The_Resurrectionist_The_Lost_Work_of_Dr

resurrectionists, grave robbers.
When I was a child I hadn’t the conviction against the belief in God that I have
now. My father was not a religious man, however my grandparents were, and they
gave me a rigorous theological education. I was very much afraid of what we did
those nights; of all the terrible sins a man might commit, stealing the dead seemed
among the worst. In my childish imagination, God’s wrathful arm was ever-ready
and ever-present. And yet I feared my father even more than I feared my God.
My father reminded us there was no cause for trepidation or fear. He would
repeat these things as we dug through the night, as the smell of the body’s decay
rose around us. Soon we reached the soft, damp, wood coffin of Jasper Earl Werthy.
The wood cracked, releasing more of death’s repugnant odor. I put my spade down,
grateful that my father was wrenching the wood and freeing the body himself,
sparing us this task. Jasper’s face was a sunken gray mask; his skin was like a
rotten orange. This is how I came to understand my father’s profession.
Soon afterward, Dr. Black penned another journal entry with a short poem titled “A Dreadful
Sight.” The poem appears to be inspired by his experiences robbing graves. It is the only known work
of poetry found among Dr. Black’s papers and reflects a creative impulse that manifested itself in his
numerous illustrations.
A Dreadful Sight
I went to rest one merry night,
On the morrow was a dreadful sight.
My dear loved one has passed away.
So to the coffin she must stay.
In the earth where ’tis quiet and calm
to rest in peace till the Lord has come.
I go to visit, weep and mourn.
Lo’ my loved one’s body has gone.
Not to heaven where she belongs
but from the grave to the doctor’s room.
In the winter of 1868, Spencer Black’s father, Gregory, died from smallpox, a disease that some
say he would have been brilliant enough to cure had he been given forewarning. Soon after the
funeral, Spencer announced his decision to become a medical doctor. It’s clear throughout Black’s
writings that he thought of death as an abstract concept; he often calls death “the phenomenon of the
living” and even regarded the passing of his own father as more of a curiosity than a tragedy.
As he lay in the ground, and the dirt and the sod were laid over him, all was
quiet. I waited for a long space of time. I waited to hear something: a command or
suggestion, a provocation that might confirm that his death took something away