Sandy the Dog Mausoleum

A Man’s Best Friend Goes Out in Style. Let’s get one thing straight from the get-go: man’s best friend is the dog. With all due respect to the pet proclivities of lovers of ferrets, finches, hamsters, horn toads, pythons, parrots, cats, and other critters, no other creature holds a candle to the dog. Dogs rule. Just ask Tony LaMura.

Tony LaMura comes from a family of thoroughbreds—Thoroughbred Italians—100% Italian on both sides, with lots of Emestinas, Fedricos, Giuseppis, Assuntas, and Anthonys. When Tony was a kid, he had a purebred German Shepherd with the fitting name of Major. Young Tony became very attached to Major, but Major died when Tony was 12, and the young boy was devastated. Not long after Major died, Tony asked his mother if they could get another dog, but his mother said, “No,” not out of meanness but out of compassion for Tony. She just didn’t want to have him go through the inevitable loss of another pet. “You get too attached,” she told him.

And so it was. Tony LaMura went on with his life, doing what people do, dabbling in the family construction and contracting business, eventually becoming a real estate developer and investor in New York. Then one rainy April day in 1992, while he was inspecting one of his commercial properties in the Bronx, he spied a medium-sized sandy-colored dog wandering around the loading dock. A stray. And a mutt to boot. It was love at first sight. Can a person and a dog have a special unspoken affinity for each other just like people do? You bet. Just ask anyone who has gone to the local pound to find a dog. It’s a feeling. A look. A special something. A certain je ne sais quoi. What could he do? He scooped her up and took her home. Home to the family. Like any proper Italian family, there were always plenty of people around, and it was a good thing. Sandy (which is what Tony eventually named her) was a people dog. It didn’t matter who you were, Sandy wanted to know you. Whether you were a family member, or just someone walking down the street, it didn’t matter to Sandy.

Of course there was one special person in Sandy’s life, and that was Tony LaMura. “She was incredibly smart,” he said, “she really didn’t need to be trained in the traditional sense. Tell her something a couple times and she just knew what to do.” He explained, “Tell her ‘sleep’ and she put her head down. Tell her ‘bed’ and off she went to my bed.” He said that even the vet was impressed. And Sandy even liked fireworks. “My other dog, Major, like most dogs, would cower on the 4th of July. Not Sandy. She loved fireworks. Mostly, I think because there were so many people around.”

The vet told Tony that Sandy was about three months old when he found her and that she was exceptionally alert. The vet said she might have had a bit of pit bull in her, which wouldn’t be unusual for New York, but she also had a very fox-like face, maybe a bit like a terrier. Okay, she was a mutt. Sometimes Tony would take Sandy with him when he visited the family mausoleum in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. Occasionally, Sandy would want to get out of the car and Tony obliged. After all, dogs do need to do certain things. And Tony was a lot owner. There are certain privileges that go with property ownership at Woodlawn. One day their walk through the cemetery’s bucolic grounds took a turn. Tony and Sandy ran into Amos and Ole, Woodlawn’s Historical Preservation director Susan Olsen’s industrial-sized cats. Amos and Ole constituted Woodlawn’s rodent eradication team, and they had their home turf—turf that the unsuspecting Sandy was about to invade. Sandy may have had a bit of pit bull in her, but she was no match for Olsen’s mega-felines (each weighed around 17 pounds). In short order, Amos and Ole dispensed with Sandy, and off went Tony LaMura and the bloodied Sandy to the vet. After hearing about the incident, Olsen feared the worst. Thoughts of revenge and lawsuits haunted her. Then she got a call from “Mr. LaMura.” She cautiously picked up the phone expecting the worst. But all he wanted to know was if the cats had their shots. And he apologized saying that Sandy had invaded Amos’ and Ole’s territory.

It was the beginning of a long friendship. A friendship that centered on their love for their pets. Tony would often take Sandy to special events at Woodlawn, making sure to give Amos and Ole a wide berth. They also had a friendly rivalry, verbally sparring about which animal was superior to the other (as long as Olsen’s ferocious felines were allowed to go one on one with Sandy rather than ganging up on her). Inevitably those talks sometimes focused on cemeteries and memorialization and the inevitable. The years were ticking on. The time would come when Tony would have to say goodbye to another beloved pet. Tony and Susan talked about Hartsdale Pet Cemetery just a few miles away. Hartsdale was established in the late nineteenth century and had a solid reputation. Tony told Susan that when Sandy was only three years old, he purchased a plot for her. Susan told Tony that she planned on getting a plot for her cats.

As the years went by, the bond between Tony and Sandy grew stronger, and he made a decision about Sandy’s eternal home. Sandy would not spend eternity in the cold, cold ground; she’d spend it just like the LaMuras would, in a mausoleum. LaMura contacted Peacock Memorials in Valhalla, New York. Peacock had built the LaMura Mausoleum in 1967 and had fabricated other mausoleums in Woodlawn, including the original Helmsley Mausoleum. After a bit of head-scratching over the design, Peacock fabricated a mausoleum for Sandy in 2005. The mausoleum is constructed of five tons of Barre granite and rests on top of a seven-foot-deep reinforced concrete foundation. The bronze door is 90 percent copper and has a door handle in the shape of an S. Sandy’s mausoleum is sympathetic to the design of the LaMura Mausoleum, but Sandy’s mausoleum has just one crypt while the LaMura has a dozen. On special days, Tony would take Sandy to the LaMura Mausoleum in Woodlawn and also to her mausoleum in Hartsdale.

Then the day came. After being ravaged by bladder cancer and suffering the effects of a stroke, it was time for Sandy to be put down. And on a rainy April day in 2007, Tony brought Sandy to the vet to say goodbye. They had come full cycle–into and out of each other’s lives on rainy April days. Tony put Sandy to rest in her own mausoleum. Six months earlier, Susan Olsen’s cat Amos was cremated at Hartsdale. Tony LaMura used Lincoln Park Funeral home in Yonkers, the same funeral home the LaMuras have used for years, to get Sandy’s casket. Joe Casario, the owner and funeral director helped Tony select a child’s casket.

Tony LaMura doesn’t know if he will get another dog. “I’m not going out looking for one,” he says. “If I’m supposed to have another one, God will put one in front of me. My mother said I get too attached. Yeah, that’s true. But that’s what love is all about. Getting attached. I’m a very respectful person. Everybody has a life to be remembered, a story to tell. My mother died in the fall of 2009 at age 101 and a half. I told her that when she died, I was going to get her the best casket money could buy. She said she didn’t want that. But I got her the same casket Harry Helmsley and George Steinbrenner had. She’s my mom and deserves at least as much respect as them. When dad died in 1973, mom put him in the same casket Tommy Manville had. And Sandy, she deserves respect too. She loved everybody. She was special and I wanted to give her a last special gift. I wanted to send her out in style.”

Text and copy © Douglas Keister Visit Doug’s Author Page

DKeister

Tony LaMura
Woodlawn Cemetery
Bronx, New York

Hartsdale Pet Cemetery
Hartsdale, New York