Cemeteries – A Walk Back into the Past

I have a confession to make I like hanging out in old cemeteries. It’s not that I have a morbid fascination with death mind you, I just delight in spending time there. When I was younger, cemeteries had been an oasis for me, a location of escape from the insanity of summer time in the city. As I have grown older, I now take pleasure in just walking by means of, seeking at the stones and wondering about the folks that now lie in the ground, but at a single time lived and loved and cried and did all the things that people today do. Expanding up, I was surrounded by cemeteries. In my childhood property of Southwest Baltimore, the cemeteries are old, and existed extended before the residences and neighborhoods came to be. One particular of the biggest cemeteries in the location is Loudin Park Cemetery.

Loudin Park Cemetery was founded in 1853 and encompasses 350 acres of real estate in the Southwestern part of Baltimore City. It really is the final resting location for such notables as H.L. Mencken the famous sage, journalist, critic, writer, and so forth., from Baltimore. Mary Pickersgill the flag maker for the banner that flew more than Ft. McHenry, and the inspiration behind Francis Scott Key’s ‘Star Spangled Banner’ is also buried there. One more notable is Charles Joseph Bonaparte Presidential Cabinet Secretary and the youngest grandson of Jerome Bonaparte, who was the youngest brother of Napoleon Bonaparte. Loudin Park is also wealthy in Civil War history. It’s the final resting place of 2,300 Union soldiers and about 600 Confederates consisting of officers as well as foot soldiers.

When it’s interesting to take note of prominent persons buried in my backyard, I am equally fascinated by the stories that the headstones reveal about the widespread folk. For instance, I noticed on 1 of my walks that there seemed to be an inordinate quantity of deaths among young children in the time frame amongst 1918 and 1920. In quite a few circumstances, I observed that various youngsters from the identical family members had died within this time frame, and generally in the same year. Curious as to the purpose for this, I checked and found that a single of the fantastic flu epidemics had occurred throughout the year 1918 that had killed about 675,000 individuals in the United States alone. This epidemic had been specifically difficult on the extremely young, and in many instances the whole household had been wiped out! Understanding the story behind the dates, one particular can only think about what the families of those dying need to have felt to watch these around them succumb to this disease.

One more interesting aspect of Loudin Park Cemetery is that back at the turn of the century remains had been generally transported to the cemetery by the nearby Pennsylvania railroad or by the Baltimore hearse trolley known as the ‘Delores’. The trolley would provide the remains to the gate where they would then be transported by horse and carriage to the grave web-site or by the cemetery’s own trolley which ran from 1 finish of the cemetery to the other. Even now, you can nevertheless see the remnants of tracks covered by brush and woods running via the middle of the cemetery. Loudin Park cemetery is also the only cemetery known to have operated its own trolley system. The trolley ran one particular mile, and transported guests although its spacious grounds. It operated from 1905-1931, when it was replaced by the bus.

lazarusmaps.com was also utilized by regional residents as a park and picnic region throughout this time frame. City residents would hop on the trolley and invest the day at the cemetery, sitting under the large old trees or down by the lake. Throughout the height of its popularity, 2,000 people a week would make the trip to the cemetery, with the majority visiting on the weekends.

For most of us, a trip to the cemetery is a somber occasion. It really is a time to recall loved one’s who have passed on, and we generally do this by placing a flower on the grave on holidays such as Easter and Christmas. For me even so, it is a ‘walk back into the past’. With my brother obtaining lately completed an comprehensive family members history, I have become conscious of quite a few ancestors that I in no way knew existed. One’s like tiny William, a good, great, terrific, good uncle, who died of the flu when he was just two. Now when I visit their graves, they are not just a grave marker but a connection to my previous. One particular day in the future, somebody will take a walk back into the previous, and get to know you and me. What will that story tell?