is also a member of the band Fey Babies, music available on all your streaming platforms. When he is not avoiding deadlines or lawless government agents, is online @guerrillajokes. |
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Ashley Coleman @ Lone Fir Cemetery (Portland, OR)
Ashley Coleman is a Portland, OR based death doula whose involvement in the death and grief spaces range from art to funeral celebrancy to grief support and more. She is the founder/host of the peer-led support group Substance Loss Oregon: https://substancelossoregon.com/ |
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Death Doula Does @ Lone Fir Cemetery (Portland, OR)
Colleen (ʻoia/they/them) is a Kanaka Maoli, Queer, mutual aider, community-oriented death doula. Supporting those dying, caregivers for the dying, and grievers for over a decade. Their work focuses on art-based grief spaces, queer end-of-life planning, and teaching how to be with death. Keep up with their work Linktr.ee/DeathDoulaDoes |
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PDX Queer Death Collective @ Lone Fir Cemetery (Portland, OR)
The PDX Queer Death Collective is reclaiming death care as a collective and liberatory practice. Through end-of-life mutual aid, peer-led grief support, and community-rooted death care, we center queer, disabled, racialized, and marginalized communities – while working to dismantle carceral and for-profit systems. Website: pdxqdc.com, Instagram: @queerdeathcollective.pdx |
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This Year’s Vendors
Giroux is a full time Canadian illustrator and part-time cemetery keeper. When she’s not designing board games or making art, she’s helping to restore her family’s small, 220+ year old cemetery, an ongoing project you can follow on Instagram at @_grave_matters/
The Age of Ornament are fourth generation makers of relief plaques and small statuary for either indoor or garden settings. We like to focus on the mythic, the occult, and the old gods who watch over (and under) us.
Jeff Osgood is a working and teaching ceramic artist celebrated for his distinctive black-and-white pottery rooted in death iconography. His body of work, Clay of the Dead, features gravestones, skulls, crypts, willow trees, and epitaphs—drawing from historic cemeteries and New England folk art traditions. Collectors are drawn to Jeff’s work for a variety of reasons: some are captivated by its ties to cemetery art, history, and symbolism, while others find comfort in the pieces as tangible mementos of deceased loved ones. At its core, Jeff’s pottery serves as a memento mori—a reminder to live fully and intentionally. Though centered on themes of mortality, he feels that his work is not solely dark but reflective and deeply human. Through his artistry, Jeff Osgood invites viewers to consider the beauty found in impermanence, the power of remembrance, and the inspiration that can emerge from even life’s most difficult transitions.
“Chthonic Apothecary is an herbalist and artisan collective creating offerings of wildcrafted & homegrown herbal medicine, sacred art & ritual tools, and educational zines that share wisdom & resources on grief, death, dying, & practical herbalism. Our zine on herbal deathcare was written by collective members Erik Montoya, a hospice nurse, Mexica danzante, & clinical herbalist, and Summer Downs, an end-of-life doula, death witch, folk herbalist, & celebrant/ritualist. We are devoted to the land, our ancestors, & the Beloved Dead, and we are passionate about spreading community education that supports all people in remembering how to tend to each other during sacred threshold times.”
“We’re Sunny and CJ, co-owners of Covencraft Apothecary. Fascinated with the rite-like practices involved in both magic and self-care, we’ve set out to craft restorative self-care rituals, otherworldly home goods, and useful tools for magical practice that all possess a darkly romantic sophistication intended for those who love good, quality product but aren’t afraid of the dark.”
In an attempt to overcome an irrational fear of their own mortality, artist Britt Henderson began incorporating animal bones into their work in their teens. As they learned to process animal remains from flesh to bone, they gained a further understanding of death through the beauty of decay. Now in their early 30s, Britt continues to quail their fears and create pieces that not only capture the beauty in death, but the fleeting moments of life surrounding it.
Photographer and taphophile based in Colorado. Passionate about exploring the intricate details and rich stories behind each stone and statue, creating evocative images that celebrate both the elegance and mystery these serene landscapes hold. Grave & Glimmer’s work focuses on the unique interplay of light and shadow, revealing the artistry of decay and emotions tied to remembrance. Grave & Glimmer would be honored to create unique images with you, kindly email for private photoshoots and custom projects graveandglimmerphoto@gmail.com.
MoonVine Grief and Howl & Hold: Feral Grief Zine are the projects of Elle (Lori) Zaspel LCSW, a psychotherapist, grief activist, death educator, and content creator. They companion grievers through loss, identity shifts, and life transitions, offering support rooted in warmth, ritual, humor, and curiosity. Their work is grounded in social justice and shaped by a belief in the restorative power of art, creativity, and community.
Old Growth Alchemy is the work of Ash Nunez, creator of curiosities to tempt your senses and enchant your imagination. A purveyor of handcrafted teas and hand bound books by Ashen Briar Bindery-each creation is inspired by stories, fandoms, land, lore, and the occult.
Outside Rites & Corpse Pose Yoga
V Wiley of Outside Rites, Ltd. & Corpse Pose Yoga is a death worker, dementia caregiver, Ecotherapy facilitator, and E-RYT 500 yoga instructor. They incorporate nature reciprocity, grief literacy, and yoga philosophy into their death work and caregiving.
“My name is Diane Irby (dirby.art). I am an artist, historian, and educator specializing in Victorian hairwork, particularly wirework hair flowers, as both a material craft and a social practice within 19th-century American culture. My work is informed by historical research into customs and material practices surrounding memory, remembrance, and mourning; domesticity; and sentimentality, blending scholarly insight with hands-on artistry in order to reconnect us with these meaningful traditions. If you are interested in commissioning me, registering for one of my workshops, or need expert historical consulting, please visit my website.”
“My name is Whitney Bledsoe, I am an artist and funeral director intern in South East Louisiana. I have always been curious about death and the art of funeral services, always wanting to pursue directing from a young age. My art is heavily influenced by death, traditional tattoos, Americana, hoping to give someone something to laugh with or relate to. I think life is too short to be taken too seriously and that we should enjoy what little time we have. I’m very involved in my Art and Pride community, and love making things that bring joy or a laugh out of someone. When I’m not at a funeral service or an art market, I can usually be found in a thrift store or at an estate sale. I’m looking forward to getting my license to help families and to grow my local art community.”
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