CYRUS CURTIS (1850-1933)-- Founder of Curtis Publishing Company, publisher of Ladies Home Journal and the Saturday Evening Post.
JOHN THOMAS DORRANCE (1873-1930)-- Discovered method to make condensed soup and president of Campbell Soup Company.
FRANK H. FLEER (1857-1921)-- Inventor of bubble gum and baseball card pioneer. That figures.
LEWIS M. HAUPT (1844-1937) Engineer noted for work with waterways. His father was Herman Haupt who was so important in the Union transportation, particularly with railroads, during the Civil War.
RUDOLPH HERING (1847-1923)-- Engineer who was very involved with the reversing of the Chicago River.
BRENDA J. PAYTON HILL (1945-1992)-- As Brenda Payton, she was lead singer of doo wop group Branda and the Tabulations.
--Cooter
From Wikipedia.
This is a continuation of my Road Trippin' Through History that I started in my Running the Blockade: Civil War Navy blog last week. I wrote about a Sgt. Richard Binder, USMC, who had received a Medal of Honor for service at the Second Battle of Fort Fisher in 1865.
When I Road Trip Through History, I start with a story and see where it takes me. One of the things I like to do is find out if there are any folks of interest buried where the person is interred. Sgt. Binder is buried at West Laurel Hill Cemetery. The cemetery is by Philadelphia, but actually in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania and is affiliated with the larger Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia.
Earlier today, I, posted about four Union soldiers who received Medals of Honor during the Civil War in my Running the Blockade blog.
There are a number of early baseball players buried there, but I am not familiar with any of their names.
ALEXANDER MILNE CALDER ((1845-1923) Sculptor. Designed the George Meade statue in Philadelphia along with the Benjamin Franklin statue atop the Philadelphia City Hall.
WILLIAM E. CARTER (1875-1940) Millionaire and survivor of the Titanic.
More to Come. --Cooter
From Wikipedia.
HANS JOHNSEN
(January 3, 1865 - June 17, 1920)
Chief machinist serving in the U.S. Navy during the Spanish-American War where he received a Medal of Honor for bravery.
He was born in Sandnes, Norway, and fought in the Spanish-American War on board the torpedo boat USS Winslow at the Battle of Cardenas. Along with the Medal of Honor, he was warranted as a gunner on June 27, 1898, and promoted to chief gunner on June 27, 1904.
During World War I, he received a temporary promotion to lieutenant on July 1, 1918.
He died June 17, 1920, and is buried in Bayview-New York Cemetery in Jersey City, New Jersey.
In addition to the Medal of Honor, he was promoted to the warrant officer rank of Gunner on June 27, 1898. His first assignment at the new rank was on the armored cruiser USS New York (ACR-2). Then, he was transferred to Naval Torpedo Station in Newport, Rhode Island, on 21 November 1900.
His old ship, the USS Winslow, on which he won his Medal of Honor, was stationed there from 1901 to 1904, so it is likely he was back on his old ship.
Sadly, he committed suicide while serving on the USS Monongahela at the Portsmouth Navy Yard in Kittery, Maine, on November 6, 1903. He stated shortly before his suicide that "the pain was unbearable", but it is unclear if his pain was physical or emotional.
He was buried in the Island Cemetery in Newport, Rhode Island, where his wife and children lived. As his tombstone did not indicate that he had received the Medal of Honor, this fact was not discovered until January 20 when Charles Mogayzel of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, was able to find Brady's gravesite.
Representatives of the U.S. Navy and local veterans organizations dedicated a Medal of Honor grave marker on Brady's grave on Memorial Day later that year.
His name in records pertaining to the Medal of Honor list his name as "George F. Brady" and the name on his tombstone is "George P. Brady." The reason for this discrepancy is probably that his name was mis-transcribed when his Medal of Honor citation was written.
--Cooter
On Sunday, August 14 at 1:30 PM, the Kishwaukee Trail Chapter NSDAR (Illinois) will have a ceremony at Old Marengo Cemetery in Marengo, Illinois. They will mark the grave of Phebe Ashley Mead Weed, daughter of an American Revolutionary Patriot.
Phebe Ashley was born on Poultney, Vermont, the sixth child of 13 children. Her uncle Thomas Ashley, Ethan Allen and Nehemiah Howe helped settle the small farming community where she grew up.
Phebe's father, William Ashley, served in the American Revolution and fought for our country's freedom in the Vermont militia.
Young Phebe grew up knowing that her grandmother, Beulah Wheeler Howe, was also a freedom fighter known for being among thirteen women who saved the children and citizens of Poultney from a British invasion.
--Brock-Perry
"No one in our boat knew how many lifeboats were on the Titanic but ... there was ample time for saving every soul on board had their been sufficient boats....
"The Captain and Officers of the Carpathia did all that was possible to make us comfortable and to those that were sick or injured, they gave their tenderest care. The icebergs were huge and the weather extremely rough on the voyage to New York."
Afterwards, Saalfeld returned to his wife in England. But as a male survivor of the disaster he found himself ostracized by society and his family reported that he never slept properly again, often calling on his chauffeur to drive him around empty midnight streets before he drifted off.
He died in Kew, Surrey on June 5, 1926, at age 61. He was still chairman of the firm, which continued to do business until 1954. His estate was settled on July 16, 1926, and his assets were worth 46,902 pounds. Burial was at Golders Green Jewish Cemetery in Barnet, London.
--Cooter
Still, investigators pursued potential leads about the wreckage of the two B-52s for decades.
In February of last year. scientists from Project Recover helped the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) continue the search for the B-52s where previous ones had failed. The target of their survey vessel's two week expedition was the seafloor area measuring about eight square miles.
In the past, such expeditions would have relied on divers or "fairly rudimentary" sonar. But this time they were using three 6-foot-long robots with the ability to scan up to 229 feet on either side and produce high-resolution imagery of the seafloor.
The wreckage of one of the B-52s came into view. Then the team saw human remains on the seabed. Before recovering them, the crew obtained permission from military officials in Vietnam and the United States by satellite phone.
About 24 hours later, the remains were brought to the surface. A lab in Hawaii eventually identified them as belonging to Major Paul A. Avolese.
The remains of two other men who were on the same B-52 have yet to be found. A full excavation to cover them would typically be the next step in such a case, and the DPAA would make that decision.
In September, the Pentagon said a ceremonial pin would be placed next to his name at the Courts of the Missing, in the National Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu to indicate that he had been found.
The men and women who came from what is now Angola in Africa arrived on two ships and were traded for food and supplies from the English colonists in Virginia. The landing is considered a pivotal moment in American history, setting the stage for a system of race-based slavery that continues to haunt the nation.
Many of the first Africans in America are known only by their first names. That included Anthony and Isabella, who became servants for a Captain William Tucker.
They had a son named William Tucker who many believe was the first documented African child born in English-occupied North America.
"We're still here," Wanda Tucker shouted in her family's shaded cemetery, which included many worn gravestones, as well as white crosses where ground penetrating radar had recently found unmarked graves.
The Africans were just 12 years after the founding of Jamestown, England's first permanent colony, and weeks after the first English-style legislature was convened there.
"The battle of Manila killed me, but I would do it again if necessary," were Charles Gridley's last words on public record. He died on June 5, 1898, while the Coptic was anchored in Kobe, Japan. This was just over a month from the Battle of Manila Bay.
He was cremated in Yokohama and his ashes sent to his widow in Erie, Pennsylvania. Once there, the ashes were interned in the city's Lakeside Cemetery with great fanfare. The Navy later placed four guns captured from the Spanish arsenal at Cavite by his graveside.
Fifteen years later, the people of Erie once again celebrated Charles Gridley by naming a municipal park after him. In the center of Gridley Park is a simple Ionic column standing tall.
At its base are two plaques recounting the details of Gridley's service and death, made from metal recovered from the wreckage of the USS Maine.
--Cooter
I have been writing about the Chattanooga National Cemetery in my Tattooed On Your Soul: World War II blog this past week or so. One of our last two WW II Medal of Honor recipients, Coolidge was recently buried there as was Desmond Doss, another WW II Medal of Honor winner. He was made famous in the movie "Hacksaw Ridge."
Also, eight members of the Civil War's Andrews' Raiders are buried there. They are the ones who stole the Confederate locomotive and were chased across northern Georgia.
Another thing I found of interest about the Chattanooga National Cemetery is that there is a monument put up by Nazi Germany on the grounds honor German prisoners who died in the United States during World War I.
From the June 9, 2014, Appalachian History. Net "First World War I POWs arrive at Hot Springs, NC" by Dave Tabler.
On June 8, 1917, the first of 2,300 German prisoners arrived by train at Hot Springs to begin life in an internment camp. Their civilian merchant ships had been docked at various American ports two months earlier when the United States entered World War I.
At that time, the government seized those vessels and declared the crews of those ships to be "alien enemies."
--Cooter
In November I did several posts on the Aumack Family Cemetery in Hazlet, New Jersey, which is being cleaned up in my Not So Forgotten: War of 1812 blog. The small cemetery is where the remains of a Civil soldier, American Revolution and two War of 1812 veterans are buried.
I wrote about them, and also came across the name of this Army soldier from Hazlet, New Jersey, with the same last name, who was killed in the Korean War. I am of the opinion that he is likely a member of the family.
From Honor States.org.
--Brock-Perry
And, out last stop on this tour of the Bohemian National Cemetery is the final resting place of Helen Sclair, whose efforts in the field of local cemetery-study are tremendous. That's right. She is now dead and has joined those whose memory she devoted much of her life to saving. Every tombstone has a story and it was her desire to find out as many as possible.
We need more people like her. She died in 2009.
Her last address is the same where she is now. While she was still alive, she lived her last eight years in a house on the cemetery grounds.
She is credited with uncovering a treasure trove of historic documents in the state archives at Northeastern Illinois University about Chicago's first cemetery, which was on the site that today is Lincoln Park. Mrs. Sclair was of the opinion that not every body was dug up when the cemetery became a park.
So, the next time you're at the zoo or enjoying Lincoln Park, just think....
The statue depicting an older woman shrouded in long robes, was designed by Czech-born sculptor Albin Polasek. It is one of his two works displayed at the Bohemian cemetery --the other, Mother, is located just outside the crematorium.
Polasek moved from New York to Chicago in 1916, to become the head of the department of modeling and sculpture at the Chicago Art Institute. The life-size sculpture was commissioned as a memorial to Frantiska Stejskal, the mother of the Stejskal-Buchel families, and shows a woman walking toward the family's mausoleum.
Other examples of his work in the Chicago-area include the 7-foot-tall The Sower at the Chicago Botanic Garden (sporting a face mask these days but otherwise in the buff) and Spirit of Music in Grant Park. These statues have not yet been taken down by certain people.
On July 24, 1915, the SS Eastland -- loaded with Western Electric employees and their families -- prepared to depart from its dock on the Chicago River in downtown Chicago and head across Lake Michigan for a company picnic in Michigan City, Indiana.
The boat suddenly listed to its side and capsized, trapping hundreds in the vessel as water poured in. Out of the 844 people drowned, Bohemian Cemetery has 143 Eastland victims buried in its plots, the most of any cemetery in the Chicago area.
Of the 22 families wiped out by the disaster, four are buried in the cemetery. Some, including those of Czech ancestry, include a short line -- "obet Eastlandu" or "victim of the Eastland."
Almost 100 years later, a memorial was dedicated to the victims of that ship at the Bohemian cemetery. A black plaque described the disaster on one side and details of the Eastland gravesites on the other. A granite slab with a ship's wheel juts out of the slab with carved ripples that represent the sinking of the ship and its raising following the incident.
Sadly, Today, the Tragedy Is Hardly Remembered.
Chicago's youngest and first assistant U.S. District Attorney was a brilliant Polish immigrant named Wanda Stopa. She had been one of two women to graduate from John Marshall Law School in 1921. But just three years after graduation, Stopa left her career, married a Russian count then fell in love with a rich, married advertising executive, Y. Kensley Smith, who paid for her to live in New York.
When Smith refused to leave his wife Geneivieve, nicknamed Doodles, Stopa showed up at their Palos Park home on April 24, 1924, intending to kill Smith's wife. She took a shot, but it hit the couple's elderly caretaker, Henry Manning, killing him.
Stopa went on the run, killing herself by swallowing poison in a Detroit hotel room.
Approximately 10,000 Chicagoans turned out for her wake and funeral.
CIVIL WAR VETERANS MEMORIAL
I'll write more about this in my Saw the Elephant: Civil War blog.
Dedicated in 1892. Said to be the first Bohemian soldiers monument in America.
*****************************
SPANISH AMERICAN WAR VETERANS MEMORIAL
If this statue looks familiar, then you've probably seen it in another cemetery or outside a government building in another state. The 8 1/2-foot-tall figure atop a granite boulder "represents the veteran as he appeared in the ranks" during the 1898 war, according to the Chicago Tribune story on the statues unveiling in September 1926.
A cross-shaped plaque listing the names of 147 Spanish-American War veterans was added in 1964.
MARKER MEMORIALIZING FIRST BURIAL
Dates differ as to when the infant known as N. Brada was buried here. The marker says the internment occurred July 1, 1877, but the cemetery's official listings recorded it August 6, 1877.
One possible reason for this, a Friends of the Bohemian National Cemetery newsletter points out, is it wasn't until after the baby girl was buried that the cemetery applied for the permit. Technically, the cemetery did not exist until July 1, 1877.
Originally near the entrance gates, the child's final resting place was moved to another, more private location within the cemetery. This marker is only a cenotaph, or commemorative plaque.
Burials are not allowed at Wrigley Field, home of the Cubs, but at the cemetery, located just five miles northwest of the field, a local man came up with another option.
More than 200 niches for cremation urns are tucked into a 24-foot long, ivy-covered red brick wall with a yellow "400" painted on it -- mimicking the one in center field at Wrigley Field. Old box seats, home plate, original sod and a stained-glass window featuring the iconic centerfield scoreboard permanently set at 1:20 are also included.
I wonder if the ivy is Wrigley Field ivy. Back in the 1970s, I bought an ivy cutting at Wrigley Field and planted it by my garage in Round Lake Beach and before long, it had taken over that whole side of the garage. I named it the Dave Kingman Memorial Ivy as he was our big home run hitter back in those days.
After the Cubs won the World Series in 2016, just about every cemetery in the Chicago area sprouted small Cubs and Cubs World Series Champ flags. Even a spot along a local road where a Cub fan had died during the playoffs had a Cubs World Champion flag on it.
It appears that there are still niches available, so for that Cub fan of yours....
Wrigley Field Forever.
