The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Franklin’s tomb is open to the public, fans paying their respects
DETROIT — Thousands of people watched in person and millions more observed online and on TV Aug. 31 as Aretha Franklin’s funeral procession advanced up Seven Mile Road toward her final resting place in the main mausoleum of Detroit’s Woodlawn Cemetery.
The interment was closed to the public, but outside the gates was a frenzy of media, celebrity and fan activity. Now, two weeks after the event, the halls of the mausoleum are largely silent. Every once in a while, a fan or two wanders in to pay respects, treating the room with the reverence of a saint’s tomb.
Woodlawn is one of the city’s most prominent cemeteries. Auto barons Edsel and Eleanor Ford are buried there, as are civil rights luminaries Rosa Parks and Aretha Franklin’s father, the Rev. C. L. Franklin. That this is the Queen of Soul’s final resting place is no surprise.
Each room on the mausoleum’s bottom floor, where Aretha is entombed, is made of a different color marble. The room containing Aretha and her father is white marble. Next door, the room one attendant called the Rose Room contains Franklin’s two sisters, interred behind dark red marble facades. The slabs in every room are adorned with gold letters spelling out the names.
Access to the main mausoleum where Franklin’s tomb is located is public and Woodlawn employees — groundskeepers, custodians and sales staff alike — directed a number of pilgrims to her final resting place recently.
One of those who came to pay respects was Linda Ferrell, 69, of Detroit. Ferrell, speaking in hushed tones outside the room where Franklin is interred alongside her father, told the Free Press that she was friends with Aretha’s sister.
Ferrell was among the thousands of fans who witnessed Franklin’s funeral procession in person, waiting outside the cemetery “for hours” while the singer’s hearse approached and then while her body was interred. Still, she wanted to come once more to see for herself.
“I wanted to make sure it was real,” she explained. Now, “it sinks in. You know she passed, but this brings it home.”
It’s one thing to witness the elaborate funeral of a national icon and another thing entirely to visit the grave of someone you’ve known since you were young.
“Aretha was at the fringe of my family,” Ferrell explained, saying she came to see the resting place of Aretha the person, not necessarily Aretha the Queen of Soul.
“They were people, too,” she said of the Franklins. “They were neighbors like everybody else.”