When Rosie Grant took a college course on how social media worked, she never thought a simple suggestion from her professor would lead to viral stardom.
“I was a graduate student in the University of Maryland’s library science program,” Grant told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution “We all had to create a new social media account to test what we were learning, so I picked TikTok.”
Around the same time Grant was working as an intern at the archives of the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C. “My social media professor, Jen Golbeck, suggested I make my TikTok about the cemetery internship and what I was learning,” she said.
Grant’s posts mostly focused on the Congressional Cemetery — until she heard about the grave of Naomi Odessa Miller Dawson in Brooklyn, New York. Dawson’s tombstone includes a recipe for her favorite cookies.
“I loved that it wasn’t just an epitaph that said she liked baking or these cookies, but offered the information for someone to make it themselves. So I tried making it and put the process on Tiktok. When researching more about Naomi, I came across other gravestone recipes, too, so the project grew from there,” she said.
Grant has since discovered countless graves with exciting and tasty recipes. “All of the recipes have been awesome,” she said, but the spritz cookie recipe from Dawson’s grave is one of her favorites because she didn’t even know what a spritz was before trying the recipe herself.
“One woman named Kate Griffith sent the grave recipe from her mother Debra Ann Nelson’s cheese dip recipe and even kindly mailed me a copy of her mom’s recipe book that they handed out at Debra Ann’s funeral. It’s an incredible recipe book and such a personal way to memorialize someone,” said Grant.
Grant’s @ghostlyarchive TikTok has more than 100,000 followers and 7.4 million likes.
