All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories

ABC:LHS #078-1   Thaddeus Lowe, who has relatives at Laurel Hill East, was the man who introduced the balloon to American warfare when he helped guide Union troops from 500 feet above the earth during the Battle of Fair Oaks. Until replaced by spy planes in the 20th century, balloons were one of the best surveillance tools in warfare. 

ABC:LHS #078-0   Look! Up in the Sky! 

Thaddeus Lowe is not buried at Laurel Hill, but has many connections there. He was an balloon aeronaut during the Civil War, thus father of the United States Air Force. 

Grover Cleveland Bergdoll's family is in a huge mausoleum at Laurel Hill West. An early student of the Wright brothers, he became a poster child for privilege when he dodged the draft during the Great War.

Hobey Baker's athletic gifts made him a natural pilot, but he crashed and died on the day he was scheduled to return stateside. 

Benjamin Lee II eagerly awaited his opportunity for a dogfight, but he was killed during a training accident.

Holger "Hold Your Horses" Hoiriis was a Danish American flyer who made history when he flew across the Atlantic with a paying customer.

Jacques Louis Francine was an All-American boy who used his flying skills to explore wilderness regions of northern Canada. His wartime service was very impressive.

Edgar Loftus was commanding officer at a European Air Base in the final days of the war when Hitler's Iron Eagle made a surprise landing at his base, but then perversely refused to surrender. 

Fold up your tray table, fasten your seatbelt, and get ready as we take off into the world of pilots at Laurel Hill. 

BBB:LHWS #057   Sara Louisa Oberholtzer...

...was a feminist, an abolitionist, and a temperance advocate who helped establish school bank accounts for millions of American children during the "Thrift" movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Her legacy for thrift in Philadelphia is second only to Benjamin Franklin's.

ABC:LHS #077-4   Antoinette Westphal...

...was a Dragon through and through. While a student in the late 1950s, she captained both field hockey and lacrosse teams, and wrote the newspaper's gossip column. She and fellow grad Ray Westphal married and started a family as Ray turned an idea into a successful business. After her death, Ray's donation caused creation of the Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts and Design.

ABC:LHS #077-3   Joseph Wharton...

...was a Quaker businessman and philanthropist and the primary founder of Swarthmore College. Fisher Park in northeast Philadelphia was his gift to the city. The Wharton State Forest in New Jersey is the largest mass of land owned by the state. And, of course, the world-famous business school that bears his name has graduated more eventual billionaires than any school in history. 

ABC:LHS #077-2   Captain Henry Biddle...

...was wounded in the Battle of Glendale and died a few weeks later after having befriended his treating physician. His wife donated money in his name to found Biddle College in North Carolina, which has since changed its name to Johnson C. Smith University.

His son Spencer Fullerton Baird Biddle was a Navy man who became a cattle rancher and introduced the highland cow to America and was a co-founder of the American Hospital in Paris. 

ABC:LHS #077-1   Charles Macalester...

...established the town of Torresdale, founded Presbyterian Hospital, financially advised eight US presidents, and may have been the richest man in the world. A codicil in his will provided for the beginning of Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, one of the top-ranked liberal arts schools in the country. The river mansion Glen Foerd stands as another of his creations.

ABC:LHS #077   College Namesakes (part 1)

BBB:LHWS #046   Psychosurgery...

...dates back to the Neolithic period but became more prominent in the 19th and 20th centuries. For about 30 years in the middle of the 20th century, medical wisdom had declared that destroying organically healthy brain tissue was a legitimate treatment for varying psychiatric disorders. The champion for destroying healthy brain tissue was a Philadelphia born-and trained neurologist Walter Freeman, who performed the procedure several thousand times.

Robert A. Groff, MD, also trained at Penn, as well as under the legendary Harvey Cushing in Boston. Toward the end of his legendary career, he was convinced to perform a lobotomy on a patient who had already failed the procedure once. Groff did it twice, and when the patient and his mother were disappointed by the results they sued. But Dr. Groff died after giving his deposition, but before his case came to trial.

ABC:LHS #076-5   Henry Naglee...

...was a West Point graduate who fought in Mexico, the West, and the Civil War. He took a liking to the West Coast and built the first permanent commercial structure in San Francisco, installed vineyards that produced the finest brandy in the country, and is namesake for the Naglee Park section of San Jose. But he was a scoundrel with women, one of whom repaid him by publishing his love letters and his self-portrait of doing naked pushups on his bathtub. General Naglee is interred in the South segment of Laurel Hill East.