All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories

• Edward Fry was impresario for the Astor Place Opera in 1849 at the time of the famed Shakespeare riots, when dozens of New Yorkers were killed. 

• Dave Garroway was one of the most successful announcers in the early days of television, but things fell apart when he walked away from "The Today Show."

Giuseppe del Puente was considered the premier baritone of the late 19th century. Eleanor Mayo had a budding career derailed by a bad review and a marriage.  Camille d’Elmar was never a star but she made a living from opera.  David Bispham was  "The Quaker Singer" who was a favorite of Teddy Roosevelt.  Robert Carson's Night at the Opera turned out to be lethal.

Martha Coston invented the signal flare that bears her name and in so doing saved thousands of lives in wartime and in peace. Rachel Lloyd had to go to Europe to get her PhD in chemistry, but she then jump-started the sugar beet industry in the United States.  Mary Engle Pennington, the “Ice Lady” completely changed the way your food is prepared, shipped, and stored. 

Admiral John Dahlgren was the father of Naval Ordnance, and the father of Colonel Ulric Dahlgren of the infamous Dahlgren affair during the Civil War that may have directly led to the assassination of their friend Abraham Lincoln.  Bishop Matthew Simpson - you've seen his statue on Belmont - was a confidante who delivered Lincoln’s funeral oration in Springfield, Illinois. 

Richard Rush served in the cabinets of three presidents and ran for Vice President in 1832, but is frequently an afterthought to his Founding Father parent Benjamin Rush. Henry Gilpin was appointed US Attorney General just in time to argue the United States case in the Amistad affair.  And there are seven Pennsylvania AGs, each with a fascinating story. 

* Alice Barber Stephens was one of the premiere magazine illustrators of the late 19th century (Alice Barber Stephens - Wikipedia)

* Cecilia Beaux was a painter acknowledged in her day as one of the best portrait painters in the country (Cecilia Beaux - Wikipedia)

* Harriet Frishmuth was a sculptor who lived to be 100 and whose art deco works continue to astound viewers (Harriet Whitney Frishmuth - Wikipedia) 

Beaux is interred on a hillside at Laurel Hill West, Stephens and Frishmuth are interred at Laurel Hill East.  They have stories worth hearing.

Professional baseball has a declared Founding Father, Hall of Famer Harry Wright. 

Since Philadelphia was one of the early cities to adopt the game, sporting goods manufacturers Ben Shibe and Al Reach took advantage of it. 

And if you listened to the Phillies on the radio, you knew the voice of broadcast announcer Harry Kalas.

Wright, Shibe, and Reach are interred at Laurel Hill West, while Kalas is at East.

There are many father-and-son combinations buried at Laurel Hill including

*portrait artist Thomas Sully and his military son General Albert Sully

*Generals Robert and Francis Patterson, both with somewhat tarnished military records

*Gilded Age capitalist extraordinaire Peter A.B. Widener, and his son George and grandson Harry who went down on the RMS Titanic

Many architects made Philadelphia the showcase city that it is today.  I have chosen 4 to talk about here: John Notman (The Athenaeum, Laurel Hill Cemetery), Napoleon LeBrun (Academy of Music, the Cathedral), Frank Furness (Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, gatehouse at Philadelphia zoo), and Horace Trumbauer (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Free Library of Philadelphia).