Wings

While I was snapping photographs in Oller Cemetery yesterday afternoon, not really noticing how quiet it was in the country graveyard alongside the Scioto River, I heard the sound of flapping wings overhead.

Not flap-flap-flap; more like FLAP-FLAP.

Big wings.

When I looked up, I saw something that I had never seen: a bald eagle. First I noticed his white tail; then, when he turned to circle the cemetery again, his “bald” head.

That’s when I broke my Rule of Cemetery Stillness and shouted out to my husband, a dozen rows away.

“Roy! Eagle!”

We watched as the eagle made several lazy circles around the cemetery before disappearing behind the trees.

I turned my attention back to the modern monument, a vaulted obelisk, that I was photographing. The Williams monument at the back of Oller Cemetery is forever “the eagle monument” in my mind.

WILLIAMS

J. WESLEY
OCTOBER 1, 1930
MAY 21, 2008

PATRICIA EILEEN
(DeNUNE)
NOVEMBER 26, 1930








Oller Cemetery, Delaware County, Ohio

Buried in Cincinnati?

The tiny detail—the carved tack attaching the “page” to the small boulder—attracted me to this small black marker at the grave of Timothy Coop (b. 1817, d. 1887).

IN LOVING MEMORY
OF
TIMOTHY COOP,
OF SOUTHPORT ENGLAND.
WHO DIED AT
WICHITA KANSAS,
MAY 15, 1887.
IN HIS 70 YEAR.
There is a short biography of Timothy Coop in The Temperance Movement and Its Workers, Vol. III by P. T. Winskill (1892):

Timothy Coop, J.P., of Southport, is a name known far and wide as that of one of those men who, from a humble position, have risen to positions of honour, trust, and usefulness. He was born at West Houghton, near Bolton, in 1817, his father being a silk weaver. At an early age Timothy was bound apprentice to the tailoring business, and after completing his apprenticeship he removed from Bolton to Wigan, where he commenced business in a small way as a retail clothier. ... [T]he business developed so rapidly as to necessitate the erection of a magnificent pile of buildings, seen for a considerable distance, and known as the wholesale manufactory and warehouses of Messrs. T. Coop & Co., Wigan.

He was a staunch personal abstainer, and always a warm friend of the cause. During the later years of his life he indulged in his taste for travel, and while visiting the United States was stricken with malarial fever at Wichita, Kansas.

All of which introduces a bit of a mystery about this grave. Timothy Coop lived in England, he died in Kansas. Why is he buried in Cincinnati?

If I were a detective, I might start by investigating the relationship of Coop to W. S. Dickinson, who, according to Spring Grove burial records, bought the Coop burial plot.

Spring Grove Cemetery, Hamilton County, Ohio

Busted!

If you have not seen many busts during your graveyard wanderings, then you have not visited Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati. During my visit, which was much too short, I easily saw twice as many busts as I show here.

Imagine what I might find when I return with more time to explore!

Barney Dirr (d. 1885)

John Kauffman (d. 1886)

Charles C. Breuer (d. 1908)

Maria Theresia Rheinboldt (d. 1858)

Johann Ulrich Windisch (d. 1879)

Frederick Haussaurek (d. 1885)

Burial records

Did you notice that the date inscribed on the front of the Hanna sarcophagus is 1895? Did you wonder why? I did.

So I took advantage of the online burial records on www.springgrove.org to check the death dates of the Hanna sons.

I am thinking that 1895 represents the date the monument was set in place and that it corresponds to the death of the Hanna sons who died in 1895: Thomas (died May 25, 1895) and Ellison (died November 17, 1895). Their brother Charles died in 1894.

Spring Grove Cemetery, Hamilton County, Ohio

A sleeping child

There is a life-size statue of a sleeping child, flower in hand, on the W. E. Alcorn monument at Spring Grove Cemetery.

The front of the monument is inscribed with the name Ann Maria Alcorn (d. 1863), who is identified as the wife of W. E. Alcorn.

I knew before I looked that there would be more names on this one—children’s names.

ANN MARIA,
WIFE OF W.E. ALCORN,
DIED APR. 1, 1863,
AGED 34 Y’S. 1 M’O. & 14 D’S.

The side of the monument shows the children’s names, daughters of Ann and W. E. Alcorn, Margaret M. Alcorn (b. 1855, d. 1860) and Emma Alcorn (b. 1858, d. 1860).

According to the Spring Grove burial records (available online at springgrove.org), Margaret and Emma died of scarlet fever, Emma with measles as well.

MARGARET M.
DIED MAR. 2, 1860,
AGED 4 Y’S. 7 M’S. 12 D’S.

EMMA.
DIED MAY 1, 1860,
AGED 2 Y’S. 2 M’S. 8 D’S.

Spring Grove Cemetery, Hamilton County, Ohio