I have a confession to make I like hanging out in old cemeteries. It is not that I have a morbid fascination with death mind you, I just appreciate spending time there. When I was younger, cemeteries were an oasis for me, a spot of escape from the insanity of summer season in the city. As I have grown older, I now enjoy just walking through, seeking at the stones and wondering about the men and women that now lie in the ground, but at one time lived and loved and cried and did all the things that people do. Developing up, I was surrounded by cemeteries. In my childhood home of Southwest Baltimore, the cemeteries are old, and existed long ahead of the properties and neighborhoods came to be. One of the biggest cemeteries in the location is Loudin Park Cemetery.
Loudin Park Cemetery was founded in 1853 and encompasses 350 acres of true estate in the Southwestern component of Baltimore City. www.lazarusmaps.com is the final resting location for such notables as H.L. Mencken the renowned 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. A different 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 rich in Civil War history. It is the final resting location of 2,300 Union soldiers and about 600 Confederates consisting of officers as properly as foot soldiers.
Whilst it’s exciting to take note of prominent people buried in my backyard, I’m equally fascinated by the stories that the headstones reveal about the common folk. For instance, I noticed on one particular of my walks that there seemed to be an inordinate quantity of deaths amongst kids in the time frame among 1918 and 1920. In a lot of instances, I observed that several young children from the similar household had died inside this time frame, and usually in the identical year. Curious as to the reason for this, I checked and located that 1 of the terrific flu epidemics had occurred in the course of the year 1918 that had killed about 675,000 folks in the United States alone. This epidemic had been specially difficult on the very young, and in many situations the entire loved ones had been wiped out! Understanding the story behind the dates, a single can only visualize what the households of these dying should have felt to watch those around them succumb to this illness.
A further interesting aspect of Loudin Park Cemetery is that back at the turn of the century remains had been often transported to the cemetery by the nearby Pennsylvania railroad or by the Baltimore hearse trolley identified 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 page or by the cemetery’s personal trolley which ran from one particular end of the cemetery to the other. Even right now, you can nevertheless see the remnants of tracks covered by brush and woods running through the middle of the cemetery. Loudin Park cemetery is also the only cemetery identified to have operated its personal trolley program. The trolley ran one mile, and transported visitors though its spacious grounds. It operated from 1905-1931, when it was replaced by the bus.
Loudin Park was also employed by neighborhood 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 below the big old trees or down by the lake. For the duration of the height of its popularity, two,000 men and women 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 is a time to recall loved one’s who have passed on, and we ordinarily do this by placing a flower on the grave on holidays such as Easter and Christmas. For me nonetheless, it really is a ‘walk back into the past’. With my brother possessing lately completed an substantial household history, I have develop into conscious of various ancestors that I in no way knew existed. One’s like tiny William, a fantastic, excellent, good, good uncle, who died of the flu when he was just two. Now when I take a look at their graves, they are not just a grave marker but a connection to my previous. One day in the future, an individual will take a stroll back into the previous, and get to know you and me. What will that story inform?