Cruse Mausoleum - Resurrection Cemetery - Helena, MT
N 46° 37.656 W 112° 01.174
12T E 421950 N 5164286
The impressive Cruse Mausoleum stands at the center of Resurrection Cemetery, being the final resting place of Helena businessman Thomas Cruse and his family, and there's a tale regarding Mamie, his daughter...
Waymark Code: WM11WVQ
Location: Montana, United States
Date Posted: 12/31/2019
Views: 5
A native of Ireland, Thomas Cruse immigrated to the United States in 1856. He prospected for gold across multiple states before coming to Helena in 1867. By 1876, his hard work paid off, literally, as he made his fortune northwest of Helena in Marysville with the Drumlummon Mine. After he sold the mine, he remained active in business, including mining, and he operated multiple banks: Some of his money was used towards building the state capitol and the St. Helena Cathedral.
Cruse married Margaret Carter in 1886, but Mrs. Cruse didn't survive the year, dying from complications from the birth of their daughter, Mary Margaret, who was known as "Mamie". Mr. Cruse had to raise Mamie himself, but as a young adult, she found plenty of trouble, being described as spoiled and stubborn. Mr. Cruse stopped an attempted elopement when Mamie was seventeen, but she went onto have a short marriage with a broker, ending in divorce, and she remarried in 1911. A staunch Catholic, Mr. Cruse didn't approve, and when Mamie was picked up in the streets of Butte in 1913, she was placed in the care of the sisters at the House of the Good Shepherd in an attempt to straighten her out. That she was an alcoholic was common knowledge, and rumors buzzed about possible drug addiction and loose behavior. She died in 1913 of what was then called "Bright's Disease" (acute nephritis), and was buried with her mother in the old St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery in Helena.
Just after Mr. Cruse died in 1914, St. Helena Cathedral was dedicated, and besides having put up money for its construction, he also left a final gift to his daughter: Fifteen bronze bells inscribed with "In memory of Mary Margaret Cruse, by her father, Thomas" are still rung on special occasions today. Presumably, the mausoleum was complete by 1914, as the Findagrave pages for both Margaret Cruse and Mamie Cruse note that they were disinterred from St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery at some point that year and placed inside this mausoleum.
Take a troubled daughter who'd been divorced -- a Roman Catholic no-no -- add an exhumation from an old cemetery that was left to fall into ruins, and you have the makings for a good story. Ellen Baumler's "Spirit Tailings: Ghost Tales from Virginia City, Butte and Helena" has a little blurb about the mausoleum:
Residents of the neighborhood north of the cemetery grounds and motorists passing by have remarked over the years that when night is especially dark, they have noticed something white moving about in the cemetery. The faintly glowing something catches the eye as it floats near the Cruse mausoleum. Sometimes it roams among the headstones of the neatly manicured grounds. One resident claims that the cemetery caretaker told her that whoever it is makes frequent appearances. Surely the restless spirit is Mamie, dressed in white as she often did, and as lost in death as she was in life.