Grave Info for Corrine’s Leg

The email heading caught me up short. And the first sentence didn’t make me feel any better.

SMITH AMPUTATED LEG OF CORRINE 1896–11–02, lot 416 section 36

Dr. Elizabeth Foley O’Connor knew I would be going out to Greenwood Cemetery to search for graves related to our joint passion, searching for the family of Pamela Colman Smith, co-creator of the best-selling tarot deck of all time. Elizabeth had just emailed me the record of the coordinates for the gravesite of the amputated leg of Pamela’s Mother, Corrine. Pamela Colman Smith’s background is messy and complicated, with many unanswered questions, but I was hoping to find more answers on her family’s background. There is growing interest from fans of her tarot deck, which has sold over 100 million copies in 20 countries, as to Pamela’s heritage, ethnicity and descendants, and I have worked with several other experts on her story.

So, why was Pamela’s mother’s leg shipped from St. Andrews, Jamaica in July 1896 and delivered in Brooklyn five months later? And why was only Corrine Smith’s amputated leg sent back to be buried and not her whole body? I wrote Elizabeth I would take pictures and get back to her with what I found.

Corrine’s husband, Charles Edward Colman, was the son of the one-time mayor of Brooklyn, Cyrus Porter Smith. In addition to being mayor, Cyrus was…