RUTH ANNE DODGE MEMORIAL
Monument — Lafayette Avenue and North 2nd Street, Council Bluffs, Iowa
Status: Historic site · Access: Open to public
Dossier: https://haunthunt.com/place/ruth-anne-dodge-memorial-council-bluffs-iowa/

Monument associated with documented cultural history.

Ruth Anne Dodge Memorial is a monument in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Monument associated with documented cultural history. Daniel Chester French created the bronze angel; weathering explains its dark appearance. Reported lore and claims include: The memorial commemorates visions Ruth reportedly described before her death in 1916.

The Ruth Anne Dodge Memorial is the Black Angel — Daniel Chester French's bronze angel at Fairview Cemetery, the 1918 statue that's the sculptor's only Iowa work and the one he called his favorite. Ruth Anne dreamed it three nights before she died: the boat through the mist, the angel with the bowl, 'Drink, I bring you both a promise and a blessing.'
The memorial is the dream made bronze — the daughters who commissioned French to immortalize their mother's vision, the angel in the ship's prow holding the basin of water, the 1920 dedication that was never formal. The statue is the dream; the cemetery is the edge.
The angel is still there — the bronze on the knoll over Council Bluffs, the reflecting pool, the legend that looking at her brings death. The file keeps the statue: the dream that became the memorial, French's favorite work, and the Black Angel that's the city's icon.
The Ruth Anne Dodge Memorial is the archive's angel file — the dream that became the statue, French's Iowa masterpiece, and the Black Angel on the cemetery's edge.

WHY THIS FILE MATTERS
The memorial is the archive's dream file — the angel Ruth Anne saw three times, the statue French called his best, and the Black Angel that's the city's icon.
A statue that was a dream keeps its angel — the file's suggestion being that the memorial's hold is the vision: the boat in the mist, the bowl of water, and the bronze that's the dream made permanent.

FILED CLAIMS — 1 on record, reported not verified
· [Reported experience] vision: The memorial commemorates visions Ruth reportedly described before her death in 1916. Ruth Anne Dodge Memorial's file is thin on proof and long on persistence — the standard profile of American place-lore. Witnesses report it; the record leaves it there. Sources including 'Ruth Anne Dodge Memorial' keep the claim in circulation. The haunting claim is now part of the site's identity, filed alongside the documented history.
  source: Ruth Anne Dodge Memorial (https://www.unleashcb.com/play/ruth_anne_dodge_memorial/)

HISTORY — 1 documented facts
· Daniel Chester French created the bronze angel; weathering explains its dark appearance. A documented site gives the file real substance; this entry is part of that record. It enters the file through media reporting — documented coverage, not folklore. Sources including 'Ruth Anne Dodge Memorial' carry the record. It anchors the timeline the rest of the file hangs from.

SOURCES — 1 cited
· Ruth Anne Dodge Memorial — Council Bluffs Convention and Visitors Bureau
  https://www.unleashcb.com/play/ruth_anne_dodge_memorial/

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HauntHunt is a research archive. Claims are filed as reported — documented where sources exist, marked as folklore or unverified where they do not.
Methodology: https://haunthunt.com/methodology/ · Corrections: https://haunthunt.com/report/