All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories

BBB:LHWS 060    Edward G. Budd and Rupen Eksergian... ...were design and structural engineers who forced the Age of Steam into the Modern Era with their iconic Silver Zephyr Diesel Electric car in 1934. Eksergian took his skills further during the Cold War when he was one of the people behind Atomic Annie, a mobile artillery piece with a nuclear warhead. Both men rest at Laurel Hill West. 

ABC:LHS 090-5     Thomas E. Murphy ... ... knew virtually nothing about baseball, but found himself owning hundreds of shares of the Phillies during their horrible years of the 1920s and 1930s. He is remembered more as a yachtsman and a co-founder of Jupiter Island, Florida. 

ABC:LHS #090-6    Many early baseball players ... ... were given nicknames that would never be tolerated today. We can never know how these players felt about being saddled with monikers like Chief, Three-Finger, Chico, Dummy, and Richie, based on being "othered."

ABC:LHS #90-4    Joseph Howard Berry, Jr. .... ...excelled at baseball, football, track and field, and life. He is in two Halls of Fame. He is little remembered today, partially because of a vile nickname that he carried from his days at Wharton through the rest of his life. His interment location is well hidden.

ABC:LHS 090-3    Frank Bettger... (by guest host Rich Wilhelm) ...was a mediocre infielder for the Cardinals who blew out his shoulder and took to selling insurance, at which he was initially less than mediocre. He rebuilt his personality and his life to become one of the best motivational speakers of his day, often compared to Dale Carnegie. 

Released early in memory of Dolly Parton.  ABC:LHS #090-2    Frank Fleer... ...did not invent the gum that today carries his name, but his name has become synonymous with the pink chewy glob coveted by children of all ages worldwide.  

ABC:LHS #090-1     Francis Richter ... ...was a sportswriter who championed the new game through his newspaper work and the ubiquitous weekly Sporting Life, which was an essential read in the early 20th century. Richter is in the Baseball Hall of Fame ... sort of. 

ABC:LHS #090    We start with three ballpark Franks... ...Francis Richter, whose writing helped to make the game respectable; he is in the Baseball Hall of Hame. ...Frank Fleer, the man who ALMOST invented the pink gum that's accompanied baseball cards for nearly a century. ...Frank Bettger, who went from failure to success after he blew out his throwing arm in Chicago (prepared and presented by fellow guide Rich Wilhelm). ...Joseph Howard Berry, Jr., who is in two Halls of Fame but is nearly forgotten today because of an unfortunate nickname; yes, it's that bad. ...Thomas Mitchell, partial owner of the Phillies during some lean times, including the staggeringly bad 1930 season; on the bright side, he co-founded Jupiter Island, Florida. I will release an optional segment on September 5th about the rich history of baseball nicknames, and the problems with who does the naming.   

BBB 059, part 3    Jáni Szántó... ...was a masterful violinist and instructor who escaped the Nazis with the help of Pope Pius XII and settled in Philadelphia as instructor. One of his old instruments was the "Lord Borwick" Stradivarius, built in 1702.

BBB:LHWS 059-2    Wilhelm von Wymetal ... ... was an Austrian emigree with a dueling scar who took his expertise with opera to Hollywood, where he directed stars like Nelson Eddy & Jeannette McDonald, and to Pittsburgh, where he shepherded the Civic Light Opera through its early days of success. 

BBB:LHWS 059-1    Oscar "Papa" Schwar ... ... was a German timpanist whom Leopold Stokowski praised as the best in the business. His rumblings and poundings on kettle drums kept the Philadelphia Orchestra on its toes for more than 40 years. You'll hear lots of drumming in this one. 

BBB:LHWS 059    An estimated 1500 musicians ... ...fled central Europe's political turmoil in the 1930s and 1940s.  Tympani player Oscar “Papa” Schwar came from Germany; Leopold Stokowski considered him the best kettledrum player he had ever heard. Wilhelm von Wymetal came from Austro-Hungary, dueling scar and all, to New York City, where he introduced and produced more than a dozen new operas at the Metropolitan, and traveled to Hollywood to direct operatic scenes in movies starring Nelson Eddy & Jeannette McDonald. Jani Szántó was a Hungarian violinist who made it to Philadelphia with the help of his friend Pope Pius XII; along the way, he briefly owned the 1702 Stradivarius violin known as “Lord Borwick.”

ABC:LHS #089-6 OPTIONAL COUNTERFACTUAL... ...history of the United States when I asked CoPilot to create a country that abolished slavery at its beginning and then limited immigration. It gave me a startling picture of an unrecognizable country.    This section is almost exclusively generated by CoPilot.

ABC:LHS 089-4 Robert Stewart Ralston... ...was attacked and severely wounded by his servant who had been his enslaved valet. The result was destruction of Black neighborhoods.

ABC:LHS 089-3 Stephen Duncan... ...was a Pennsylvanian who became a Natchez planter. Over a 50-year career, he accumulated tens of thousands of acres of land and more than 2200 enslaved human beings. But he firmly believed that slavery worked best under the US legal system and would only be destroyed by secession. 

ABC:LHS 089-3   John Bohlen... ...and his brother Bohl made a world for themselves in the colonies as merchants whose offerings including liquor and people. German-speaking immigrants were common in the colonies, but especially in Pennsylvania.  

ABC:LHS 089-1   More than 1500 enslaved people... ...lived in Philadelphia at the time the colonies declared their independence from England. Enslaved people shared the streets with indentured servants, freed Blacks, immigrants, visitors, and more than 50 signers of the Declaration of Independence. Slavery was essential to the economy.    This segment was released early as a separate podcast but included in the full recording. 

ABC:LHS #089    ...slavery was an essential part of the colonial economy. The enslaved people of President George Washington have been in the news recently. John and Bohl  Despite Philadelphia's northern location...Bohlen were German immigrants who made their fortunes in the New World dealing with "gin and slaves," according to their relatives. Stephen Duncan was simultaneously a Pennsylvania businessman and a Natchez nabob, the owner of more than 2000 enslaved human beings.   Robert Stewart Ralston was severely beaten by his former enslaved manservant whom he had freed, but retained in employment. The largest trial for treason ever conducted in the United States was conducted in Philadelphia following the Christiana Resistance of 1851, an armed pushback against slave catchers sent to retrieve some self-emancipated African Americans. OPTIONAL: I asked CoPilot, a Large Language Model assembler of information, to develop a counterfactual for me - What would the USA be like if slavery were abolished with the Constitution, and Immigration were limited after 1800. Although purely speculative, it is a fascinating read.   

BBB:LHWS #058 Seo Jae-pil, aka Philip Jaisohn... ...was the first Korean to become a US citizen, but he never gave up on his lifelong dream to return Korea to its own independence. In 1919, he chaired a Philadelphia meeting that ended with a march through the rain to the room where it happened at Independence Hall and the reading of a new Declaration of Independence.  

ABC:LHS #088-2   GEN John Clifford Pemberton ... ... was a Philadelphian who threw his lot with the Confederacy, despite his graduation from the US Military Academy, where he had briefly roomed with George Gordon Meade. Jefferson Davis put him in charge at Vicksburg, where he was forced to surrender to Ulysses S. Grant after a 47-day siege. 

ABC:LHS #088-1   Major General George Gordon Meade... ...took command of the Army of the Potomac with almost no warning and promptly led it to victory at Gettysburg. But instead of being remembered simply as the general who stopped Robert E. Lee, he spent much of his life defending what he did next. This is the story of Meade's command, his caution, and his contested legacy.

ABC:LHS #088   July 4, 1863... ...is the day that the Confederacy knew their days were numbered. At Gettysburg, Philadelphian General George Gordon Meade stopped Pickett's charge and sent Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia back south licking their wounds. On the same day, Philadelphian and Confederate General John Clifford Pemberton surrendered Vicksburg to Ulysses S. Grant after a 47-day siege. The two men, who had briefly roomed together at West Point, will always be remembered for that famed day. 

ABC:LHS 089-5   Early Release for Juneteenth Research and script by Marty Foley; narrated by Joe Lex

BBB:LHWS #057-3   Jef Lee Johnson... ...played with everyone from Aretha Franklin to McCoy Tyner, primarily because he sounded like no one - except for the comparisons to Lonnie Johnson and Jimi Hendrix. 

BBB:LHWS #057-2   Winston Samuels McGinnis... ...was a Jamaican singer with a moderately successful career until he backed Desmond Dekker on the worldwide hit "Israelites." He became an accountant in New York City while the reggae that he had helped create took over the music world. 

BBB:LHWS #057-1   Rudolph Hennig... ...was a German born master of the cello who was the Philaldelphia Orchestra's first cello soloist after he had already been painted by Thomas Eakins. A century after his death, his portrait was again in the news. 

BBB:LHWS #057    Three More LHW Musicians Rudolph Hennig was the first cello soloist for the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1901; a few years earlier, Philadelphia artist Thomas Eakins had represented him in oils as The Cello Player, which was used as a bargaining chip more than a century later. Winston Samuels McGinnis was a moderately successful Jamaican ska and rocksteady performer who sang backup in one of reggae's first worldwide hits "Israelites" by Desmond Dekker. Jeffrey Lee Johnson, or simply JEF was the session guitarist who could apparently sound like anyone but was at his best when he sounded like Jef Johnson. The two usual comparisons are Lonnie Johnson ... and Jimi Hendrix. 

ABC:LHS #087-5   Rev. William Smith... ...was a Scottish-born Anglican who impressed Benjamin Franklin with his ideas about higher education and set up the skeleton and backbone of what became the University of Pennsylvania today, but he made few friends and is little remembered today

ABC:LHS #087-4  Hilery Baker... ...was a German immigrant who became two-term mayor during the time when the city was also the nation's capital. He established the first city police force and was the first "Officer Down" in the city's history.

ABC:LHS #087-3 Alexander Murray... ... came from a family that was part of the Scottish diaspora to the New World after the Jacobite Rebellion in the early 1700s. Born in Maryland, he was a ship's captain before he was out of his teens and rose to become a Commodore in the Navy. By the time he retired, he was a battle-hardened veteran with years at sea.

ABC:LHS #087-2 Thomas Godfrey... ...was one of the New World's first native inventors. While working as a glazier, he was intrigued by the reflection and refraction of light through a shard of glass. This led to his invention that made life on the seas easier and safer, and saved thousands of lives in the process. 

ABC:LHS #087-1 The concept of "celebrity corpses" to attract customers to a cemetery was nothing new. People had been digging up other people for years for legal, political, religious, scientific, and other reasons, so why not for commerce? Many transportable cadavers have made interesting journeys to their final resting places.   

ABC:LHS #087 Even in death, some people don't rest easy. Someone always wants to dig them up and move them. Though Laurel Hill East opened in 1836, several of its 18th-century dead were buried elsewhere first. First, I trace the many reasons people exhume the dead. And there are plenty. Thomas Godfrey invented a lifesaving navigational instrument. Buried first on a Germantown farm, he was later pursued by Laurel Hill as one of its earliest celebrity corpses. Commodore Alexander Murray was as important a sailor as Isaac Hull or Stephen Decatur, but without the headline-grabbing legend. Mayor Hilary Baker served when Philadelphia was the nation's capital and crossed paths daily with the signers of the Declaration and Constitution. He died in office. Rev. William Smith deserves recognition alongside Benjamin Franklin as a cofounder of the University of Pennsylvania, yet Franklin is celebrated while Smith is largely forgotten. I had a blast making this one. I think you'll have fun listening.

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. 

Biographical Bytes from Bala #055 for mid-May 2026: Tour starts at the Conservatory, 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. 

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #086, part 4 The Drews and the 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."

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #086, part 3 These brothers-in-law were 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 being celebrated. 

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #086, part 2 Charles & William Kindred became rich men in land speculation. There is a town named for them in North Dakota. They broke quite a few rules along the way. 

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #086, part 1 Francis Thomas Lilly Sully Darley was the grandson of the famed portrait painted who married the daughter of locomotive manufacturer Matthias Baldwin. He wrote operas, played the organ, conducted choirs, and his art collection was staggering. 

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #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. 

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. 

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #085, part 5   Samuel Perkins was the driving force behind getting the job done at City Hall. He established a close relationship with architect John McArthur, Jr., and sculptor Alexander Milne Calder, who honored him with a series of playful cats tucked away in the south entrance vestibule. 

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #085-4   John Christian Bullitt was a native Kentuckian who was pro-slavery, but who made his career as a Philadelphia lawyer. His constitutional knowledge and skills led to him rewriting the City's Charter, which immediately became known as The Bullitt Bill. He also helped clear Fitz John Porter of his court martial charges 15 years after the fact. His statue has stood at the northwest corner of City Hall for more than a century. 

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #085, Part 3 for April 4   Like sculptor Alexander Milne Calder, Architect John McArthur, Jr., was a Scottish immigrant. He specialized in huge buildings that were meant to last a long time, which explains his selection as architect for Philadelphia's city hall, which when finished was the largest building in the Western Hemisphere. Calder honored him by having him model for the visage of "science" in the eastern portico. He is naked. 

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #085, part 2 for April 3, 2026 Matthias Baldwin was always good with his hands. He started as a jeweler, but progressed to bookbinding before he built one of the first steam engines in the nation. When the Age of Steam emerged, Baldwin became the foremost manufacturer of reliable locomotives that were also works of art. 

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #085, part 1 for April 2, 2026   I have already talked about the 250 statues inside Philadelphia's City Hall back in ABC:LHS #018, part 1. But including Billy Penn on top, eight named statues also grace the building's outside, including two Civil War generals, a martyred US president, a civil rights hero, a merchant king, and two others. Industrialist / capitalist / philanthropist Matthias Baldwin and John Christian Bullitt, the lawyer who rewrote the city's charter are at Laurel Hill East. Hear their stories, plus two other fascinating character studies, in this month's episode. 

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #085 for April 2026   Philadelphia's City Hall doubles as an art gallery and sculpture garden. More than 250 of Alexander Milne Calder's statues grace the massive walls of the building. But at ground level on the plaza outside the building there are seven more statues, two of them equestrian.  Matthias William Baldwin was a precision jeweler turned locomotive manufacturer who gave away most of his wealth. His factory manufactured 75,000 railroad engines before it closed down. John McArthur, Jr., was a Scottish architect who specialized in massive buildings. City Hall in its time was the largest building in the Western Hemisphere.  William Bullitt was a transplanted southern lawyer who believed in both slavery and secession, yet he was chosen to rewrite the city's constitution in the 1870s.  Samuel Perkins was the Director of the Public Buildings who ruled over the proceedings with an iron fist and was rewarded with a private joke in the south entry portico. 

Biographical Bytes from Bala: Laurel Hill West Stories #054 for mid-March, 2026   Sophie Hutchinson Drinker (1888-1967) came from one Philadelphia blueblood family and married into another. She and her husband Harry led musical singing parties in their Merion home for 30 years. When Sophie started a woman's choir, she was frustrated in her search for music by, for, and about women. She made it her life's work to discover how woman had been shut out from their early roles in religion, medicine, and music. Her 1948 book Music & Women is a feminist classic. The Sophie Drinker Institute of Bremen Germany carries on women's music studies in her name and tradition. 

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #084, part 4 Emmy Lou "Clare" Linford Wofford was present at the creation of the United States Peace Corps, along with her husband Harris Wofford, one of John Kennedy's "Best and Brightest." While Harris served as college president and United States Senator, Clare served in the background at three Philadelphia Universities. 

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #084, part 3   Florence Cowanova (born Cowan in 1901) was the daughter of dancers Edward and Mary Cowan. On the suggestion of dancer Anna Pavlova, she adopted the surname Cowanova. Florence grew up immersed in dance, with her father specializing in kinesiology and her mother in dance instruction and publicity. By her teens, Florence was recognized as a versatile dancer and teacher, running a popular studio that staged large recitals at Philadelphia's Academy of Music, featuring hundreds of students. Thousands of Philadelphia girls fondly remember their sessions with Mme Cowanova, who made them all feel like princesses.