14 Ashes to Ashes

Indiana University Bloomington’s two cemeteries may seem like a lot for one college campus, but believe it or not, they are not the only two final resting places you can find there. In a nondescript little traffic roundabout between the Frances Morgan Swain Student Building and Maxwell Hall sits a sundial surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. Situated as it is near the iconic Sample Gates and the Student Building’s impressive clock tower, passerby might be tempted not to give this modest feature a second glance, but its history is an interesting one.

Keeping Indiana University on time

The sundial is notable for several reasons, the first being that it is one of Indiana University’s oldest landmarks. It was presented to Indiana University as a gift from the graduating class of 1868 and originally stood on Indiana University’s first campus at Second Street and College Avenue before that campus was destroyed by fire in 1883.¹ In the spring of 1896, the sundial was moved to its new location on the current campus so that the bells that signaled the beginning and end of classes could be adjusted for better accuracy.²

Bringing students together, sometimes for eternity

The sundial also served as a meeting place for students for much of its long existence. Perhaps the most romantic of these rendezvous, immortalized in a tiny bronze plaque at the foot of the sundial, was that of Otto and Mathilda Klopsch:

The inscription reads:

“Mathilda Zwicker Klopsch

Otto Paul Klopsch

Class of 1896

They met at this sundial

when classmates.

Their ashes rest here together until eternity.”

Following Otto and Mathilda’s graduation from Indiana University, they were happily married for thirty-seven years, until Mathilda’s death in 1933. Otto passed away two years later. Otto and Mathilda had often reminisced fondly about their college years to their three children. So fondly, in fact, that following Otto’s passing in 1935 the couple’s son Otto Klopsch, Jr. met with Indiana University president William Lowe Bryan  and asked permission to spread his parents’ ashes at the site of their usual college rendezvous³. Bryan granted that permission, and the couple now rests eternally at the site of their happiest college days.