The Dumb Trail That I Loved

The week before Teague and I left for our last runaway trip of the Summer, I had been watching a bunch of Claude Rains movies on Tubi.  He's probably best known for playing the title role in The Invisible Man and for his role as Captain Louis Renault in Casablanca starring Humphrey Bogart.  I've loved his performances in a lot of movies Mr. Skeffinton, Now, Voyager, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, but I love him best as Prince John in The Adventures of Robin Hood

Rains has the most delicious voice especially when he's trying to beg forgiveness from his brother, King Richard the Lionheart. John pleads, "But Richard, Richard."

TCM Tribute to Claude Rains, narrated by Richard Chamberlain

If you don't know who he is, you've missed some seriously great acting and films. I got curious about him as I was watching these old movies so read his bio on IMDB.com and found that he had lived in New Hampshire not far from where we were going.

Teague had asked me if there was anything in particular I wanted to do. I told her I did, but it was a dumb trail. I think her brother coined the term dumb trail or they coined it together. A dumb trail thing is usually a tourist thing, that sounds like it will be lots of fun until you get there. And then underwhelming. This is it? Anyways, my dumb trail was only a half an hour north of where we would be staying. Could we head up that way. Sure. Teague's a good sport.

We stopped at a rest area on the way to New Hampshie. This cloud reminded me of the iconic New Hampshire emblem, The Old Man in the Mountain.

Some of the best times I've had with Teague involve a traipse through a cemetery and since we had time to kill before we could check in, we headed to Red Hill Cemetery on Bean Road in Moultonborough, New Hampshire so I could visit the grave of Claude Rains.

The cemetery is tiny and is in the middle of a residential area. We passed the entrance because it looked like a driveway in an empty lot. Turning around we overshot the entrance again and entered a very narrow entrance to another cemetery. Since the two cemeteries were close to each other, we thought maybe the roads would connect. Nope. And there was no exit. Teague masterfully backed her Moose onto the main road and we made our way to Red Hill Cemetery.

From pictures I had seen on Find A Grave, I knew the cemetery was small and the graves would be easy to find. The headstones were distinctive from the other monuments in the cemetery. 

Claude is buried next to his 6th wife, Rosemary McGroarty Clark. She passed 3 years before he did.

Somewhere along the way, I read that Rains designed and wrote the epitaph on his gravestone. I imagine he selected the epitaph on his wife's headstone, too.

"When I am dead, my dearest,

Sing no sad songs for me"

When I Am Dead, My Dearest - Christina Rossetti

the inscription continues:

Father,

In thy gracious keeping.

Leave we now

Thy servant sleeping.

Claude Rains

1889 - 1967

"All things once, 

Are things forever,

Soul once living,

Lives forever

In previous photos, visitors left small tokens of remembrance. There was a Wolfman doll (Rains played the father of Larry who became a werewolf in The Wolfman. Someone had left an Invisible Man figure. There were also flowers, a pumpkin. I was a little disappointed that these type of items had been cleared by the cemetery groundskeepers. Still Claude had some visitors before I got there. There were a few quarters, other coins, and some small stones. I left the roundish, white stone. 

The end of the dumb trail turned out to be there was no exit from this cemetery either. There was an open gate at the far end, but then it looked to be someone's property. Nothing to be done about it so Teague turned the car around as quickly as she could, and we bid a fond adieu to Claude and Rosemary Rains. 

Hey, Buddy? I found some references to Rains' home in Sandwich, New Hampshire: His house is located on Rt. 109 in nearby Sandwich, at the intersection of Little Pond Road and Wentworth Hill Road. We probably went by it or we were very close. Can we go see this, next time?