16. Mary's Burial (continued)

Mary's body was placed in the cemetery's burial chapel and guarded by police officers while in Helene's words a "crudely painted" coffin was "knocked together" by a local carpenter (Judtmann 163).

A heavy rain storm made it impossible to dig a grave during the night, although it did not deter the unwelcome spectators.

The grave was dug the next morning and the obsequies read at the graveside at about 9 a.m. Rain and high winds made the burial so difficult that Stockau, Baltazzi, Gorup and Habrda had to help the grave diggers place the coffin in the ground.

The grave, of course, was only intended to be temporary until a proper resting place could be prepared for Mary. Helene arranged for a tomb with a stone vault topped by a cross. The crude wooden coffin was replaced by a copper one. On May 16, 1889, more than four months after her death, Mary's body was reburied in the new tomb.

In addition to the tomb Helene, largely at her own expense, commissioned the construction of a chapel which now stands opposite the entrance to the cemetery. Inside the chapel is a spacious crypt for the abbots of Heiligenkreuz.