Introducing the most delightful person in the campus cemetery

The gravestone of Doris Seward is in Dunn Cemetery on the Indiana University Bloomington campus with the Indiana Memorial Union in the background. The death date was originally recorded as two numbers, a two and a zero. Both are crossed out and 1999 is carved in. Below, the stone reads, "She was an optimist." Photo by Marc Lybrek.

Despite Ms. Seward's stated intention to live into the 2000s, she passed in 1999. Photographed by Marc Lybrek in Dunn Cemetery, Indiana University Bloomington.

Meet Doris Seward

Every issue of IU Alumni Magazine begins with Contributors. Contributors are asked to tee-up content deeper in the magazine. It’s a way of further engaging the reader.

Knowing I had a long history with the Indiana Memorial Union, Managing Editor Lacy Nowling Whitaker asked me to introduce a feature about the cemetery that sits next to the union for the Winter 2023 issue.

Here are my 300 words:

In the early 2000s, I worked in the Indiana Memorial Union’s marketing department. I was the only full-time employee. The rest were a band of scrappy, savvy student creatives who made every day fun. The office was on the ground floor in the hinterlands of the business office, which itself was behind the hotel lobby, the post office, and the credit union.

On the exterior, ours was the last window on the stairway that led from Circle Drive to Beck Chapel. As a shortcut to get outside, we regularly crawled out of the window and sat on the wall next to Dunn Cemetery. It started when we got mobile phones — service was lousy in our part of the building. We were soon meeting on the wall most days, talking about our work, going through our project lists, doing our best to promote the Union and all the things that made it awesome.

We came to think of the Dunn family buried in the cemetery as members of our creative team. They joined our conversations:

“Jennet says we should promote the Sugar and Spice no-bakes … Agnes wants to make a commercial for bowling in the Back Alley … Ellenor thinks the building needs signage. She’s been around since 1855 and still can’t find the Tudor Room.”

Doris was our favorite. We imagined her to be our advocate, our cheerleader. She encouraged every idea. After all, her gravestone was the best. Her death was recorded as “20” with the two and zero crossed out, then “1999.” Explainer text followed, “She was an optimist.”

Years later, I met a close friend of Doris’s who affirmed that she was all we had imagined—upbeat, funny, and delightful. Doris had the gravestone created to declare her intention of living long past the turn of the millennium. Despite her best intentions, she passed in 1999, optimism fully intact.