All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories

Biographical Bytes from Bala #028

The Philadelphia Orchestra has been one of America’s “Big Five” philharmonics for more than a century.  As it was being assembled in the late 1890s, it looked like the job of “first conductor” would go to local concertmaster and second generation Irish American Harry Gordon Thunder, but instead the position went to Johann Friedrich Ludwig “Fritz” Scheel, a German immigrant with seemingly unlimited energies and innovations, but the job probably shortened his life. 

In contemporary times, the first violinist chair was held for decades by Germantown-born William Joseph de Pasquale, a calm, dependable right-hand man to the conductor, and one of four brothers who played together in a string quartet. 

These three men – Thunder, Scheel, and de Pasquale – are part of the reason that the Philadelphia Orchestra has its universal reputation.  

ABC #058 - Part 5

McNeil Laboratories introduced Tylenol Elixir for Children in 1955, then watched it become one of the best-selling over-the-counter meds of all time.

ABC #058 - Part 4

William Warner learned how to sugarcoat pills, making theem far more palatable.  Warner’s pharmacopeia was distributed internationally and served as the standard reference for doctors and pharmacists for years.

ABC #058 - Part 3

The Wyeth Brothers invented a machine that standardized the size of pills and tablets.  It changed the pharmaceutical industry. 

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #058: Laurel Hill & Big Pharma, Part 2

William Weightman, with his partner Thomas Powers made millions by selling quinine to the US government. He spent it wisely.  

ABC #058 - Part 1

Philadelphia became the pharmaceutical capital of the country primarily because of the College of Pharmacy, which has trained thousands of pharmacists over the past two centuries.  

Several multi-billion-dollar pharmaceutical companies got their starts in Philadelphia as neighborhood drug stores. 

Weightman, Powers, and Rosengarten made their money by selling quinine to the US government. 

James Smith and Clayton French did not know each and both started as neighborhood druggists; but family and business partners kept their businesses going and their names prominent long after their deaths. 

The Wyeth Brothers invented a machine that standardized the size of pills and tablets, and William Warner learned how to sugarcoat them.  Warner’s pharmacopeia was distributed internationally and served as the standard reference for doctors and pharmacists for years. 

And McNeil Laboratories introduced Tylenol Elixir for Children in 1955, then watched it become one of the best-selling over-the-counter meds of all time. 

Robert McNeil is interred at Laurel Hill West, while all the others are at Laurel Hill East. 

Anna Weightman Penfield, the only daughter of quinine king William Weightman, became the richest woman in the world when her father died.  In 1929 when she was in her 80s, she decided that she wanted to produce a Broadway musical featuring songs by two young friends.  She even managed to convince impresario Earl Carroll, the so-called “troubadour of the nude”, to write the book and produce it.  He called it “Fioretta”.  Carroll used it as a vehicle for his current girlfriend Dorothy Knapp, a chorus girl who could not sing, act, or dance.  Despite the casting of vaudeville legends Leon Erroll and Fanny Brice, the show flopped and closed after just a few months, and Mrs. Penfield lost a bundle of money.  Then, the talentless Knapp sued Penfield, Carroll, and the composers for lost wages.  To tell this story, I read you a newspaper article from 1947 and part of a chapter from Carroll’s biography.  It's a story not to be missed.  

Biographical Bytes from Bala #027

Jack Rose was an old soul guitarist who took John Fahey and other fingerpickers as role models.  Born in Virginia in 1971, Rose moved to Philadelphia in 1998, where he became part of the alternative music scene.  As he taught himself the primitive styles of Blind Blake, Charlie Patton, and others, he took on the name “Dr. Ragtime”. 

His album “Raag Manifesto” was named one of the top 50 records of the year by British music magazine “The Wire”.  Davendra Banhart included one of his songs in the compilation “Golden Apples of the Sun”.  His fourth recording, “Kensington Blues”, was his breakthrough and he toured extensively. 

Rose’s career was tragically cut short in 2009 when he died before his 39th birthday and just before the release of his 5th album “Luck in the Valley”.  He is interred in the Nature’s Sanctuary section of Laurel Hill West, one of our green burial spaces. 

But his music lives on.

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #057 - Murder Most Foul, Part 5

C Morgan Knight was a very successful Chestnut Hill businessman who stopped at Wanamaker's for a quick shopping trip before he headed home after work.  He tried to stop a robbery and was shot; his murderer got the chair.