August 14, 2005

A walk in the cemetery.

Cemetery.

Cemetery.

Cemetery.

Cemetery.

Cemetery.
Posted by Ann Althouse at 10:00 PM
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4 comments:

chuck b. said...

Excellent! I love that one w/ the huge sphere! I wonder what that's all about! I clicked through your Flickr'd cemetery shots too and then on a lark I looked searched for Bonaventure on Flickr tags--that's the sprawling old cemetery in Savannah, GA made famous by John Berendt. I've been there & it is truly amazing (before the age of digital cameras, alas). I'll bet you'd love Savannah, Ann.

Also, I'm happy to see someone took extensive photos of the fantastic Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, CA. I like this shot a lot.

8/14/05, 11:00 PM
chuck b. said...

BTW, here's an interesting story about the world's leading Tiffany window expert/dealer in NYC who got busted for fencing Tiffany windows stolen from cemeteries in the NYC area. I heard about it on random cable channel show "Art Detectives" or something a while ago.

8/14/05, 11:08 PM
Bruce Hayden said...

Bottom one looks like one we have in Michigan for, I believe, my great grandfather's four brothers. It seems that one would die ever other summer or so from the diseases of the time. That would date it to the 1870s or so.

There was a small ball on the top that seems to have fallen off and ended up in my mother's office closet.

8/15/05, 4:04 AM
Ann Althouse said...

Brendan: Yes, it's Daniel Kent Tenney:

In 1899, Madison lawyer Daniel K. Tenney bought some land near the city's limits and gave it to the Association, forever changing the face of Madison and adding "Parks" to the group's name. Tenney wanted to turn the land into a park, but the city had a history of refusing to finance space for anything as frivolous as leisure. So Tenney went to Olin with his vision: The Association could have his land--14 expansive acres where Lake Mendota meets the Yahara River--but only to create a park. And only if the park would be kept as a public trust to be handed over to the city when it was ready to take care of it.

Association members jumped at the chance, switching focus from rural pleasure drives to in-city "pleasure grounds," and in the process turned the volunteer group into the most powerful force for beautification Madison has ever known. To raise funds for the Tenney project, the visionary Olin slashed Association dues and increased membership tenfold. He also ran what was probably the city's first direct-mail campaign to raise awareness of the need for parks and outdoor recreation. And the money poured in from hard working families eager for a spot of beauty.

Olin then came up with a wildly ambitious plan to dredge the Yahara River, build a lock, raise all eight of its bridges, and build a dappled 20-acre parkway to link Lake Mendota with Lake Monona. He lobbied the city council and the statehouse relentlessly, and talked landowners into donating their river frontage. Amazingly, he got the whole project done in less than three years' time. In "Madison, A History of the Formative Years", Historian David Mollenhoff writes that Olin's profession was law, "but parks, beauty & order were his passion."

So all Madisonians should make a pilgrimmage to Forest Hill Cemetery and say a word of prayer or thanks at the giant sphere.

8/15/05, 6:27 AM

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