All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories

BBB:LHWS #056   George Gerbner...

...was a Hungarian refugee and combat survivor who grew up through the start of European Fascism during the 1930s. His discovered that the power lay with those who controlled the narrative and tell the stories. He used violence as an example to spread his message, but a deeper reading shows that his concerns were that American media were starting to resemble the prefascist state he had known in his youth. Needless to say, he was a controversial figure for many years. 

River Section starts at the BODE plot 

Join me on an audio guided tour of the River Section of Laurel Hill West, one of the original four segments when the cemetery opened in 1869. You won't miss and of the fancy mausoleums or Tiffany studio stained glass, since they came later.

You will meet the Father of Scientific Management and the Mother of Mother's Day, the man who literally changed two sports and his sister who wrote for The New Yorker, a man who decorated several rooms in City Hall and Masonic Temple, and a woman whose work is primarily at The Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., the first doctor to take care of Phineas Gage after the tamping bar incident (it wasn't a crowbar), and a bride who wore her dress for the first time in her coffin. Plus ... oh, I don't know, maybe a couple of dozen more. I promise you at least two or three stories you will want to tell others. 

ABC:LHS #086-4   Drews and Barrymores...

...are among the best-known acting families in the United States. Although many of them started in an alternate final resting place, Louisa Lane Drew, owner-manager of the Arch Street Theater found a final resting place at Mount Vernon. Several years later she was joined by the ashes of her grandson John Barrymore, aka "The Great Profile." Thomas Keels tells their story.

With the warm weather here, you can take advantage of Laurel Hill's location as part of the Trails System that connect the Cynwyd Heritage Trail to the Wissahickon trail system. If you have walked or ridden your bike through West Laurel Hill Cemetery from the entrance just off the Cynwyd Trail all the way to the Pencoyd exit on Righter’s Ferry Road, you have probably passed dozens of mausoleums and gravesites that you had questions about.  Now there’s an audio narration to help you quench your curiosity.  It is done by Joe Lex, the same person who researches and narrates Laurel Hill’s twice-monthly podcasts “All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories” and “Biographical Bytes from Bala: West Laurel Hill Stories.”  Find out about William Luden, inventor of the mentholated cough drop; Charles Harrah, who made his fortune in Brazil; Eldridge Reeves Johnson, inventor of the Victrola, and many more.  And at long last, you can discover the mystery of “Cocktails at Six.”  The tour covers only people interred on the right-hand side of the road and takes about 40 minutes.  Look for its companion audio covering the other side from Pencoyd back to Barmouth in a few months. 

With the warm weather here, you can take advantage of Laurel Hill's location as part of the Trails System that connect the Cynwyd Heritage Trail to the Wissahickon trail system. Your walk or ride from the Righters Ferry entrance to the Barmouth entrance at the Cynwyd Heritage Trail is less than a mile, but you pass scores of grave markers and dozens of mausoleums, most with stained glass.  This 47-minute narration gives you mini-biographies of more than 50 people who have resting places you pass along the route.  They are captains of industry, philanthropists, teachers, physicians, artists, and others who helped shaped the history of Philadelphia. 

This narrative is a complement to another recording that guides you from the Barmouth Entrance back to the Righters Ferry entrance, also available wherever you find your podcasts. 

ABC:LHS #086-3 William Potter & Frederick Vanuxem... 

... were brothers-in-law and best friends. Potter served as President of Thomas Jefferson University for many years despite the lack of a college degree. Vanuxem left a legacy for Princeton which is still celebrated. 

ABC:LHS #086-2   Charles & William Kindred...

...became rich men in railroad land speculation. There is a town named for them in North Dakota. They broke quite a few rules along the way. 

ABC:LHS #086-1   Francis Thomas Lilly Sully Darley...

...was the grandson of the famed portrait painter and married the daughter of locomotive manufacturer Matthias Baldwin. He wrote operas, played the organ, conducted choirs, but his art collection was staggering. 

ABC:LHS #086 for May 1, 2026

I was tied up with preparing some new tours and could not finish the podcast on the Bible Riots of 1844. I scrounged around and found a few scripts I had written and never used. And then I remembered a segment that Thomas Keels recorded for me for an abandoned project. 

Francis Lilly Sully Darley was the grandson of a great portrait painter who married the daughter of Matthias Baldwin and became the most sought-after organist and choir director in the city.

The Kindred Brothers went west to Minnesota and North Dakota and became fabulously wealthy with their shady railroad real estate deals. One served as mayor of Fargo. 

William Potter and Louis Clark Vanuxem were best friends and brothers in law. Through years of dedication, Potter's name is inextricably tied with Thomas Jefferson University, while Louis's name is preserved at Princeton.

Fellow guide and amateur historian Thomas Keels tells the story of how the Great Profile Shakespearean actor John Barrymore ended up without a marker in a nearly abandoned cemetery decades after his demise. 

NOT ALL BONES CONSIDERED

NOT BIOGRAPHICAL BYTES FROM BALA

I did not have time to complete the Biographical Bytes from Bala podcast about Billionaire's Row. I will release the segment on Ralph & Suzanne Roberts in a day or two.

This is what I have been working on. The first draft of an "Ultimate Baseball Tour" I am giving 6 times during MLB All-Star Week. Then I had to spruce up a talk for Fort Mifflin that I had not given in a couple of years. 

Much of my time has gone into preparing Laurel Hill's first columbarium tour. I've selected nearly 40 people for inclusion and have only started to scratch the surface.

Come out and join me Sunday, April 19, at 1pm. We gather at the funeral home and walk up the steps for what will be a primarily indoor tour of 20th and 21st century Laurel Hill occupants.