Episode 8 - Secrets from My Twilight Zone

The Grave of John O’Toole

If this is your first encounter with my story, you may want to start at the beginning here: Secrets from My Twilight Zone.

In 2021, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, I dove down another digital rabbit hole using find-a-grave dot com. To my astonishment, I discovered that John O'Toole, my possible distant relative whose tragic story from the Pittsburgh newspapers had captivated me, was buried just five minutes from my home. This unexpected coincidence felt as if he was subliminally calling me to his grave.

I’m here.

Driving through the century-old wrought iron gates of Calvary Catholic Cemetery, I was greeted by a cinematic panorama. Over the hillside, beyond my view, were the railroad tracks lining the Monongahela River, while a train horn moaned in the distance. The cemetery itself was a sprawling green hillside peppered with thousands of gravestones, their surfaces darkened by the soot from steel mills long silenced, all except one.

How will I find his grave?

The rows of graves, like frozen do…