Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Walking Tour

Kept seeing billboards for Bellefontaine Cemetery that said The Other Forest Park. Really?

I got curious enough to look on their website and saw that they had Notable Burials and Civil War tours.

Thought Gloria might be interested and invited her along. Interesting tour with a good guide. Three notables stuck with me: Mother Baltimore, Eliza Haycraft and Sara Teasdale.

Today is the first time that I've heard the expression soiled dove (Haycraft) and I'd never heard of Mother Baltimore who bought her freedom for $1,000 dollars. Found it touching that people leave items on Sara Teasdale's grave.

The tour was two hours long and about three miles -- maybe.

Cemetery and Arboretum
Retro Walking Tour Guide*


Perpetual Mourner Statue
This perpetual mourner statute was chosen for a wife who died during childbirth. The child also died and the husband chose the statue to show the depth of his sorrow. It's captivating for sure.

The guide joked that apparently you can take "it" all with you. There were some serious mausoleums and monuments. One section of mausoleums looked like a subdivision.


*The retro walking guide made me think about an episode of Undercover Boss. The undercover university president had a really hard time walking backwards but our guide was a pro.

2 comments:

  1. Cool! I love Sara Teasdale's poetry, but I knew absolutely nothing about her, not even that she committed suicide. Learn something new every day... Never heard of Mother Baltimore, and googling brought me nothing.

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  2. When I first googled Baltimore, I just saw restaurant listings but the guide did mention that there was a group in Illinois preserving Baltimore history. Here's the info that I found:

    http://bit.ly/1zpP1UE

    http://on.fb.me/1txhMdL

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