I have a confession to make I like hanging out in old cemeteries. It really is not that I have a morbid fascination with death mind you, I just take pleasure in spending time there. When I was younger, cemeteries had been an oasis for me, a place of escape from the insanity of summer in the city. As I have grown older, I now take pleasure in just walking through, looking at the stones and wondering about the people today that now lie in the ground, but at one particular time lived and loved and cried and did all the things that men and women do. Expanding up, I was surrounded by cemeteries. In my childhood dwelling of Southwest Baltimore, the cemeteries are old, and existed extended prior to the homes and neighborhoods came to be. One of the largest 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 element of Baltimore City. It’s the final resting place 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 over Ft. McHenry, and the inspiration behind Francis Scott Key’s ‘Star Spangled Banner’ is also buried there. Yet another 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’s the final resting spot of two,300 Union soldiers and about 600 Confederates consisting of officers as properly as foot soldiers.

Though it is fascinating to take note of prominent individuals buried in my backyard, I’m equally fascinated by the stories that the headstones reveal about the prevalent folk. For instance, I noticed on a single of my walks that there seemed to be an inordinate amount of deaths amongst kids in the time frame among 1918 and 1920. In numerous situations, I observed that a number of children from the same family had died inside this time frame, and ordinarily in the same year. Curious as to the explanation for this, I checked and found that one of the fantastic flu epidemics had occurred for the duration of the year 1918 that had killed about 675,000 people today in the United States alone. This epidemic had been specially really hard on the quite young, and in numerous circumstances the whole loved ones had been wiped out! Understanding the story behind the dates, one can only imagine what the families of those dying need to have felt to watch those around them succumb to this disease.

Yet another intriguing aspect of Loudin Park Cemetery is that back at the turn of the century remains had been frequently transported to the cemetery by the nearby Pennsylvania railroad or by the Baltimore hearse trolley recognized 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 personal trolley which ran from one end of the cemetery to the other. Even today, you can still see the remnants of tracks covered by brush and woods running by means of the middle of the cemetery. Loudin Park cemetery is also the only cemetery known to have operated its own trolley program. lazarusmaps.com ran 1 mile, and transported visitors even though its spacious grounds. It operated from 1905-1931, when it was replaced by the bus.

Loudin Park was also made use of by regional residents as a park and picnic area during this time frame. City residents would hop on the trolley and invest the day at the cemetery, sitting under the major old trees or down by the lake. Through 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 really is a time to recall loved one’s who have passed on, and we commonly do this by putting a flower on the grave on holidays such as Easter and Christmas. For me having said that, it is a ‘walk back into the past’. With my brother having lately completed an comprehensive family history, I have turn into aware of many ancestors that I never ever knew existed. One’s like tiny William, a wonderful, good, terrific, terrific uncle, who died of the flu when he was just two. Now when I pay a visit to their graves, they are not just a grave marker but a connection to my previous. A single day in the future, an individual will take a walk back into the previous, and get to know you and me. What will that story inform?