Death
Cody died of kidney failure on January 10, 1917, surrounded by family and friends at his sister's house in Denver. Cody was baptized into the Catholic Church the day before his death by Father Christopher Walsh of the Denver Cathedral. He received a full masonic funeral. Upon the news of Cody's death, tributes were made by King George V of the United Kingdom, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Imperial Germany, and President Woodrow Wilson. His funeral was in Denver at the Elks Lodge Hall. The Wyoming governor John B. Kendrick, a friend of Cody's, led the funeral procession.
Cody's grave lies atop Lookout Mountain in Golden, Colorado.
At his death, Cody's once great fortune had dwindled to less than $100,000. He left his burial arrangements up to his wife Louisa. She said that he had always said he wanted to be buried on Lookout Mountain, which was corroborated by their daughter Irma, Cody's sisters, and family friends. But other family members joined the people of Cody to say Buffalo Bill should be buried in the town he founded. The controversy continued.
On June 3, 1917, Cody was buried on Colorado's Lookout Mountain in Golden, west of the city of Denver, on the edge of the Rocky Mountains, overlooking the Great Plains. His burial site was selected by his sister, Mary Decker. In 1948 the Cody chapter of the American Legion offered a reward for the "return" of the body, so the Denver chapter mounted a guard over the grave until a deeper shaft could be blasted into the rock.
Read more about this topic: Buffalo Bill
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“This death was his belief though death is a stone.
This man loved earth, not heaven, enough to die.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Perhaps it is nothingness which is real and our dream which is non-existent, but then we feel think that these musical phrases, and the notions related to the dream, are nothing too. We will die, but our hostages are the divine captives who will follow our chance. And death with them is somewhat less bitter, less inglorious, perhaps less probable.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“I could lie down like a tired child,
And weep away the life of care
Which I have borne and yet must bear,
Till death like sleep might steal on me,”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)