Last week, I shared with you my return to Dayton’s Old Greencastle Cemetery and some of my family’s history there. This time, I’m branching out into the cemetery to see what stories I can uncover. One of them is definitely bittersweet and involves a father and son who both saw military action but ended up with very different fates.

Phil showed me a Union soldier’s marker that was close to my great-great-grandfather Samuel’s for a man named Robert Fisher and that his was a story worth sharing. It is believed that Robert was a former slave who had escaped from his native Kentucky at the time of his enlistment.

Born in 1837, Robert went by more than one last name. You can find him going by Fisher, Burditt (or Burdett), and Johnson. When I did research a few years back on some young men who had enlisted in the U.S. Colored Troops in Charleston, S.C., I learned that this was fairly common at the time.

Runaway Slave Enlists in the Union Army

Robert was 26 when enlisted at Camp Danville in Kentucky on Aug. 18, 1864. Camp Nelson was established in 1863 as a recruiting station and quartermaster supply base for military operations into East Tennessee.

In the spring of 1864, when African-American soldiers were finally allowed to be recruited and trained in Kentucky, Camp Nelson became the largest center for U.S. Colored Troops in the state. Thousands of slaves and free men of color flocked to Camp Nelson to enlist and train for the U.S. Army. Many of the soldiers’ families came, too, seeking refuge.

Robert was placed as a private with the Battery G of the 12th USCT Heavy Artillery. I don’t know exactly what Robert did or saw. But according to what I’ve read, the 12th served railroad guard duty at various points in Tennessee and Alabama on line of the Nashville & Northwestern Railroad until December 1864.

The 12th was attached to the 2nd Colored Brigade, District of the Etowah, Department of the Cumberland, to January 1865, with defenses of Nashville & Northwestern Railroad, District of Middle Tennessee, to May 1865. They were also involved in the 3rd Sub-District, District Middle Tennessee, Department of the Cumberland, to January 1866. Robert’s records indicate he mustered out in April 1866 in Louisville, Ky.

Return to Dayton

I don’t know what Robert married Emma Morgan but it was before 1870 and they had six children: Walter, William, Mame, Emma, Clara, and Robert. The 1880 Census lists them as living in what is now Huber Heights (a suburb of Dayton) at that time with Robert working as a farmhand.

By 1890, Robert had lived in the Old Soldier’s Home in Dayton briefly before moving to the newly opened Marion Branch, National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Marion, Ind. He was possibly suffering from wounds incurred during his time in the Civil War. He would have been 56 by then. It wasn’t until I uncovered what happened later that I realized his family situation had possibly deteriorated to the point that separating from them may have been by choice.

Robert and Emma’s oldest son, Walter (born in 1870), followed in his father’s footsteps when he enlisted in the U.S. Army and was assigned to Co. K of the Ninth Cavalry. Known as the Buffalo Soldiers, the Ninth was one of the Army’s four segregated African-American regiments. It saw combat during the Indian and Spanish–American Wars. During Westward Expansion, the regiment provided security for the early Western settlers and defended the American borders against Indian bands, Mexican encroachment, and criminal elements.

I could find nothing about what Walter personally did as part of the Ninth Cavalry but I believe at the time he was serving, his company was stationed at Fort Robinson near Crawford, Nebraska.

Brother Against Brothers

By 1894, Walter was back in Dayton working in a the saloon the family owned on Auburn Street with his siblings. According to a newspaper article I read, it was located in a neighborhood with a bad reputation where brawls and shootings were common. There was bad blood between the youngest Fisher son, 15-year-old Robert Jr., and his brothers. The feud reached a boiling point on Aug. 21, 1894 when Robert walked into the saloon and shot Walter dead. He was 24 years old.

An additional article mentioned  that Walter’s girlfriend, Nettie Simpson, committed suicide by overdosing on morphine shortly after hearing of his violent demise.

By contrast, the article describes Robert Sr. as “a hard-working and honest colored man. He is of Herculean build, and yet is a peaceable and law-abiding citizen.” It made me wonder what happened to this family over the years to bring it to this sad state of affairs. Did Robert Sr. wash his hands of the situation and seek refuge in Marion, Ind. because of it?

On Dec. 14, 1894, Robert Jr. was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to three years in the penitentiary despite his attorney’s request that he be sent to reform school. That same year, in October, William Fisher was accused of being involved with murdering two veterans with the assistance of two of his sisters. He, too, was charged with manslaughter. But if William served any time for it, he was back home by 1900 when the U.S. Census notes he was tending bar again on Auburn Street with his mother and siblings.

Robert Sr. died in 1917 at the age of 80, his remains returned to Dayton for burial in Old Greencastle. He had no marker at that time but the SUV fellows ordered one for him. William died the same year at age 46 and is buried in an unmarked grave at Old Greencastle. Robert Jr. died in Michigan in 1929 and is also buried in an unmarked grave. Brother Henry died in 1939 and sister Mary in 1919, both buried in unmarked graves. I could not trace Emma’s whereabouts but she had moved to be near Robert Jr. in Detroit during the 1920s.

A Musical Minister

I did find the grave of someone who had an association with the original church connected with Old Greencastle Cemetery.

A native of Virginia, the Rev. William R. Rhinehart was born in 1800 and wed Barbara Bender in 1824. According to his Find a Grave memorial, he was composer of hymns and songs in addition to being a Church of the Brethren pastor. He, Barbara, and their son William were living in Clear Spring, Md. in the 1830s when he published a singing school book of songs.

If you read my first blog post about Old Greencastle Cemetery, you know that its name comes from the “Greencastle Circuit” of the United Brethren churches (a sect from Germany that still exists today) to which the church belonged. The Greencastle plat itself predates 1826 and is one of the oldest in Dayton.

Rev. Rhinehart belonged to the United Brethren and his association with them eventually brought him to Dayton. I believe he was employed by the original Miami Chapel United Brethren Church that was next to Old Greencastle Cemetery. It is mentioned in his will. That church was torn down and rebuilt in 1912 but is unoccupied today. Son William married Elizabeth Felker in 1855 and worked as a carpenter.

Rev. Rhinehart died in 1861 at the age of 61. His wife, Barbara, died in 1881 at age 81. Both of them have markers at Old Greencastle. William died in 1914 but does not have a marker.

An Anonymous Collection

I’m going to finish out this post with something I don’t normally do. As is typical of many cemeteries, you’ll find markers that may have had a name on them that has since worn away or been broken off. That doesn’t make them any less meaningful, but perhaps more mysterious.

This first heart-shaped one appealed to me because of the colorful glass pieces inserted around the edges. My grandfather used to have a stone bench at his house in Centerville, Ohio that looked similar. The hummingbird at the stop is especially whimsical.

Then there’s this cast iron lamb, which has seen better days. I am guessing it was meant for a child’s grave. There is no name on it.

Then there’s this last one that I first saw in 2012 and fell in love with. I have no idea who this little stone house was built for but if you look closely, you can see the word “Father” on the roof. I had to take a picture of it again. Was this man a carpenter? A builder? I’ll probably never know.

Saying goodbye to Old Greencastle Cemetery was harder this time because I had a stronger connection to it now and had met the people taking care of my ancestors’ final resting place. I am grateful to the local volunteers who come out for clean up days and the folks to the SUV, Sherman Camp #93 that continue to care for the graves as best they can. It’s not an easy task.

Old Greencastle’s future looks bright, despite the fact there are no funds to maintain it and the city has no interest in providing any. There are going to be times when it looks a little rough around the edges, especially during the summer when the grass grows quickly. But this is a fate common to many old, abandoned cemeteries facing similar circumstances. I feel blessed that this one is getting any attention at all.

Next time, I’ll be exploring Dayton’s Woodland Cemetery, where more of my family is buried.

 

 

 

 

 

Today I begin a two-part series on a place I’ve written about before and that I have an ancestral connection to: Dayton, Ohio’s Old Greencastle Cemetery.

In October 2018, after a stop in Cincinnati at Spring Grove Cemetery & Arboretum, my mother, sister, and I continued on to Dayton about 50 miles north. Dayton is where my parents are from and the area where my sister and I were born. We moved to Georgia when I was five years old, but we’ve always returned to visit family and take trips down memory lane.

It wasn’t until around 2008 after my son was born that I started researching my family tree. There was so much I didn’t know and certainly not where most of my ancestors were buried.

That research resulted in a 2012 visit to Old Greencastle Cemetery that I wrote about in this post and then an update and then another update in 2014. It was in terrible shape in 2012 because the owner didn’t care about it and has since vanished. The only section that was mowed in any fashion was the veterans’ area.

Those posts detail the history of Old Greencastle and how my great-great-grandfather (1837-1912) Samuel Grice served as a Union soldier during the Civil War as a member of the 93rd Ohio Infantry. When he died of heart disease on May 11, 1912 at the age of 74, he was buried at Old Greencastle Cemetery with no marker. His wife, Margaret, doesn’t have one either. She died in 1919.

I had stayed in touch with Fred Lynch, senior vice commander of the Sons of Union Veterans, Major General William T. Sherman Camp #93, over the years, enjoying the updates he sent me on how the cemetery was doing. It’s been mostly thanks to him and the other SUV volunteers that any mowing, trimming, or repairs have been done. On occasion, Montgomery County Commissioner Debbie Lieberman has sent over the community pride clean-up trailer with landscaping equipment to help out.

I was thrilled in 2018 that I learned from Fred and Phil Brandt (who had been researching Old Greencastle for some time) that the SUV applied to get a veteran’s marker for Samuel and that it had been approved. We would be able to see it during our visit.

My mother, sister, and I met up with Frank and Phil. It was an emotional day for me, finally getting to meet two people who had done so much to help keep this abandoned cemetery from dying. The improvements to Old Greencastle were obvious as we looked around.

It also has a nifty new sign, which I didn’t have a chance to take a picture of that day so I borrowed this one they posted on Facebook in 2019.

The first place they pointed us to was Samuel’s new marker, which they had recently placed. I was a bit teary eyes about it, frankly. It touched my heart that a group of people who had never met me or my family had gone to the trouble of applying for a headstone for Samuel, a man who had not had much in the way of material goods in his lifetime. I wish we had a marker for Margaret as well, but that may come later.

We had wondered how it was that Samuel and Margaret ended up buried in this cemetery. That mystery was solved when Fred located a property map that showed the Grices and Olingers (Margaret’s maiden name) had owned land in the same neighborhood as the cemetery. I had spotted Olinger graves during my 2012 visit.

Two of Samuel’s sons Harry and Wilbert married two sisters, Florence and Cordelia Claar. These two women were the daughters of Louisa Elvira McCoy Claar and John Irwin Claar. That’s where my next Old Greencastle story begins.

The sisters were born in rural Jackson County, Ohio in the 1880s where the Claar family had lived for years. At some point after 1900, the Claars moved to Dayton. Florence married my great-grandfather Harry Grice just a month before her father John died in February 1906. He is buried in Beaver Union Cemetery in Pike County, Ohio.

Cordelia married Wilbert Grice a few months later. Sadly, that marriage would end in divorce some years later. They had one daughter, Margaret.

The next years were hard on Louisa and the remaining siblings. The boys took jobs doing whatever they could, from making cigars to posting signs. Edward and Vinton never married. Mabel worked as a housekeeper until her marriage to Elmer Ellsman.

Edward died at the age of 37 in April 1919. By this time, the family had changed their last name from “Claar” to “Clair” in everything I’ve seen. My guess is that World War I made having a German-sounding last name quite uncomfortable.

You can’t even read Edward’s marker anymore. When I came in 2012, I couldn’t find it amid the tall grass and weeds.

Everett, the oldest, married later in life to a woman named Laura. They would move to Pennsylvania but had no children. He died in 1966 and is buried with Laura in Natrona Heights, Pa. in Mount Airy Cemetery.

Louisa was my father’s grandmother and I do have photos of her later in life. Early in my grandparents’ marriage and the first few years of my father’s life, they lived with my great-grandmother Florence and Harry on Milton Street. That’s about five miles from Old Greencastle. I’m sure Louisa lived nearby. This is the one photo I have of my father, Florence, and Louisa together.

It was this photo we took with us to Dayton on our visit. My mother was holding it as I knelt beside Louisa’s stone. Louisa died in 1941 at the age of 83 after what the newspaper called an 18-month illness. She was living with Cordelia when she died. I feel sad that her marker is homemade and falling apart. But at least she has one.

My great-grandmother, Florence, died in 1945. She is buried with Harry in Dayton’s Woodland Cemetery, a far larger cemetery than Old Greencastle. We’ll visit her grave in a few weeks when I explore that vast burial ground.

Vinton died in 1946 at age 56 and was buried with his mother and Edward. His marker is also in poor condition. Mabel, the youngest, died in 1982 at the age of 87. She is buried with her husband, Elmer, in Dayton Memorial Cemetery.

It’s an understatement to say that these simple gravestone represent a lot to me. These were my ancestors, my family, whom for years I knew nothing about. My father and grandfather never spoke of them.

We dearly hope to provide a new single marker for Louisa, Edward, and Vinton so that something is in place once their markers disintegrate, which will sadly happen sooner than later. I’ve been looking into the expense and how to do it.

I’ve got some more stories to share from Old Greencastle that I know you’ll enjoy. Come back for Part II.

 

 

 

This is the final installment in my series on Cincinnati’s Spring Grove Cemetery & Arboretum. Today I’m simply going to share some images from my visits that I really liked. There’s no rhyme or reason to them. In fact, two of them are almost identical.

One thing I always enjoy at any cemetery I visit is peeking inside mausoleums. Sometimes there’s nothing much but on occasion you get some surprises. The Gerrard family mausoleum would fit the latter description.

Rise of the Cantaloupe King

Born in 1860 in the Cincinnati-area community of Cherry Grove, Stephen Gerrard came from a poor family and had little formal education. He supported himself in his youth as a street peddler, but ultimately made his fortune by taking advantage of refrigerated rail cars to transport cantaloupes nationwide, selling them far more widely than previously possible.

His sales of Colorado melons throughout the country’s central and eastern regions made Gerrard wealthy, gaining him the nickname of “Cantaloupe King”. According to his Find a Grave page, he hybridized the Elberta peach and the Honeydew melon.

In 1915, Gerrard and his wife Estelle built a grand mansion at 748 Betula Ave. to show off his hard-won wealth. The Gothic Tudor Revival home featured a variety of decorative touches uncommon in most houses of the era, such as gargoyles, stained glass windows, marble columns, carved plaster ceilings, elaborate fireplace mantles, and Tennessee marble floors.

In 1928, a music room was added as a birthday gift to Estelle that included a huge pipe organ designed by W.W. Kimball of Chicago, earning the mansion the honor of having the largest residential pipe organ in the U.S. (and the first self-playing organ in the world).

End of an Era

Despite severe financial losses during the Great Depression, the Gerrards managed to barely hold onto their mansion until Stephen’s death after a stroke at age 75 in 1936. The mansion was sold in the late 1930s for only $65,000. Estelle, who moved in with her daughter, died in 1947.

The house went through much neglect over the next decades, destroying the functionality of the pipe organ. After being restored and made livable, Gerrard’s mansion was added to the National Registry of Historic Places in 1987. As of 2017, a young couple was living in the Gerrard mansion.

The Gerrard mausoleum was one of the last of the grand mausoleums built at Spring Grove. Its architecture is typical for the era with a blend of modern classicism and Art Deco. Because the mausoleum was on the property of Spring Grove, the bank technically could not seize the $125,000 structure to pay off Gerrard’s debts.

I especially like the doors. One of the standards of Arts and Crafts architecture and ornament was the use of natural materials and when that was not possible, as in the case of these bronze doors, to use ornament to express the natural world.

Fortunately, I was able to look through the openings in the doors to see inside. While I couldn’t get a good picture of the stained glass, the four statues were impressive. I learned later that they are thought to represent the four seasons.

Grumpy Beer Baron

When I visited Spring Grove back in 2013, I didn’t have time to photograph many grave stones. But I did remember this fellow. When it came time to label his photo in my records, I referred to him as “Grumpy Dead German Guy” so I’d remember it. That probably wasn’t very nice of me but it fits.

My research on George Franz Eichenlaub is a bit spotty. He arrived in America from Germany in the 1830s from a brewing tradition and became a Cincinnati beer baron. He went into business with another German brewer, his son-in-law Joseph Kauffmann, and they were quite successful. Eichenlaub died in 1870 and his frowning visage is on the back of the monument shared by his daughter, Marianne, and Joseph.

The Tiffany’s of Cincinnati

I must have liked the Duhme monument a lot because I photographed it during both of my visits to Spring Grove. The family, originally from Germany, founded a jewelry store in the 1830s that would go on to become known as the Tiffany’s of Cincinnati.

Brothers Henry (born in 1814) and Herman (born 1819) opened up Duhme and Co. on the corner of Fourth and Walnut Streets soon after they arrived in America. At first, they sold high-class goods but by the 1860s they were making and selling silver and jewelry. It became a popular showplace for some of the most beautiful jewelry and silver in the city.

Herman was the one who figured more prominently of the two, in his business and personal life. His first marriage ended in a messy divorce and a rather unhappy second one, although both resulted in the birth of several children. He died in 1888 in St. Clair, Mich. at age 69. Duhme & Co. continued under various iterations until 1928. You can still find Duhme & Co. silver from time to time.

The monument I referred to earlier is actually for Henry, who died in 1874, and his family. The figure of a woman holding an open book on her lap with a child at her knee evokes maternal imagery. Henry and his wife, Louisa, did have several children and I believe only the first, Henry, died in infancy.

The monument was ordered by the New England Granite Works from Westerly Granite in Westerly, R.I., who was responsible for many Spring Grove monuments. The base is made of red Westerly granite and the pedestal/statue of white Westerly granite. It was ordered on Feb. 18, 1889 and arrived on Dec. 13, 1889. This was not long after Herman’s death and his plainer marker was also ordered from Westerly Granite in 1889.

In my research on Westerly Granite, I learned that they also made four of the mausoleums at Atlanta’s Oakland Cemetery.

Bringing Home the Bacon

I was also rather taken with the Brill family monument but it wasn’t until this week that I learned that it had a connection to the Duhme monument. It turns out they were both made by Rhode Island’s Westerly Granite.

Born in Germany in 1824, Jacob Brill married Catherine “Katie” Jacobs in their native country sometime in the 1850s. Their only child, Katie, was born around 1855. I’m not sure exactly what year the Brills emigrated to America. But by the 1880 U.S. Census, Jacob was working as a butcher.

Jacob eventually operated his own pork packing facility in Camp Washington and did quite well. He died on Oct. 1, 1896 at age 72. According to newspaper reports, his will left everything to his wife to the tune of over $100,000. That was a lot of bacon back in the day!

On March 1, 1897, Katie ordered the monument via New England Granite Works from Westerly Granite for $4,000. Factoring in inflation, that would have amounted to over $100,000 at that time. I’m not entirely sure that $4,000 figure is correct. Like the Duhme monument, the base is made of red Westerly granite and the pedestal/statue of white Westerly granite.

Female Pallbearers Chosen

Katie died on Sept. 19, 1898 at the age of 68. I found a rather detailed funeral notice for her in the Cincinnati Enquirer. There is no mention of her daughter, Katie, at all. But you can read in the notice that Mrs. Brill had some of her best female friends serve as four of the eight pallbearers, which was highly unusual. The other four pallbearers were her nephews.

Daughter Katie would marry at the age of 44 in 1899 to attorney Carl Nippert, becoming his second wife. Sadly, he died only five years later in 1904 at age 50 of kidney failure. Katie died several years later in 1928 at age 73. Both she and Carl are buried with her parents in the Brill family plot.

Double Vision

You might be amazed to find (as I was) that there is an exact duplicate of the Brill monument’s statue at Spring Grove. The Kreimer family must have seen the Brill one and liked it so much that they contacted New  England Granite Works to purchase one just like it for them from Westerly Granite.

However, the Kreimer monument is made of Barre granite (found in Barre, Vermont) instead of Westerly granite and cost considerably less at $1,200. I’m not sure why. Part of me wonders if the Brill monument actually cost $400. But the two monuments are about the same size. The two bases do have a number of style differences.

Along with his father, Henry, Charles. H. Kreimer operated Kreimer & Brother Furniture Co. He was married to Emma Roehl in 1880 and they had four children together. Son Alfred took over the family business after Charles died of heart failure on July 24, 1923 at the age of 61.

After I posted these two monuments on Twitter, Paula Lemire responded with a photo of the same statue on a monument at Albany Rural Cemetery in New York. That one actually has an anchor on the book the statue is holding.

Sands Through the Hourglass

The last grave marker I’m going to share is not very large or stunning. But I do think it’s a bit out of the ordinary.

Born in Germany in 1825, Conrad Windisch worked for his father in the family brewing business. During the German Revolution of 1848, he emigrated to America and moved around a bit working in breweries in Pittsburgh and St. Louis before landing in Cincinnati in 1850. In 1854, Windisch married Sophia Kobmann, who was from his village back in Germany.

Windisch started his own brewery in 1862 and sold his interest in 1866 to focus on his own interests. With his brother-in-law, Gottlieb Muhlhauser, as well as Muhlhauser’s brother, Henry, Muhlhauser-Windisch & Company was born. It was commonly known as the Lion Brewery because of two stone carved lions atop each of the two gables at the entrance. They were among the first to introduce ice machines and was the city’s second largest during the 1880s.

Conrad Windisch died in 1887 at age 62. His son, William A. Windisch, and later another son, Charles Windisch, kept the brewery going until 1920 when Prohibition forced them to cease operation.

It’s hard to describe Conrad’s marker. It almost looks like an old brick wall with a Medieval window carved out of it. A cut off tree leans in front of the window, symbolizing a life cut short, along with ivy. To me, it evokes a feeling of Conrad’s Old World roots when he was working alongside his father in Germany as a young man.

It’s the winged hourglass at the top of the marker that give it that added charm, emphasizing how times goes so quickly as the years of our life fly by.

As I come to the end of my Spring Grove adventure, I’d like to thank Ken Naegele for taking the time to show me around. Without his guidance, I doubt I would have seen as many of the gems this beautiful burial ground has to offer. Hopefully, we can meet up again when I’m next in Ohio so I can see what I missed.

Next time, I’ll be visiting Old Greencastle Cemetery in Dayton, Ohio again. I have several family members buried there. You won’t want to miss it.

 

Today I’m continuing my series on Cincinnati’s Spring Grove Cemetery. And yes, there’s going to be a Part V! I simply have too many great stories to keep to myself.

This week I’m focusing on just two men, each for very different reasons.

A Talented Engineer

The monument of engineer George Shield fascinates me because it has so much symbolism going on. It deserves its own cemetery “decoder ring” to explain it all. Even then, I’m not sure I’ve got it right. However, I think it’s important for me to feature markers like this so that if you’re ever out in a cemetery and find a monument with symbols you can’t figure out, this might help.

But let’s talk about George Shield’s career and family first. I’m including his family’s markers because it’s through them you can see how important memorializing lives, however short, was to him.

Born in New Jersey in 1810 to Francis and Maria Shield, George and his family moved to Cincinnati. George and his brother Edward learned the machinist trade from their father. George married Eliza Tilley (or Tiley) in 1833. They had at least one child, Edward, who was born in 1834 and only lived two months.

Edward shares a marker with Caroline Shield, George’s sister who died in infancy in 1830 and Alfred Shield, George’s brother who died in infancy 1821. Edward’s name is on the side and I did not get a photograph of it. The image of the young girl reclining with a lamb (a symbol of innocence) is especially poignant.

These children were originally buried at the Episcopal Burial Ground and moved to Spring Grove in 1852. Grandfather Francis Shield (who died in 1840) also had his remains moved to Spring Grove at that time.

George was a talented engineer who created and patented a number of inventions, usually involving turbines and engines. He was the mechanical brains behind the Cincinnati firms of Graham, Wilson, and Shield and then Yeatman and Shield. He also worked as chief engineer for the Cincinnati Water Works.

Eliza died in 1844 at the age of 31 from “obstruction of the womb” so it’s likely she died in childbirth. Like her in-laws and little boy, she was originally buried at the Episcopal Burial Ground and moved in 1852.

Three Little Lambs

George remarried soon after to Virginia Josephine Hughes. They had several children together. Three of them (Ida, Edward, and Josephine) did not live past childhood. They all share a marker with three lambs on the top.

Josephine died a month after her last child’s death due to “childbirth fever” in June 1852. She was only 26 when she died.

George married a third time to Lizzie Kent in 1856. They had a son, George M. Shield, on August 1860 but he died in July 1862. George died at the age of 56 on July 3, 1867 of dropsy. Many think this may have been what we now call congestive heart failure.

I located two of George and Virginia’s daughters in the 1870 U.S. Census. Daughter Jennie had married in 1867 to publisher Frank Ricker and her sister Kate lived with them. Jennie died in 1939 but I lost track of Kate. Their brother, Henry, born in 1847, died in 1887.

One Monument, Many Symbols

Now let’s talk about the Shield family’s amazing monument. First, George’s name, his father’s name (Francis), his nephew’s name (Edward), and his niece’s name (Emma) are on it. Edward died in 1845 at the age of 18 months and Emma died in 1846 at age 4. These two little ones were his brother Edward’s children.

Let’s start with the easy ones. You can see George Shield’s smiling face on one side. On the upper level, you can spot a Masonic compass symbol as well. That’s a big clue as to what some of the other symbols might mean.

Also up on the top is a winged hourglass. This one you don’t see as often but it does come up. It’s thought to mean that time flies and death comes sooner than you think.

Next comes a motif I’m sure you’ve seen before. The “all-seeing eye” or “Eye of Horus” is a common gravestone symbol with roots in ancient Egyptian mythology. The Egyptian god of the sky was a falcon named Horus, who could witness everything from high above, such as what people were doing. A more Christian spin on this is that God sees everything.

Both the Masons and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) use the “all-seeing eye” in their iconography, so I think that’s why it’s there. George Shield was definitely a Mason.

Things start to get a little trickier after that. It’s very rare that I see a beehive on a monument but the only other one I’ve seen is just 50 miles up the road at Dayton’s Woodland Cemetery. The beehive is often considered to be a sign of an industrious Christian life.

Beehives also have a special meaning in the Mormon Church. Within the LDS religion, the beehive is an important symbol representing community, industry, harmony, and frugality. Utah is actually called the Beehive State.

But as you may have guessed, the Masons used the beehive in their symbolism as well. For them, it’s more tied to the idea of industry and how the work of the whole is more important than that of the individual. In Medieval times, many Masons were tradesmen who belonged to guilds. They knew all about specialized labor and working together so this image would make sense to them.

Next comes a symbol I’ve only seen once in a cemetery and this is it. A muscular arm with a rolled up sleeve wields a hammer, which made me instantly think of Arm & Hammer baking soda.

The arm and hammer motif has been used by a couple of fraternal groups over the years. Because of the oak leaves at the bottom, this particular one might be for the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen of New York. It was a benevolent society formed in 1785. Or it could be the seal of the Junior Order of Mechanics, who adopted the motif in 1845. George was an engineer so it would make sense.

Yet another possibility is that the Masons did use the gavel/hammer as a symbol of the Lodge Master meaning creative intelligence.

I’ve got two more. Are you still with me?

This motif I had seen once before but life size at Rose Hill Cemetery in Macon, Ga. I knew that individual was a highly-ranked Mason. These are the Three Great Lights that surround the Masonic Altar. You can read about what those mean here.

A Masonic Mystery

The final motif I’m going to share might puzzle the wisest taphophile (cemetery enthusiasts) and I admit when I first saw it, I was stumped. But fortunately, my Masonic friends helped me decode it. I have since seen it on a marker in Charleston, S.C. and another in Covington, Ga. Like this grave, it hails from the mid 1800s

Someone else wrote it up so nicely that I’m going to show it to you this way:

Now if you’re a Mason, I’m sure this all makes perfect sense. The Masons I know told me within their culture, it did. For the rest of us, however, not so much. An elderly angel grabbing a young woman’s hair while she tends an urn would confuse most people I know. So if you see this yourself on a marker, now you know what it means!

A Cincinnati Baseball Pioneer

It would be remiss of me to leave out a mention of one of Cincinnati’s most beloved sports team, the Cincinnati Reds. My family and I were big Reds fans until moving to Atlanta when we converted to being Braves fans.

One of the Reds’ first players, when they were called the Cincinnati Red Stockings, was Charles “Charlie” Harvey Gould. Born in 1847 in Cincinnati, Charlie started his organized baseball career for the local Buckeye club in 1863 as their regular first baseman. He was still in that role when the club joined the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP) in 1866.

During the off-season, Charlie worked as a bookkeeper for his father’s butter and eggs business. His lanky frame and long arms helped him in become a talented fielder, and he was known to rarely make errors.

“The Bushel-Basket”

He stayed with the Buckeyes through the 1866 season, then joined the crosstown rivals, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, for the 1867 season. Known as a hard-working, affable man, Charlie played every game in 1868, and all but one 1869. He fielding prowess was so well known that fellow players began calling him “the bushel-basket”.

When the NABBP permitted professionalism for 1869, Red Stockings manager Harry Wright kept Charlie and three other players from his 1868 team. Gould was the only Cincinnatian, and the only 6-foot-tall player on the team.

Wright was hired to organize a new team in Boston, where he signed Charlie and two other Red Stockings for 1871. Gould remained two seasons at first base for the new Boston Red Stockings, so he was part of the club’s and Boston’s first championship team.

Charlie played with the Baltimore Canaries in 1874, and then became a player-manager for the New Haven Elm Citys in 1875. The following year, he returned to Cincinnati to manage and play for the Red Stockings in their inaugural season in the National League. In 1877, he continued to play for the ballclub, but relinquished his managerial duties in favor of being a regular player.

Gould’s playing career had ended after the 1877 season, but not his association with the club. He later became a police officer in Cincinnati. Gould died at the age of 69 in Flushing, N.Y.

Charlie was buried at Spring Grove but he had no marker for many years. Reds president Warren Giles honored Gould’s accomplishments on the 75th anniversary of the team in 1951 by erecting a commemorative stone plaque.

I did find a song about Charlie from that long-ago era and it’s a nice tribute to his athletic abilities:

In many a game that we played,
We’ve needed a First Base,
But now our opponents will find
The ‘basket’ in its place.
And if you think he ‘muffs’ the balls,
Sent into him red hot,
You’ll soon be fooled by Charlie Gould
And find he ‘muffs’ them not.

I’ll be back in a few weeks to wrap up my series on Spring Grove, with more stories of the stones.

Are you ready for more stories from Cincinnati’s Spring Grove Cemetery & Arboretum? Because I’ve got many more! The first one I’m going to share is important because I’m told this statue is one of the most visited in the entire cemetery.

Thomas Singleton is unique among all the people I’ve ever researched. His records indicate he was born “on the sea” in 1842, meaning his family was traveling to America at the time. His occupation was listed as “tea dealer” when he enlisted to serve in the Union Army in 1861.

In 1879, Thomas married widow Mathilda “Tillie” Herbert Jordan. Tillie had given birth to a daughter with her first husband (who died of tuberculosis in 1870) but little Viola died in 1871. The 1880 Census notes Thomas and Tillie had two little girls, Anna and Alice, born only 10 months apart. Thomas was working for A. Montgomery & Company and the family lived just across the Ohio River in Covington, Ky.

“Only God Knows How We Miss Her”

I don’t know which daughter garnered the name “Chunkie” but I suspect it was Alice, the younger one. Chunkie died of “malignant scarlet fever” on March 28, 1884 at the age of three. Even on her death certificate, her name is listed as Chunkie.

Chunkie’s monument strikes a chord with everyone who sees it. She wears a dress with a pinafore and a bowed sash. In her left hand she holds a parasol. At the base are the words “Only God Knows How We Miss Her.” People leave coins and trinkets next to her little feet.

Anna never appears in records again and in the 1900 Census, it notes that Tillie had four children with only one surviving. That one child would be Bessie, who was born in June 1883. Thomas died on July 1, 1897 of “congestion of the brain”. By 1910, Bessie had married Elwood Cree and had a daughter, Susan. Tillie lived with Bessie and her family until her death in 1918. She and Thomas share a monument beside Chunkie’s at Spring Grove.

A Faithful Companion

Much less is known about William Boon Redman, whose marker is notable because it is accompanied by a separate one that I can only guess was his faithful companion.

Born on Aug. 14, 1846, William was the youngest of three children born to tailor Benjamin T. Redman, Sr. and Henrietta Boon Redman. William died at the age of seven on March 7, 1854 for unknown reasons.

William shares a marker with his grandfather, Josiah Redman (1785-1860), who died six years after William. You can barely see Josiah’s name inscribed on the open book on the top of the marker.

Not far away is a small statue of a dog with a broken chain at its paws. I suspect it is for William but was it possibly for Josiah instead? I don’t know for sure.

According to the 1880 U.S. Census, Benjamin was sick with “sun stroke”, so I suspect that he was an invalid by this time. The family fortunes must have taken a turn for the worse in the years that followed. An 1893 Cincinnati directory noted that Benjamin was living in the “Old Men’s Home” and Henrietta resided in the “Widow’s Home”. Benjamin died in 1906 at the age of 93 while Henrietta died in 1903 at age 90. Both are buried in unmarked graves with William and Josiah.

A Controversial Monument

One of the more unusual markers at Spring Grove is the Lawler family monument. It was installed around 1847 by Davis Bevan Lawler to honor his parents, former Philadelphia mayor Matthew Lawler (1755-1831) and Ann Bevan Lawler (1761-1835). The Lawlers were previously buried in Cincinnati’s Episcopal Burial Ground but Davis Lawler had their remains moved to Spring Grove not long after it opened. Lawler was instrumental in the establishment of Spring Grove.

Davis B. Lawler was born in 1786 in Philadelphia and traveled the world when he reached adulthood. That led to his being appointed consul to Berlin, where he met his wife, Augusta Kreutz. The couple married around 1815 and had a son, Nicholas, in 1818 before returning to Cincinnati around 1819.  Son Benjamin was born soon after but only lived a month. They also adopted a German child, Rudolph, born in 1824, who died in California in 1864.

Davis operated a successful dry good store in Cincinnati until around 1826 when his purchase of an interest in the local water works made him a wealthy man after he sold it to the city years later.

Son Nicholas died of “bilious fever” in 1837. Augusta passed away at age 70 on Feb. 25, 1869. Davis, paralyzed due to a stroke since 1867, soon followed on Aug. 26, 1869 at age 83. He left an estate estimated at half a million dollars at the time.

Fighting Over the Will

Davis Lawler’s original will left everything to Augusta. But later codicils claimed that if she died before him, his estate should go to her German relatives. That did not sit well with his American kin, who filed claims that Davis was mentally unstable when he wrote the codicils. I was unable to find out how that touchy issue was resolved.

The Lawlers’ blue marble Egyptian sphinx caused a great stir when it was installed, with many calling it pagan and “anti-Christian”. But some lauded it as a pleasant change from the usual Christian iconography of crosses and urns. In truth, I believe it was a reflection of Davis Lawler’s interest in world cultures and history. When he died, he left a vast book collection reflecting his wide range of tastes. So choosing a sphinx to top the family monument is not that surprising.

A Master Craftsman

I’ll wrap up this installment with the story of a monument Ken made sure to show me during the tour and I’m very glad he did. It has the power to truly tug at the heart strings. Thanks to a blogger named Dan who writes Queen City Survey, I found some great information on Charles “Carl” Dannenfelser and his family.

Born in 1854 in Germany, Carl arrived in America around 1871 and married another German immigrant, Louisa Geiskimeyer. Together they had six children. Carl was a master carver and cabinet maker, opening a business called the Art Joinery Co. That interested me a great deal because my own great-grandfather, Bernard Muller, was a carpenter and cabinet maker. I own a chiffarobe he made in 1940 for my father.

Carl is credited by historian Walter Langsam as the craftsman for the library woodwork in the Charles Phelps Taft home, now the Taft Museum (see below), and the woodwork in the Marcus Fechheimer Residence on Garfield Place. I found this picture of the library at the Taft Museum, which shows off that beautiful woodwork.

He also carved this tableau of the Good Samaritan on the ablo (pulpit) at the Mother of God Church in Covington, Ky. (across the Ohio River from Cincinnati) that is still there today.

Carl died in 1916 of rectal cancer at the age of 61. Louisa died of kidney disease in 1936 at the age of 81. Sons Phillip and Ceasar were running the business, with Phillip also undertaking interior decorating. He died from a long-term heart ailment less than a month after his mother in 1936. Ceasar died in 1969. Dannenfelser siblings Phillip, Ceasar, and Elsa are buried with their parents in the Dannenfelser plot with their spouses.

The inscription on the side of the chair reads “The best is yet to be. The last of life for which the world is made” and comes from a poem written by British poet Robert Browning.

More tales from Spring Grove are coming!

 

 

I’m still at Spring Grove Cemetery & Arboretum in Cincinnati, Ohio. Today I’ll share the stories of three different families with striking monuments that match their histories. This first one is actually not a monument but a mausoleum.

When you first see the Dexter family mausoleum as I did in 2013, you might mistake it for a chapel. This commanding edifice is the final resting place for 20 members of the Dexter family. And it does contain a small chapel.

Edmund Dexter’s Grand Visions

Born in 1801 in England, Edmund Dexter, Sr. came to America in the 1820s. He married New Yorker Mary Ann Dellinger in 1829 and they had a large family: five sons and four daughters. Dexter became a prosperous businessman as a liquor distributor.

The Dexters purchased land on the corner of Fourth and Broadway in 1838 but the grand mansion they built there was not fully completed until 1858. Some sources I found say that the Dexters entertained author Charles Dickens there in 1842. Later, it would be purchased by the Western & Southern Life Insurance Company. It was torn down around 1914.

When Edmund Dexter, Sr. died in 1862 at age 61, he left his widow and heirs a considerable sum. He was buried at Spring Grove but in 1870, the grand mausoleum that would eventually contain the remains of most of his family was built. Cincinnati architect James Keys Wilson was in charge of designing the Gothic Revival masterpiece, which may have been inspired by the famous Parisian church, Sainte-Chapelle.

The mausoleum’s locked lower level has 12 marble catacombs where four generations of Dexters reside. Behind the locked door to the top level is a marble-lined chapel that is 12 feet wide, 30 feet long, and 34 feet high.

The $100,000 it cost to build the family mausoleum equals about $1.7 million in today’s money. But the Dexter mausoleum was never finished by builder Joseph Foster. Unknown financial issues left it without its planned stained glass windows and a manual elevator that was to reach down into the catacombs.

So how many people are inside the Dexter Mausoleum besides Edmund Sr. and Mary Ann (who died in 1875)? According to a newspaper article, there are thought to be a total of 20 people. That list includes Edmund Dexter Jr. (1835-1879), the second of the Dexter sons, who helped took over running the family business after his father’s death. He would die in 1879 at age 43 of “tuberculosis of the bowels.”

A Contested Will

Also interred within the Dexter Mausoleum is Annie L. Dexter (1856-1916), the eldest of Charles Dexter’s four daughters and Edmund Sr.’s granddaughter. Annie, who was single and died of pneumonia in 1916 in Quebec, left her younger sister, Alice Dexter Walker, out of her will. Annie’s estate was around $700,000. Alice challenged Annie’s will and settled out of court. “She had never shown me any affection,” Annie said of Alice in her will.

Granddaughter Alice (1863-1944) was married to University of Cincinnati Spanish professor Paul F. Walker. She had one son, Carroll “Deck” Dexter Walker, (1906-1960) who had to change his name to Charles Dexter in order to collect a $20,000 inheritance from his Aunt Annie. He is buried elsewhere at Spring Grove with his wife, Dorothy.

The Eyes Have It

My next story involves another prosperous Cincinnati businessman but his story is much more troubling than the Dexter family’s.

What drew me to Charles Breuer (thanks to Ken’s guidance) was the fact that the bust of the man himself that’s on the side of his monument contains a pair of glass eyes. There are a few stories behind why he requested that his bust’s eyes have real glass eyes inserted in them. One was because he wanted to “keep an eye on things” after he was gone.

But the more I read about C.C. Breuer’s past, the more I realized this man had issues that went way beyond requests like this one. He apparently thought about his eventual demise quite a bit, purchasing plots at Spring Grove years in advance.

From Butcher to Real Estate Baron

Born in 1845 in Germany, Charles C. Breuer made his way to America sometime before the Civil War. Settling in Cincinnati, he married Annie Burkart in the 1860s and worked as a butcher in the 1870s. As he prospered, the couple had at least seven children together.

By the time Charles divorced Annie in the 1880s, he had switched from operating a butcher shop to dabbling in real estate. He married Katherine Grotenkemper in 1889. Together, they had two daughters, Ruth (1893) and Helen (1895). It was only about six months after Helen’s birth that Katherine died of pneumonia at the age of 36. Charles was amassing several properties and gaining wealth rapidly.

It was in 1904 that Charles’ name began hitting the newspapers for various court cases, including a charge of assault against him when he cut a tenant he disagreed with. He also began entrusting his housekeeper, Georgia Lee Gholson (who was from Cobb County, Ga., where I once lived), with some of his properties and guardianship of Ruth and Helen, who were none too keen on their father’s new love interest.

Sleeping on His Casket

By 1905, Charles had married Georgia and his two teenage daughters were living in an apartment across the Ohio River in Covington, Ky., being cared for by neighbors. Charles had the girls brought into juvenile court under the charge of “incorrigibility” and the family’s dirty laundry was aired.

During this time, Breuer became obsessed with his own death. The story of how he purchased two copper-lined caskets (costing $500 each) for he and Georgia and then stored them under their bed made headlines in several newspapers.

Eventually, Charles dropped the case against the girls but the judge ruled that Charles had to provide his daughters with a living via the rental of one of his many buildings. While this was being finalized, an infuriated Breuer plotted to blow up the building to keep his daughters from receiving it. Fortunately, he was discovered before he could complete the job. The story even made headlines in the New York Times.

Beginning of the End

In court, Charles was judged insane and put in the custody of Georgia. One article noted he was reunited with Ruth and Helen in court, their legal matters resolved. But his mental state continued to rapidly deteriorate. By July, Georgia had reached her limit and Charles was taken to Longview Hospital, a Cincinnati mental institution. He died on August 20, 1908.

According to newspaper accounts, Charles was embroiled in 50 different court cases at the time of his death so I have a feeling there wasn’t much money left to leave his family.

I traced Ruth and Helen to 1910 when they were boarding in a home in Cincinnati. Ruth was working as a stenographer and Helen as a bookkeeper. I lost track of Ruth but Helen married and eventually moved to Tennessee where she died in 1966.

Georgia lived to the age of 77 and died in 1948. She is buried beside Charle, along with some of his children from his first wife, Annie. But I don’t know if Georgia was buried in that $500 copper-lined casket.

A Young Family on the Rise

Fortunately, the Emery family wasn’t nearly as dysfunctional as the Breuers. But they did know their fair share of tragedy, which resulted in the creation of one of Spring Grove’s most beautiful statues.

Born in Wales in 1830, Thomas J. Emery came to America with his family at the age of 6. Thomas was the eldest son of the founder of a soon-to-be developed empire built on candle manufacturing, real estate, and housing construction. Around 1865, he married accomplished New Yorker Mary Muhlenberg Hopkins.

The couples’ fortunes rose as their family grew, with Sheldon arriving in 1867 and Albert being born in 1868. Eventually, both boys were sent to St. Paul’s School in Concord, N.H. to continue their education.

Tragedy Strikes

On Feb. 6, 1884, Albert went sledding with some classmates and was in an accident. Sadly, he died a few days later on Feb. 11, 1884 at the age of 15.

One source I found said that Sheldon graduated from Harvard Law School but I wasn’t able to find anything to support that. City directories place him living with his parents until his early 20s when he began to work as a clerk in his father’s thriving real estate business. Thomas also owned a candle-making factory that employed many people.

Sheldon died of pneumonia on Oct. 26, 1890, leaving his parents childless. They were understandably devastated.

In response, the Emerys commissioned a baptismal statue in memory of their sons, Sheldon and Albert. The bronze angel, which originally held an elaborate clamshell, served the congregation of Christ Church Cathedral until 1955, when the statue was then moved to Spring Grove Cemetery.

In its new home, the Emery Angel is often referred to as “The Weeping Angel” due to her striking tear-stained face.

It was only six years later that Thomas Emery would die of pneumonia on Jan. 5, 1906 at the age of 75 while visiting Cairo, Egypt. The news must have hit Mary hard back in Cincinnati, especially since newspaper reports said she had begged him not to go. His remains were sent home to Ohio for burial at Spring Grove.

Thomas’ will included many bequests to various charitable organizations, including the Cincinnati Orphan Asylum he’d established 30 years previous and severak employees of his candle factory.

Mary reportedly inherited $20 million. Not a woman to rest on her laurels, she used the money to continue several philanthropic projects begun by Thomas and started many new ventures. She supported the Cincinnati Zoo, was the force behind the creation of Children’s Hospital, and donated a wing to the Cincinnati Art Museum to showcase the art she had collected and bequeathed to the museum.

Mary’s biggest project was the creation of the model town of Mariemont. Shocked by the unsanitary housing conditions in downtown Cincinnati, she used her funds to create a template for a community planned in every detail to provide its residents with a high quality of life.

Mary and her business manager hired John Nolen, an internationally known town planner, who developed the plan for the Village of Mariemont (named after the Emery family’s summer home in Rhode Island). Mariemont is one of relatively few planned communities in the U.S., and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2007.

I knew nothing about Mary’s involvement in Mariemont so when later that day my sister suggested we drive through it before heading to Dayton, I didn’t make the connection. It’s still a beautiful development with Tudor-style homes and tree-lined streets. This was the only photo I took, unfortunately.

When Mary died of pneumonia at age 82 in 1927, she left much of her estate (after many charitable bequests) to her sister Isabella, with whom she was very close in her last years.

I’ve still got plenty of stories to share from Spring Grove Cemetery & Arboretum. Stay tuned for Part III!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve visited Cincinnati, Ohio’s Spring Grove Cemetery & Arboretum twice. The first time was in June 2013 before my blogging career had really taken off, so we didn’t stay long. Plus my then five-year-old son’s attention span for cemetery hopping was pretty low.

The second time was in October 2018 when I came up to Ohio to visit family (and cemeteries) with my mother and sister. I purposefully planned our journey so that our first night was spent in Cincinnati so I could get up early the next morning while they were still asleep to visit Spring Grove with friend Ken Naegele (aka The Necro Tourist) as my tour guide. We’d met on Facebook some time before and he kindly offered to give me a tour with what limited time I had.

What I will be sharing with you in this series will include photos from both visits because some things I saw in 2013 I skipped in 2018 due to time constraints.

Birth of Spring Grove

Until the 1840s, Cincinnati had no large city cemetery to speak of but a collection of about 22 small church burial grounds. The growing metropolis had gone through a number of epidemics so some town fathers were concerned about having enough burial space.

In 1844, Cincinnati Horticultural Society members formed a cemetery association with the hope of creating a suitable park-like institution, a rural cemetery, close to the city yet remote enough not to be touched by expansion. They traveled throughout the U.S. and Europe visiting cemeteries as they planned a burial ground that would equal the famed beauty of Pere-Lachaise in Paris, and various outstanding cemeteries on America’s East Coast.

On December 1, 1844, Salmon P. Chase and others prepared the Articles of Incorporation. Chase persuaded legislators to grant a charter for a non-profit non-denominational corporation, which was granted by a special act on January 21, 1845.  Spring Grove’s first interment was made September 1, 1845.

A bit of trivia for you, Salmon P. Chase went on to become a U.S. Senator, Governor of Ohio, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and a Supreme Court Justice serving from 1864-1873. He is buried at Spring Grove. Thanks to Ken, I saw his grave.

In 1987, Spring Grove officially changed its name to Spring Grove Cemetery & Arboretum to include the collection of both native and exotic plant materials as well as its State and National Champion Trees and its Centenarian Collection. Today, Spring Grove encompasses 733 acres of which approximately 450 acres are landscaped and maintained. It includes 15 lakes and an estimated 225,000 burials. I’m betting there’s more than that.

Spring Grove 2018

When I went to meet Ken, I ended up arriving through the North Gate in the rear of the cemetery. We managed to connect and knowing I didn’t have much time, he started showing me around.

Today I’m going to try to feature some of the more famous residents at Spring Grove like Salmon P. Chase. Another is a pair of gentlemen whose legacy continues to give millions a good night’s sleep even today. That would be mighty mattress masters Stearns & Foster.

Sweet Dreams Started Humbly

So how did this duo meet? Poor Kentucky native Seth Cutter Foster (1823-1914) moved to Cincinnati as a young man. After gaining some education by attending a night school, he found work in a dry goods store. That’s where he met Maryland native and prosperous printer George Sullivan Stearns (1816-1889). That meeting would lead to a partnership forged around 1846.

Stearns, engaged in the manufacturing of printers’ ink and being naturally mechanical, was experimenting with producing cotton wadding and other cotton goods (especially in the cushions of carriages). Foster was selling cotton goods over the counter and he suggested to Stearns that he could find a market for the goods the latter was manufacturing.

Their factory first produced cotton wadding and was located at the corner of Clay and Liberty streets for about 15 years. They moved to Lockland, still retaining offices in Cincinnati. By this time, they were expanding to batting, mattresses, and other related cotton products.

At the Lockland factory’s peak in the 1970s, Stearns & Foster employed more than 1,200 people who produced 200 mattresses and spring sets daily under the Stearns & Foster and Sealy brands. It was acquired by the Ohio-Sealy Mattress Manufacturing Company on December 21, 1983. The mattress manufacturing operation at its Lockland plant was shut down in September 30, 1993. Sealy continues to market Stearns & Foster brand mattresses today.

Ken related the good news to me that Sterns and Foster are actually buried quite close to each others. Even in death, they were close.

George Foster died on Nov. 24, 1889 at the age of 74, leaving behind a widow (Amelia) and eight grown children (one child died young).

Seth Foster died on July 8, 1914 at the age of 90. His monument is a bit grander than his partner’s.

Candles and Soap?

Another great business partnership has its roots in Cincinnati and both men are buried at Spring Grove Cemetery.

A native of England born in 1801, William Procter got his start in the clothing trade. He made his way to America in 1830 and briefly manufactured candles in New York. His wife, Martha, died on the journey west in Cincinnati and he decided to stay. In 1833, he wed Olivia Norris. It was her father, Alexander Norris, that advised William to go into business with Olivia’s sister’s husband, Irishman James Gamble. James was a soap maker. The men started their business venture in 1837.

By 1858, Procter & Gamble sales reached $1 million with about 80 employees. During the Civil War, the company won contracts to supply the Union Army with soap and candles. In addition to the increased profits experienced during the war, the military contracts introduced soldiers from all over the country to Procter & Gamble’s products.

In the 1880s, Procter & Gamble began to market a new product, an inexpensive soap that floated in water. William Procter’s son Harley named it Ivory after reading Psalm 45:8: “All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad.”

An Empire Grows

Through the next decades, Proctor & Gamble would go on to bring more products into its lineup. These include detergents, soap powder, shampoos, toilet goods, and a long list of consumer staples.

William Procter passed away on April 4, 1884 at the age of 82. His wife, Olivia, died in 1893. Their son, William Alexander Procter, became president of Procter & Gamble in 1890. Sadly, William A. died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on March 28, 1907. He had been consumed with grief since the death of his wife, Charlotte, in 1903.

James Gamble died on April 29, 1892 at the age of 88. His wife, Elizabeth, had died in 1888. His obelisk is significantly larger than his business partner’s marker.

The last person I’m featuring may not be a household name like the others but Bishop Charles Petit McIlvaine holds a distinction that nobody else buried in Spring Grove can claim. I’ll get to that later.

Born in 1799 in Burlington, N.J., McIlvaine was the son of Joseph McIlvaine (later a U.S. Senator) and Maria Reed. McIlvaine entered the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University), where he graduated in 1816. The following year, he entered the theological seminary attached to the First Presbyterian Church of Princeton.

Served as Senate Chaplain Twice

In 1820, McIlvaine was ordained to the diaconate in Philadelphia, and was soon after called to Christ Church in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. From Dec. 9, 1822 to Dec. 9, 1823 and from Dec. 14, 1824 to Dec. 11, 1825, he served as chaplain of the U.S. Senate. In 1822, he married childhood friend Emily Coxe. Together, they had 10 children. Two would die in childhood. Three of them are buried with their parents at Spring Grove.

From 1825 to 1827, McIlvaine served as chaplain and professor of ethics at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Among his students were Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis.

In 1832, he became the second president of Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, and also the second Bishop of Ohio. He was a leading advocate of Evangelicalism. Over the next years, he gained a reputation of being a wise voice by his peers in England.

Bishop McIlvaine was so highly respected internationally that soon after the outbreak of the Civil War, President Lincoln asked him to go to England to argue against British recognition of the Confederacy. He often had coffee at Buckingham Palace, lunched with faculty members at Oxford, spoke with cabinet members, and influenced debate in the House of Commons.

Bishop McIlvaine finished his 40-year term as Bishop of Ohio in 1873. He was in Florence, Italy that same year when he died on March 12 at age 74. His remains, carried through England on its journey home to Ohio, was honored for four days in Westminster Abbey. He is the only American to this day to lie in state at Westminster.

Here’s a rather strange footnote. The final journey of Bishop McIlvaine’s remains was incredibly long. His remains traveled from Florence (he died March 12) to London (first funeral) to Liverpool to New York City’s St. Paul’s on May 6 (second funeral) before arriving in Ohio at Cincinnati’s Christ Church on May 9 (third funeral) before burial in Spring Grove.

All I can think is that he had to be very well embalmed to withstand such a lengthy journey. Cremation was not widely available in those days but would be in the decades that followed.

Emily McIlvaine died in New York City on Feb. 19, 1877 (her 76th birthday), four years after the death of her husband.

I’ll be back next time with more stories from Cincinnati’s Spring Hill Cemetery & Arboretum.

 

 

 

 

After finishing my Dallas, Texas series and enjoying a holiday hiatus, I’m back!

Today I’m writing about a cemetery that’s only about 30 minutes from where I spent my growing up years. Senoia City Cemetery is located in Coweta County. It also happens to be situated adjacent to where my sister purchased a home over two years ago. So I’ve had the pleasure of meandering my way through it several times now. I’m quite jealous that all she has to do is look out her window to get a cemetery fix.

By the way, it’s pronounced Sen-oy. Not Sen-oy-uh. Just ask the locals.

Coweta County was once part of the Creek Nation, named for the tribe headed by William McIntosh, Jr. He was a half-Scot, half-Creek who relinquished lands to the federal government in the 1825 Treaty of Indian Springs. McIntosh was slain by an irate group of fellow Creeks at his home on the Chattahoochee River. As a child, I can remember attending a play in an outdoor ampitheater in nearby Peachtree City that dramatized the life of Chief McIntosh. Once called Willow Dell, the town was renamed Senoia after Chief McIntosh’s mother.

A Little Town Grows Up

When I was growing up, Senoia was a sleepy little farming community with a population of around 1,000. We rarely went there unless we were taking a leisurely drive on a Sunday afternoon, maybe coming back from Callaway Gardens. Beyond the Main Street area, there was not much there. In 1991, some scenes from the movie Fried Green Tomatoes were filmed in Senoia and nearby Juliette.

Fast forward to the 2000s. A little TV show on AMC called “The Walking Dead” began filming and everything changed. In 2010, the town’s population jumped 90 percent from the 1990 figure to more than 3,300 residents. New shops and restaurants opened up. Southern Living magazine built its showcase home there TWICE. New housing sprang up amid the historic homes near Main Street.

To thank Senoia for welcoming them into the community, AMC paid $150,000 to completely remake Seavy Park. People from all over the country travel to Senoia to go on “Walking Dead” tours and shop in stores where they can buy props used in the show. I can testify that the price on those props just about tripled from when they first started hitting the shelves.

While Senoia is no longer a quiet rural town, it still retains a great deal of history and its historical society is quite active.

With about 1,660 memorials listed on Find a Grave, the earliest graves at Senoia City Cemetery (SCC) seem to date from the 1860s. I believe the City of Senoia manages it and it is an active cemetery with ample room for future burials. Note: Right beside it is Oak Grove Baptist Church Cemetery, which has about 132 graves according to Find a Grave.

There are a number of markers worth mentioning at Senoia City Cemetery but today I’m going to focus on children’s graves. I found myself returning to my pictures of them time and time again.

Four Babies in Six Years

You often hear the phrase “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. When I stand next to the Sasser plot, it echoes through my head.

With deep roots in Senoia, Joseph Arthur Sasser, Sr. was born in 1861 to farmer and Civil War veteran William W. Sasser and Keziah Boyd Sasser. Joseph wed local belle Carrie Ballard in 1891 in Senoia. She was a talented musician, having graduated from LaGrange Female Academy (now LaGrange College). Their first child, Cornelia, was born on Oct. 18, 1895. Sadly, the baby died on Aug. 22, 1896 at the age of 10 months.

A year later, another daughter, Mary, was born on Aug. 23, 1897. She died on May 26, 1898 at the age of nine months. Her death was announced in the local newspaper.

On May 8, 1900, daughter Carrie was born. Joseph was employed by a bank at this time. She died on March 5, 1901 at the age of 10 months. By this time, I can’t imagine what her mother, for whom she had been named, was thinking. She had to have been in agony. Why did her babies keep dying?

Now there were three markers in Senoia City Cemetery all in a row.

On Aug. 20, 1902, Carrie gave birth to a daughter, Josephine. Tragedy struck again on Jan. 19, 1904. I could not locate any funeral notice for her. Perhaps it was too painful for the Sassers to share with the world. Josephine’s monument is different from her three sisters’ markers.

The Surviving Son

Carrie gave birth to one more child, a son they named Joseph Arthur Jr., on March 19, 1906. By this time, the Sassers had moved from Senoia to Atlanta where Joseph was gaining success in banking circles. To their joy, Joseph Jr. survived his boyhood and would marry Ola Braye Happerfield.

Carrie died after a long illness at age 61 in 1927. Joseph Sr. died a little over a year later at the age of 66. They were buried together with their four little girls at SCC.

By 1935, Joseph Jr. and Ola had moved to Charlotte, N.C. where he worked as a salesman. He died on April 11, 1935 of a heart attack. He was only 29. A few days later, his remains were returned to Atlanta and he was buried in the Sasser plot at SCC. Ola would remarry soon after. She died in 1974 and is buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Gaston County, N.C.

Two Babies in a Shell

One of the more unique infant graves I’ve ever seen is for that of the children of Benjamin F. and Veta Hunter Cock. Some records spell their last name Cocke. The “baby on a half shell” marker is not that unusual. But it is rare for me to see one for two children.

The marker says “Infants Children of B.F. and V.H. Cock” with death dates of Sept. 24, 1892 and Aug. 20, 1893.

Benjamin and Veta would have a son, Emory, on July 21, 1897. Sadly, Benjamin did not live to see him grow up and died on Jan. 24, 1899 at the age of 34. Veta never remarried and died in 1965. They are buried together with their babies at SCC.

Emory lived a long life and became a successful businessman, dying at the age of 82 in 1980. He is buried with his wife in Westview Cemetery in Atlanta.

Sleeping Angel

The last grave I want to share is for Andrew Harmon Couch. Born on July 28, 1890, he was the third of eight children of James Riley Couch and LouElla Hancock Couch.

Andrew died on Oct 28, 1898 at the age of 8. He was the only child among his siblings that did not live to adulthood. I suppose that was little comfort to his parents when he passed away.

There’s something about the angel resting on the rock-like base of Andrew’s monument, its eyes closed and legs folded in sleep. I have seen it a number of times now and still get a lump in my throat when I pass it.

While Hollywood has had an influence on Senoia, some of it good and some of it probably unwelcome, I find that visiting this cemetery reminds me of what this small town is at heart. A community with families who care about each other and cherish their history. I hope residents new to Senioa will take the time to go for a walk here and look into the past to learn about those pioneer families who built this community.

Even the least of these who spent such a short time here…