The Black Angel

In a few minutes I will make a pilgrimage (or rather, anti-pilgrimage) to Oakland Cemetery to visit a certain statue.

Every locale needs its piece of mythology, and in Iowa City it happens to be the nearly Lovecraftian MYTH OF THE BLACK ANGEL.

It is a bizarre sculpture, not black at the time of creation, found atop the grave of a woman described in the following sentence: “One legend has it that Teresa Feldevert was a very mysterious woman and that her evil caused the angel to turn black.”

There are numerous legends of people coming to bad ends after disrespecting the angel. I for one refuse even to touch it.

Another twist I would add to this legend from personal experience is that the neighborhood is filled with black squirrels. These can’t have always been there, because when my youngest brother was 5 years old and said he had seen one nearby (my grandparents lived not far from the angel), no one believed him. Years later, my father told me that his physician’s friend claims to be the one to have introduced the black squirrels into Iowa City.