The Funeral
Barbara Graham's funeral was held at 9:15 in the morning on the second day after her execution, in a small, private slumber room at the Keaton Mortuary. Barbara was laid out in a dark gray casket, very plain, unadorned except for a spray of red roses, with a drape of pink snapdragons over it.
Father McAlister, the San Quentin chaplain, delivered a brief, more or less generic sermon that could have applied to anyone. Henry Graham, who had driven up from Los Angeles, broke down and sobbed pitifully throughout. Little Tommy was not there.
Sitting nearby, also crying, but quietly and more restrained, were three former Seagulls from the old days back in Oakland, who had known Barbara since she was 12 years old. "Bonnie -- that's what we always called her," one of them said, " -- was always so lonely and mixed up. No one really loved her. Her own mother never cared anything about her, and that always bothered her a lot -- she couldn't understand why her own mother couldn't even love her."
"I know she did a lot of things that were wrong and against the law," another said, "but I'll never believe she was guilty of this crime."
These young women still lived in the Oakland area. They had never made it very far up the social or economic ladders -- but they hadn't ended up on death row either. They probably counted their respective blessings on this day.
During the short funeral procession to Mt. Olivet Cemetery, just outside town, Henry Graham sadly pondered what he was going to tell Tommy. "I took him to visit her a lot when she was down at Corona," he said. "He always looked forward to those visits so much. Now I don't know what I'm going to tell him. Maybe I can just say that Mommy moved some place that's too far away to visit."
Father McAlister's graveside service was very brief, and then it was all over.
"Well, at last she's in peace," Henry Graham said as he left her grave.
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