As Chaste As His Ice

The grave monument for Ida C. Craddock. This sex radical, spiritualist, and mystic took her own life in 1902 after being hounded by the anti-vice crusader Anthony Comstock for the alleged "obscenity" of her writings. Jailed many times, her suicide brought on a national outrage. The only surviving source for her middle name, Celanire, is this obelisk, which is less than a mile from my place.

Ida wrote about marriage and gave advice to newlyweds about sexual relations, and she based her knowledge on her own relations with her spirit-husband Soph. Just after her death, her mother stated to the Press that Ida had been "As pure as God's snow and as chaste as his ice."