Orphans Coming Home

I apologize for the bit of a hiatus, but it's back to some cemetery contemplation...

Once upon a time (1750, to be exact), a boy was born in the Bordeaux region of France, by the name of Etienne Girard. His mother died when he was 10 years old. He had an "uncongenial" stepmother and was compelled to leave home for the sea at the edge of 14.

This becomes very important later.

He made his first fortune in international shipping and trading. In the year 1776, he entered Philadelphia's harbor and got stuck inside of a British blockade of the city. He decided to stay and open a shop and became involved in the Revolutionary War effort. His contribution consisted mostly in helping Alexander Hamilton in the creation of the young country's monetary system.

He also created the first private bank in the country - The Bank of Stefan Girard (note the name change). His second fortune was in banking...

Although described as "hard as iron, and as cold", Stefan was famous for his activities in the Yellow Fever Epidemic n 1793 when he personally cared for the sick and dying, turning a mansion in the city into a hospital, administering it himself.

He was blind in one eye. He was married and by all accounts was devoted to his wife.

They were childless. This becomes very important later.

Obviously, he was a person people were curious about, since we have so many references to his activities and his life. He was also the richest man in the US, worth almost $7,500,000 at his death in 1831.

There was a lot of curiosity about his will and what would happen to his fortune when he died. He teased everyone by talking about the changes he was making - he seemed to get a kick out of it.

In the end, he arranged for many personal and institutional bequests, but the bulk of his fortune went to the creation of a residential school for orphaned white boys.

Boys like the boy he was, with nowhere to go. To get an education, so important to making their way in the world. Boys like the children he and his beloved Mary Lum never had.

Stefan's money was left in trust to the City of Philadelphia to build the school, and the trust is still administered by the City. It was the largest single act of philanthropy up to that time in American history. Girard College "an independent college prepatory  5-day boarding school located on a 43-acre campus in Philadelphia". It opened in 1948 and is still in existence today. The school attempted to break the trust in 2014, to change it to completely college prep and to become a day school, but the judge declared that the original 1831 trust was airtight and could not be changed. The school had to remain a boarding school (hence the 5 days a week) and it had to offer a k-12 educational track. 95% of the graduates go on to higher education.

What does all of this have to do with cemeteries and Laurel Hill Cemetery in particular?

Originally children who died at the school were buried on the school grounds. In June of 1848 (note that there was a Cholera Epidemic that year), the Board of Directors decided to allow the burial of boys who died while students of the College on the College grounds. To this day, anyone who is or was a student is guaranteed a burial spot provided by the school with all burial expenses paid IF they are buried on school property (later this includes the College's plot at Laurel Hill Cemetery). If not buried there, the families are provided with a coffin.

In 1882, the College purchase a large plot in the Laurel Hill Cemetery for the students of the College. All of the bodies buried at the College were moved to Laurel Hill in that year, 58 in all. The records in the Cemetery archives list them all by name, along with the dates they attended the College, the date of their death, and sometimes the cause of death.

Diptheria, Typhoid, Scarlet Fever, Dysentery.

Dysentery. Dysentery. Dysentery.

You can follow dates of epidemics in the City by the dates of the burials. Age 8. 9. 10. 14. All so sad.

Rows and rows of children...

I picked out a student at random to see what the archives had to say about him. William J. Beatty, born March 23, 1847. Died July 3rd, 1857, aged 10 years. Admitted to the College September 25, 1854. Re-interred in Laurel Hill Cemetery March 7, 1882

The wide expanse of the Girard College plot. 

Spring and summer see the grass as green and lush. A lovely spot for children. 

In 1844, Kenneth O. Steele, aged 16 years, was buried there. A hand-written note is in the archives from the Director of the school, saying "...it means a great deal to us to be able to bury him in the sunshine instead of placing his coffin in the receiving vault." Normally since the ground was still frozen, the body would be stored in the receiving vault (a building on the cemetery grounds for that purpose) until a grave could be dug. But the cemetery made special arrangements to bury the young man right away, "in the sunshine".

The most recent burial was in December of 2016 - Khalif Dennis, aged 38, a former student.

Each year, the students at Girard College come to the cemetery for a Remembrance Day Memorial Service, the last one in the archives dated 12/13/2016. Speeches, poems and songs. I love this, that the students are reminded of their fellow students.

Remembrance - what the cemetery is all about.

You know that I always think about the meaning of any burial. This one is a strong reminder to me of the history of Stefan Girard - his own lonely childhood, his struggle to bring himself up in the world alone, his childless state. What would he think of his legacy? I know that he would be proud to have provided a home for these kids, in life and even in death.

Stefan is buried at the College, but I think we should all remember him this way and thank him for his generosity to the students of Girard College and to the City of Philadelphia.

Hearts and Headstones

LA Times, February 14, 2008. "Love stories buried no longer", by Erika Hayasaki

"Her body was buried with her second husband in another cemetery - but she had requested that her heart be removed and interred at Laurel Hill [Cemetery], alongside her first husband, Thomas Howard Peterson." (http://articles.latimes.com/2008/feb/14/nation/na-love14)

Well. Not quite.

Mary C. Peterson is one of those burials at Laurel Hill Cemetery that shows up on tours for Halloween and St. Valentine's. A love story that has a gruesome twist.

Mary married her childhood sweetheart, T.  Howard Peterson, in the late 1870's. They tried desperately to have a family but the children she brought to term died very young.

 

These two small worn stones sit next to Mary's monument. I cannot confirm to you 100% that they are her children, but I imagine that it is so.

 In 1881, her doctors advised Mary and Howard that Mary, frail and grieving, should move to Atlantic City to take the sea air. Howard's publishing business was in Philadelphia, so he stayed there, but he visited his wife often. He was known to take long walks in the evening before retiring.

One night, he went out for his walk and never returned.

Months later, a decomposed body washed up on shore in Cape May, NJ. He was identified as Howard Peterson by his ring and his grandfather's watch. Newspaper stories of the time (copies of which are in the cemetery archives) insisted that he did not commit suicide but likely slipped in the ice and was drowned.

And of course, the love of his life was heartbroken.

Literally.

T. Howard Peterson, d. 1881

Mary did not remarry, as reported by the L.A. Times in 1908, but moved in with her parents who lived in North Philadelphia until her death on December 7, 1912.

Here's where things in the cemetery once again get weird.

The story I was told was that Mary requested upon her death that her heart be surgically removed and buried at Laurel Hill, next to her husband. The rest of her body was buried with her parents at their church in North Philly.

So of course, I just had to go into the archives and check it out for myself. 

And guess what!!! It's true!!

Each burial at Laurel Hill Cemetery has an interment slip in the files. It tells the name and date of death of the deceased, the name of who is responsible for the burial arrangements, and the location of the burial itself.

And right there, on the slip, was written "The heart of Mary C. Peterson". 

Monument of Mary C. Peterson's Heart

Even in death, she was devoted to the love of her life, Howard, and she insisted on her heart being interred next to him.

Happy Valentine's Day!

A Ray of Sunshine

That's what they are - a representation of a ray of sunshine, reaching to heaven.

The obelisk.

Sunshine in January!

The Egyptians first used the obelisk in the Old Kingdom (2650-2134 BCE), according to Douglas Keister in his book, Stories in Stone (Motes Books 2009). He also tells us that few and fewer examples of Egyptian Revival architecture appear the closer you get to the Bible belt. So there's that! There is a lot of Egyptian Revival architecture in Laurel Hill - there are special tours that highlight it, so if you are interested, keep your eyes open for those tours.

BTW, I own a book (see above) with a 2 page "Glossary of Major Epidemics/Pandemics". Just saying.

Another thing that there is a lot of in Laurel Hill is the obelisk! The cemetery is full of them, so many that at one point the cemetery had to write to their plot owners, asking them to please find another style of monument to commemorate their loved ones.

A vista of one of the seas of obelisks at Laurel Hill Cemetery

I was going to discuss the largest obelisk in Laurel Hill today - the monument of Mayor Edwin Henry Fitler. 

The Fitler Obelisk

It's 55 feet tall - that's big. Rumor has it that Fitler was a small man.

Just saying. :-)

He was Mayor of Philadelphia from 1887-1891, and was the first Mayor to work out of the current City Hall (but only because he moved in before it was done, just so he could say that). 

So Fitler's monument is HUGE.

 His wife's - not so much. LOL!

Anyway, I was going to go on and on about Fitler, who was an interesting guy. But then I started to think about where the SMALLEST obelisk in the cemetery might be. So, not being a fool, I asked the staff. They directed me to the general vicinity of General George G. Meade's burial place, which is always easy to find since you can see the floral tributes left there.

You might note that General Meade's stone is pretty small. At least compared to Fitler...

And just above the good General, up the rise, are these two little darlings:

They are so adorable, leaning in towards each other. After some digging in the cemetery archives (fun!!), I figured out that they belong to Henry C. Perot, who was buried on 6/13/1848, aged 2, and Elizabeth M. Perot, who was buried on 9/15/1851, aged 1.

Aged two, and aged one.

The best guess I had to their identity was that the children were the first ones buried in the Perot plot, and their marble obelisks were the most worn in the plot. Marble doesn't hold up very well. If you see a stone that looks brand new but with an older death date, it's probably hard granite. Marble is soft and doesn't hold up well in the weather and the pollution.

Some of the stones in the Perot plot had been re-set over the years, so all of the other stones were straight. But these two little ones were leaning towards each other, partially fallen over.

And they stole my heart.

So let's think of Lizzie and Harry when we think of Laurel Hill Cemetery obelisks. They are some of the sweetest little monuments there. If you go to visit General Meade, look up the hill and see them, cousins looking after each other even in their way too early deaths.

Developing a Tour

I've been avoiding writing this post because I know it's going to be all over the place, a real jumble. But I finally had to admit that this is part of the process, so here it is.

Each tour guide at Laurel Hill Cemetery designs and researches a signature tour, based on their specific interests and the stories they want to tell. Finding your voice by finding your topic can be a challenge.

My personal academic background has developed into something I feel very passionate about - the influence of clothing and textile production on societies, making me a Textile Anthropologist. While my specialty concentrates on Coptic Egypt, before the year 1,000 CE, I wanted to consider translating that interest into my signature cemetery tour.

But how to proceed?

Should I discuss the residents of Laurel Hill who were involved in fashion and textiles? Possibly.  I should at least include Martha Drinnan was identified in death by the dress she was wearing. But I am really more interested in common people and the clothing they wore. And finding the stories of the non-"famous" people in Laurel Hill.

How could I know what clothing people were actually buried in? Couldn't, really.

Maybe I could track mourning clothes throughout the time periods of the cemetery.

Hmmmm...

Most information you find kind of jumbles Victorian mourning clothes into one large lump, but fashion changes rather quickly.

I could try to find a timeline of Victorian mourning fashion and conventions and attach burials to the various changes in fashion. But I couldn't find such a timeline.

Which  means making my own timeline. Newspaper and journal accounts, advertisements that possibly even give prices for various gloves, crepe, veils, mourning dresses, etc.

Doable, given my academic background.

Hmmm...

I could just pick random burials based on death date and match them to dates when fashions changed (mostly based on newspaper and journal accounts, perhaps advertisements. That could work.

To test the process, I picked a random death year of 1875. Then went on Find a Grave to find any burials at Laurel Hill dated to 1875.

If you haven't seen Find a Grave, you definitely want to go on over there and play! You can search by name, by dates, by cemetery. It's a genealogist's dream. Since one of the people responsible for it (Russ Dodge, a wonderful tour guide at Laurel Hill - if you ever see him advertised giving a tour, TAKE IT!!) is a specialist in the Civil War, it is especially helpful for that. You can add your own family's graves, as well. I found my family stone, "WILD", and we even found my husband's father's grave and learned that he served in Korea. Check it out -  https://www.findagrave.com/.

So I pick a name, LTC Frank A. Reynolds (buried in Section L, Lot 27-28). Born August 10, 1841 in West Virginia and died July 19, 1875 in Ilion, Herkimer County, New York. He was a confederate soldier - so that's an interesting thing about him. Both of his parents died in 1876. Since I have his burial section and lot location, I will be able to get more information about him from the files in the cemetery archives, if there is any information there. That's for further down the road.

Oddly, both of his parents died a year after his death, 1876. That will take some looking into, as well.

So now the trick is to find information about mourning practices in 1875. That might include what kind of veils women wore and for how long (years? months? changing as time goes on?), the size of a black band on a male relative's hat, did they wear gloves, etc.

Here are some photos of mourning dresses from 1875:

  

      

1875 Mourning Dress from the Metropolitan Museum of Art Collection (front and back)

Mourning Dresses circa 1875 from "Morbid Portraits" from the Daily Mail, October 30, 2017

A possible process!

But how to communicate these photos and examples of fashions to my guests? Large reproductions on foam board? Maybe a handout that they can take as a memento of their time on the tour? Turn that handout into a pamphlet that could be sold in the cemetery shop? 

Hmmm...

So many possibilities, and as you get more into the development process, some ideas will be dropped and some ideas will stay and some ideas will lead in other more interesting directions.

I'll be back on this topic as I come up with more of those ideas. And, of course, help me out and leave a comment with your suggestions!

A short post...

It was the week before Christmas, and your intrepid cemetery tour guide volunteered at a fancy party event, not coming home until 4 AM.

She had to come to the cemetery the next day to take pictures for all of you, for her next post.

So this is how she ended up looking, with the caption below when she put it onto her Facebook page:

Where the hell is the Starbucks in this cemetery???

She came back the week AFTER Christmas, and found this:

                                      

And her thoughts were:

1.  I guess we're more of a Dunkin' Donuts kind of cemetery...

2. Did a worker or visitor leave it there, covering it with a piece of marble so it wouldn't fall over?

3. Did someone find it as a piece of trash and ground it with the marble so it wouldn't blow around??

4. Does this finally explain groundhog behavior????

and finally, 

5. If this is a sacrifice for someone buried there, I am SO not touching this cup of joe.

The End.

Had To Be Shared

Originally posted October 26, 2017 to Facebook

50+ Brilliant Tombstones By People Whose Sense Of Humor Will Live Forever

https://www.boredpanda.com/funny-tombstones-epitaphs/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=doyouremember

An Explanation and A Beginning

First posted October 24, 2017 to Facebook


I wanted to create a place for me to record stories, photos, and information about cemeteries and those resting in them.

While I have a large amount of photos and information about different cemetery monuments, I thought I should start with a few cemetery stories about my family.

I was just recently asked how I got so interested in cemeteries. I think it's because of the cemetery ritual in my family. Every holiday - Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, Mothers' Day - my mother and her mother, with the husbands and whoever they corralled into going with them, would gather cleaning supplies in a bucket, and flowers, and head off to the cemetery to tend to the family graves. Clean the stone, pull the weeds, lay down the flowers.

Cemeteries were places where you visited the family, cared for the graves, and started the onslaught of stories about the relatives buried there.

So cemeteries have always been about family, and stories.