Jules Verne
One of the most influential French authors, poets, and playwrights, was Jules Verne. His works held major importance in the surrealism and avant-garde literary genres. The author was known for carefully researching his subjects before writing about them, so much so that he became the “Father of Science Fiction.”
Verne is buried in the Cimetiere de la Madeleine in Amiens, France. His gravestone depicts the writer bursting out of his grave. Perhaps an ode to one of his most memorable works, “Journey to the Center of the Earth.”
Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder got his start in the late 1920s; he escaped Berlin for Paris before moving out west to Hollywood. Wilder became a successful writer and director, directing major motion pictures like "Some Like It Hot" and "The Apartment."
His comedy writing was so admired that he was awarded both an Oscar and a Lifetime Achievement Award for his work. His last joke, perhaps one of his best, ensured that he'd be recognized in death just as he was when he was alive - full of humor.
Dee Dee Ramone
The Ramone’s bassist and occasional lead singer Dee Dee Ramone was most well-known as one of its founding members. The musician had a hard time singing and playing bass simultaneously; he is credited for writing some of the most popular punk rock band songs of all time.
Sadly, Dee Dee Ramone died before his time due to developments related to substance abuse. Ramone was beloved by fans, and his gravestone is often covered with kisses. His engraving was short and sweet and read, "O.K...I gotta go now."
Thomas Edison
Credited with inventing oodles and oodles – and also shocking an elephant to death, which was fun – Thomas Edison is buried with his wife behind their home in West Orange, New Jersey. He lasted all the way until age eighty-four, passing in 1931, living to see his inventions become world-changing developments.
That's not the only place to see Edison's final resting place, in a way. A test tube in the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit is said to contain Edison's last breath, collected by his son, Charles, as Edison breathed his last.
Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt
When the thirty-second President of the United States died, he was sitting for a portrait that would never be finished. This president, as well as his wife Eleanor, are buried at their lifelong home in Hyde Park, New York. A simple marble headstone has names, birth dates, and death dates set on a finely-manicured lawn.
These Roosevelts helped get America through one of the darkest times in the last hundred years and died mere months before the end of one of the world's greatest conflicts. Suffering from polio for most of his life, it's thought that Eleanor guided him at the end of his life in matters of state.