In the late 1800s, Langdon, North Dakota was home to close to 300 people, a young town on the frontier. Most everything was new, the dusty streets flanked with businesses. In the early days, additions to the town included: the post office, churches, and other community buildings. In 1891, a bishop visited Langdon, and while he was very pleased with the pleasant little community, there was one thing that surprised him, the lack of a cemetery. In fact, he chided the residents for having to take their dead eighteen miles to be buried. And so, the town responded.

In the spring of 1892, Calvary Cemetery was established by the congregation of St. Alphonsus Church for the burial of Catholics from Langdon and the surrounding area. The name Calvary represents the location, at the top of a hill near a coulee.

Perhaps the cemetery’s most famous grave is that of Amelia Ely, a Gypsy Queen. At 52 years old, Amelia was known as the matron of a band of gypsies that included twenty men, women, and children. In August of 1931, their caravan was traveling across the country, to their winter home in Chicago when the car Amelia was riding in fell victim to a faulty steering device and overturned not far from Osnabrock, North Dakota. She suffered a broken neck and died shortly after the accident.

The members of the party were grief stricken over their loss and spent most of the night preparing for her last rites to be held the following day. Gypsy tradition demanded that clothes worn by the deceased during her lifetime should be buried with the body. However, since death struck without warning, this was a challenge. The finest materials available at local stores were used for the burial shroud, which was pieced together during the night. Many other Gypsy traditions were followed at the grave. As storm clouds rolled in, Amelia Ely’s body was lowered into the ground.

For over 130 years, many people have been laid to rest at Calvary Cemetery. Burials here represent the diverse immigration that occurred in the Rendezvous Region. People from Ireland, France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Russia, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Moravia, Serbia, Poland, Greece, and Canada, as well as fur trade descendants, Native Americans, and many generations of their combined descendants are interred at Calvary Cemetery.