The Lady in Glass is a lifelike statue of a young woman encased in glass in the Lakeview Cemetery in Jamestown, NY. The statue holds an incredible amount of tales and stories behind it. One of them states that the lady that is seen in the haunting statue died on her wedding night. Her husband left her and she died of a broken heart. There are also many variations of this story. She died in a car crash and her husband created the statue in memory of his beloved wife.The more modern tale tells the story of the lady dying on her prom night. One of the most creepy tales of the lady is that her body is actually encased in the marble of the statue and that the glass is used to keep her from escaping and haunting the cemetery at night. This story however, is about the real person behind the Lady in Glass and how her death was more tragic than any story you can come up with.
Grace Laverne Galloway died on November 2, 1898 of tuberculosis, less than a year after contracting the disease. She was only 27 years old. Although she was born in Jamestown, Grace contracted tuberculosis in Boston where she was studying music which was her passion. She was a promising opera singer who was described as being incedibly independent. Grace’s father, a wealthy man, commissioned an artist in Pittsburgh to model his daughter’s figure in clay after she succumbed to the disease. He then had it sent to Florence, Italy to be carved in marble.The reason the statue of Grace is encased in glass is so the elements do not destroy it.The dress she is wearing in the statue, which is commonly mistaken for a wedding dress is actually her graduation dress. In the end, maybe Grace is trying to break free, not only from the glass that surrounds her, but the rumours and tales as well.