For many, October’s cool days and longer evenings invoke feelings of spookiness leading up to a frenzied demonstration on Halloween night. But in Asheville, the turning of the leaves signals a great season to visit Riverside Cemetery for another reason: its beauty.
If you fancy yourself a local historian, cemetery tourist, or simply a nature lover, there is much to see at Riverside, including the final resting places of two prominent Asheville authors. But there is an etiquette to visiting them these days. Here are two appropriate things to place on the graves of O. Henry and Thomas Wolfe.
The Grave of O. Henry (1862–1910)
William Sydney Porter was born in Greensboro, NC during the height of the American Civil War. In his early thirties, while working at a bank in Houston, Texas, an auditor caught Porter at an embezzlement scheme. He was sentenced to five years in prison; he served three of those years in Ohio. It was while he was in prison that Porter began writing and publishing short stories with ironic twists under the pen name O. Henry. After he was released, O. Henry and his wife moved to Asheville, where the author took an office downtown. In 1910, O. Henry died of cirrhosis of the liver, caused by his heavy drinking, and was buried in Asheville’s Riverside Cemetery.
Today, an arrow on a post guides visitors to the grave of “William S. Porter / O. Henry”. Many people who come to pay their respects also leave pennies on his flat gravestone. In his most famous short story, “The Gift of the Magi”, a poor couple count their coins and sell their most prized possessions in order to buy Christmas gifts for each other, each unbeknownst to the other. The pennies left at O. Henry’s grave today pay homage to the love and sacrifice of the characters in his beloved holiday tale.
The Grave of Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938)
Known today as Asheville’s Native Son, Thomas Clayton Wolfe was, in fact, the youngest child of W.O. and Julia Wolfe, business owners in Asheville at the turn of the 20th century. Young Tom stayed at his mother’s side as she ran a popular boarding house downtown (now a State Historic Site). Thomas Wolfe would loosely fictionalize his childhood at the boarding house, along with the traumatic death of his brother, in his first novel, Look Homeward, Angel. The novel made Wolfe a star, but locals who recognized themselves among his characters took offense. Wolfe would not return to Asheville until several years later, once local gossip had been tamped down—and shortly before his untimely death. Thomas Wolfe would die in Baltimore, Maryland, of quickly spreading miliary tuberculosis. His body was brought back to Asheville, where he was buried in the family plot next to his beloved brother, Ben.
Wolfe was a giant of a man, measuring at least six-foot-five, and was known to write his drafts longhand in pencil on a steno pad—tearing off pages during moments of frenetic inspiration and flinging them across the room as he went. It was up to a secretary to gather the pages and make sense of them in type. Visitors to Thomas Wolfe’s grave today (also marked at Riverside Cemetery with an arrow) leave him pencils so he can continue writing the stories he did not have the time to share in life.
About Riverside Cemetery in Asheville, NC
Historic Riverside Cemetery (53 Birch Street, Asheville) is a Victorian rural garden cemetery that’s more moving than morbid. In fact, the City maintains the cemetery as both a burial ground and a public park. Riverside is hidden in the back of Asheville’s historic Montford neighborhood on 87 acres of rolling hillsides. While you’re there, pay tribute to any of a number of Asheville celebs, including photographer George Masa, artist Kenneth Noland, and Lillian Exum Clement Stafford, the first woman elected to the North Carolina General Assembly.
Learn More about These Great Authors on the AVL Lit Tour
Worried that walking around a cemetery is not your thing? There are other ways to get up close and personal with O. Henry, Thomas Wolfe, and other literary greats with connections to Asheville, NC. Learn about many Asheville-related authors, from the 19th century to the present, on the next AVL Lit Tour.
Asheville Literary Tours are a great respite to enjoy the city’s sites and also grow your minds. Book your 90-minute AVL Lit Tour today!