-
Difficulty:
-
-
Terrain:
-
Size: 
(micro)
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
You are looking for a magnetic key holder.
Ruth Anne Dodge was the wife of General Grenville Dodge, Chief Engineer and Surveyor of the Union Pacific Railroad.
The Angel sculpture at the Ruth Anne Dodge Memorial is said to be the translation of a dream experienced by Mrs. Dodge on the three nights preceding her death in 1916. According to the legend, Mrs. Dodge related to family members that she had a vision of being on a rocky shore and, through a mist, seeing a boat approach. In the prow was a beautiful young woman whom Mrs. Dodge thought to be an Angel. The woman carried a small bowl under one arm and extended the other arm toward Mrs. Dodge in an invitation to partake of the water flowing from the vessel. Then, according to accounts later published by Mrs. Dodge's daughter, Anne, the angel spoke twice, saying: "Drink, I bring you both a promise and a blessing." The daughter wrote that the vision came three times to her mother and, on the third visit, Mrs. Dodge took the drink as offered and felt "transformed into a new and glorious spiritual being." Mrs. Dodge died immediately after her supposed third vision, on September 5, 1916. She had died in her sleep at her home in New York. Her body was brought back to Council Bluffs where she was buried in a mausoleum in Walnut Hill Cemetery.
Mrs. Dodge's two daughters, Miss Anne Dodge and Mrs. Frank Pusey, decided to build a memorial in the memory of their mother complete with a statue sculpted in the likeness of the Angel that appeared in their mother's dream. The memorial was commissioned in 1917 to Daniel Chester French, the same man who sculpted the statue of the Minute Man in Concord, Massachusetts and the Lincoln Memorial Statue in Washington DC. The ten foot tall angel statue is made of solid bronze. The construction of the statue took approximately two years, and the cost of the statue was reported at around $40,000. The Ruth Anne Dodge Memorial is located in a small fenced-in park overlooking and adjacent to the Fairview Cemetery (not the Walnut Hill Cemetery where Ruth Anne was buried).
The water was turned on in the fountain on May 25, 1919, and sometime in 1920 the statue was dedicated during a private ceremony. Around 1960 the water to the fountain was turned off. Initially the Fairview Cemetery Association maintained the statue. In 1964 maintenance of the statue was transferred to the Bluffs Park Board. On three separate occasions between 1965 and 1980, the Park Board considered moving the statue to the General Dodge House, but to this day, the statue remains in its original location. In 1984, the city of Council Bluffs began restoration of the memorial. They fixed the fountain, which had not worked for years, restored flanking inscriptions, put in walkways and flowerbeds, rebuilt the stone aggregate basin, reset the steps, landscaped the entire area, and added accent lighting to the memorial. On June 7, 1985 the water began flowing again in the fountain of the statue. After years of fundraising the restoration of the Black Angel's restoration was celebrated on May 20, 1987.
It is said despite the renovation done, the statue is still called the Black Angel. Some say that the statue refuses to keep its bronze shine, and no matter how often it is polished, it will continue to turn black in color.
The angel statue also has been known to jump off its pedestal and fly around at night. The statue is said to weep real tears at night. The scariest thing said is that if you look into the eyes of the Angel and they turn red, within them you will see how you yourself will one day die.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Nf gurl hfr gb fnl va gur fubj Unccl Qnlf..."Fvg ba vg!"