USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester > Rural retrospect: a parallel history of Worcester and its Rural Cemetery > Part 11
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There were long hours for Elizabeth in the Cemetery office. There were also long hours keeping vigil with the telephone at home. Al- though the Cemetery communication system was awkward, it was unique! Whenever a call came, Mrs. Hansen would call the foreman's wife who lived across the street from the Cemetery. She, in turn,
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would then relay the summons to Mr. Hansen by ringing a bell which hung on a nearby tree.
In the same year that Mr. Hansen assumed office Rural Cemetery received its greatest morale boost with the announcement of a $75,000 gift. It had been left by the will of Ellen Rogers Kennedy and labeled for a memorial chapel. The trustees were delighted. This was a dream come true after almost a hundred years. Frederick William Paine had first thought of it, and had mentioned it in 1850. Seventeen years later it had been resolved that it was both "expedient and proper" to erect a chapel. But that was as far as it had gone. In 1892 John D. Lovell revived the idea. During a convalescent period after a severe illness, he even drew plans for his dream chapel.
But again, it had not materialized.
It seemed almost too good to be true in 1924 when the Kennedy gift was announced. Five years later the building was actually started. The year of 1929 hardly seemed an auspicious time for such an under- taking. Individual fortunes were crumbling on every hand but for once, Rural, engaged in its biggest enterprise to date, appeared more prosperous than its neighbors.
Myron F. Converse, Waldo Lincoln, and Forrest W. Taylor, with Mr. Hansen as secretary, comprised the building committee. Lowell and Whipple were the builders. The building, designed by R. Clipston Sturgis, was fashioned in Gothic style and adapted to rites of all Protes- tant denominations. One of the most apt details was its construction of matched granite stone cut from Millstone Hill. This hill, at the time when Rural had been incorporated, had belonged to the people of the town. They had been free, at any time, to appropriate its stone for building purposes. Although the hill had since evolved to the City of Worcester, its sentiment was nonetheless appropriate. Clustered around the base of the new chapel were the graves of many early citizens of the town who would have considered the use of the stone a prerogative to which their memory was entitled.
The chapel, with a seating capacity for about seventy persons, had flagstones for its floor and natural pine for its rafters. One of its most
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sensitive architectural features was a slight narrowing of the building toward the chancel.
The ground was broken for the building the day following Memo- rial Day in 1929. It was dedicated "to the wide fellowship of mem- ory" just a year later on May 25, 1930. It was a stormy, somber day, making the welcoming, little stone chapel seem more than ever a suitable shelter for remembrance.
The dedication service had been planned to be as all-inclusive as possible as far as creeds were con- cerned. Doctor Shepherd Knapp, Congregational, read the Scripture, and Doctor Maxwell Savage, Uni- tarian, the sentences of dedication. Doctor Vincent Tomlinson, Uni- versalist, gave the prayer, while the First Baptist quartette sang the familiar "Faith of Our Fathers." The long, sustained phrases of Brahms' "How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place," always so haunt- ingly beautiful, seemed somehow more beautiful than ever in their appropriateness for this occasion. Walter Farmer was the organist at the new Fraser, two-manual pipe organ.
Time and circumstance had made such a gap between the gift
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and the giver that there was only one distant relative of Mrs. Kennedy's present at the ceremonies. But there were many grateful thoughts directed toward the generous benefactress who had made possible this meaningful and substantial addition to Rural Cemetery.
Mrs. Kennedy was the daughter of Thomas Moore Rogers, an old- time Worcester merchant and shoe manufacturer who had owned considerable real estate in the center of the City. It was he who had laid out Southbridge and Canterbury Streets. He had owned property on Trumbull, Front, Main, and Pleasant Streets, and on Salem Square.
Ellen Rogers had been one of the graduates of the old Oread Institute on South Main Street. In her late life she was not too well known in Worcester, because with her musician husband, Walter G. Scott Kennedy, she lived for many years in Sicily. Her will provided not only for the Rural chapel but also for a gift of $75,000 to the City for a historical monument which has been erected across from Elm Park on Park Avenue. There were many other bequests to colleges, churches, and hospitals.
The first funeral in the Ellen Rogers Kennedy Memorial Chapel was held on August 25, 1930, with services for Addie Sampson Appleyard.
The Cemetery office settled down in a wing to the south of the sanctuary. At last the office had a place of its own. Records-what there were-had initially been kept by the secretary of the Corporation. It had been voted in 1878 that maintenance records of the grounds be kept by the janitor and workmen, but this hadn't worked out too well, chiefly because most of the men hired at that time couldn't read or write. A few years later money was made available to buy a desk or "a suitable case" for the books, papers, and plans. An office was rented on Pearl Street in 1890, and four years later, a room in the Five Cents Savings Building. But this was a long way from the Cemetery, entailing a great deal of unnecessary running back and forth. When Mr. Hansen first took the job of superintendent, one of his first projects was to shingle the roof of the old Waiting Lodge-where people had waited for street cars-and to fit it up as an office.
The little old building squatted solidly near the entrance, lending
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a touch of incongruity to the setting for the new chapel. "This will never do," quickly observed the trustees, and moved it back into the grounds. At the same time, the office moved into comfortable, heated quarters in the south wing of the chapel.
Attention was meanwhile also being given to the entrance to the Cemetery. Its old gate, with ornate iron filigree, was just as outdated as the road itself which was too narrow for modern conveyances, especially, the men insisted, if a woman happened to be driving. It was easy enough to remove the gates and to widen the drive, but the massive granite posts-what could be done with them? How, without costly labor, could they possibly be moved? Ernest Hansen thought a minute, smiled a slow, pleased grin, then asked the logical question, "Why don't we bury them?" And that is just what they did.
The Cemetery had a new look of elegance. The chapel had con- tributed much to this appearance, but there were also the beautiful additions of the Jefferson, Barton, Pinkerton, Crompton, Taylor, and Kennedy mausoleums.
But there was still work to do. The forest and swamp at the north end of the Cemetery, bought in the 1840's, represented nine acres of unfinished business. No matter how many attempts had been made, this land had never been fully developed. Always the problem had been to get enough fill to bring the surface up to a desired level. Although the Cemetery had bought several nearby lots with the pur- pose of obtaining loam, there had never been enough to do more than start the project.
The bonanza came in 1931. In his report the following year, Ernest Hansen announced with justifiable satisfaction-in capital letters, no less-that he had acquired 75,000 cubic yards of earth FREE. This had come from excavations which fortunately were not far from the Cemetery, from Wesley Methodist Church, the Art Museum, and (the greatest quantity) from the Worcester Memorial Auditorium. Everything in the line of fill was welcomed, even the chips from asphalt sidewalks which were torn up near the grounds and contributed by the City.
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To get the promise for the fill was one thing, but how to expedite the quick moving of it to the Cemetery without straining the budget was quite another. Again the loyalty of Cemetery workers proved itself. Voluntarily working almost around the clock in two shifts, the regular men, with the help of only a very few extras, accomplished the job in three weeks.
Placing the fill strategically, sometimes to a depth of twenty feet, required a feat of landscape engineering. Drainage problems also had to be considered. One troublesome situation was overcome by taking a peat-like composition from the lowest part of the land and mixing it to make loam for the other sections. This new loam was then harrowed (with Mr. Converse's tractor from his Lincoln Street farm), and sowed with buckwheat and soybeans for fertility.
In July, Mr. Hansen looked at his acres of flowering buckwheat --- some of it at least four feet high-and knew that the sub-structure of his dream development was ready.
But the Cemetery's empty purse suddenly stopped proceedings. By the early 1930's the depression had done most of its crippling work. The finance chairman spoke of the "disreputable decrepitude"-big words, matching the seriousness of the situation-which must become the Cemetery's future unless funds were soon raised.
The regular funds had gone the way of all funds. As early as 1925 the book value of investments had shifted places with the actual value, which before had always been higher. From that year on, their worth dropped steadily lower.
The financial report of 1935 showed that the Cemetery's General Fund had shrunk by $15,000 in four years. Regardless of the rules, it had been imperative to borrow from the Perpetual Fund in order to make ends meet at all. But even the Perpetual Fund was shaky. It had been set up "irrevocably," its money to be invested in public stocks of New England or of the National Government, in bank stocks, in loans for real estate mortgages, or in "railroad companies of New England."
It sounded more secure than it actually was. Banks had failed,
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some of the railroad companies had gone out of existence, and individ- uals to whom money had been loaned had gone bankrupt. It became necessary to amend the By-laws to state the case more conservatively, to permit investment only in savings banks or in such securities as those banks were allowed to invest.
A promotion committee was named as early as 1934 to suggest ways of raising money for the Cemetery. The only reasonable way seemed to be to sell more lots. But selling lots precluded the use of the new development, and this meant having more money to lay out streets, plant trees, lay drains, sow grass, and make markers. The committee pessimistically surveyed the impasse, then reported at the Corporation's one-hundredth meeting in 1937 that, in their opinion, the time was "unpropitious for raising money for the society."
But they didn't give up. They even tried the social approach, inviting prospective lot owners to a luncheon meeting at the Worcester Club. The guest list was an arbitrary one, because, after all, everyone
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on the street was what one might call a good prospect. Generally speaking, the choice was limited to representatives of Worcester's old families whose ancestors were already buried in Rural.
The luncheon was labeled a success. Someone observed that it hadn't cost the trustees much for food, because no one had had the heart to eat anyway. And when it was over, there were pledges for a sum of $35,000.
This was but the initial step for a campaign of benevolent giving benefiting the Cemetery. In later years, when such giving became as tax-free as it was public-spirited, the idea expanded into substantial assistance to Cemetery funds and serves now as the most promising factor of Rural Cemetery's future.
When the $35,000 was raised, spirits at Rural reached a new high. At last the work for the new development could procced. Immediate arrangements were made for surfacing the avenues, for draining, grad- ing, and seeding the land. Collaborating with H. B. Klar, Mr. Hansen
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devised a scale model of the new section. This model, incidentally, won a prize at the national convention of the Association of American Cemetery Superintendents.
Nine new acres of lots were thus made ready for sale.
Then along came the hurricane of 1938. With the wind went the rest of the $35,000. Excepting for a new dump truck and a wire fence on one side of the grounds, all the money was spent for repairs, curbings, stump pulling, new grading and seeding.
Again, Ernest Hansen had to start all over.
At least, he figured, after the uprooted trees were removed he would still have the basis for his new development. And much to everyone's pleasure, the grounds were still amazingly beautiful even with the loss of so many trees. With Nature's severe job of pruning, there had come a new feeling of spaciousness. The old trees seemed to stretch higher and wider, acquiring an individual loftiness they had never had before. Only two larches were left, but they stood like tall aristocrats at opposite corners of the grounds. There was still a great variety of trees, including a rare ash, the bald cypress, many purple and green beeches, red and white oaks, rock maples, Norway spruces, and Scotch pines. New low plantings and screens of hemlock served well to fill in any barrenness created by the hurricane near the ground.
In the following spring the soft, green lawns appeared on the sloping contours of the new development. The Cemetery had all but forgotten the big wind of its last September.
Four years later, Rural Cemetery installed a crematory. Crema- tion was an idea fostered nationally as early as 1885 by a Worcester man, Doctor John Marble, the son-in-law of Worcester's industrialist, Ethan Allen. First, in newspaper articles of the Spy, then with a speech for the Massachusetts Medical Society which was published and widely circulated, Doctor Marble outlined the advantages of cremation.
At that time, even the mention of the word was revolutionary and even objectionable. Country-wide, it provoked spirited editorials in the leading newspapers. But by 1942, almost sixty years later, the con- troversial aspects had cooled down considerably. It was thus with
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Tall larch tree, as old as the Cemetery, near entrance
little ado that Rural Cemetery installed a fully equipped crematory in a wing built to the north of the chapel.
"This," said Ernest Hansen, thinking of the Cemetery's financial situation, "will be the salvation for Rural Cemetery."
He was nevertheless troubled. "Who," he wondered, "will operate this crematory now that we have it?" It was a task implying great responsibility, a task that required a certain combination of dignity and delicacy. The problem nagged his attention as one day he wan- dered down through the Cemetery paths. At the Jefferson mausoleum Arthur Scanlon, who was in charge of Special Care, was trimming and edging the lot. With sudden and sure insight, Ernest Hansen knew the answer.
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"Arthur," he asked impulsively, "how would you like to learn how to operate the crematory?"
He literally held his breath. Arthur looked up slowly, then with a voice as deliberate and steady as his glance, countered, "Why not?"
It was the perfect solution. Mr. Scanlon had joined the Cemetery staff the very same year as had Ernest Hansen, and with the exception of a few temporary outside jobs in wintertime, had known no other work environment than Rural Cemetery. In 1942 he was named in charge of the crematory, and later, in 1947, he became assistant superin- tendent of the Cemetery.
Sharing experience and knowledge, Ernest Hansen and Arthur Scanlon together formed Rural's prevailing philosophy-a conscien- tious, careful concern for the individual, whether he dies or whether he grieves. By cultivating a compassionate, respectful attitude toward Death, these two gentle men have thus paid high tribute to Life.
The crematory at Rural attracted general attention, because in no other cemetery in or near Worcester were there facilities for cremation. Rural became so well advertised in this respect that a reminder often had to be given that the traditional form of burial was still common in the Cemetery.
At the base of the long slope from the chapel a section of ground was reserved for an Urn Garden. With aesthetic features of planting, this became the Cemetery's central haven of fragrant beauty. Nearby, a matching place of sentiment called the Companion Garden was established. In this section the lots were all planned for two persons, with one stone restricted to colonial or similarly simple design. In 1954 a sales contract was signed for the promotion of these sections and what became known formally as the New Development.
When the Cemetery took a long look back over the last thirty years, it realized that as a corporation it had emerged remarkably well from the country's worst depression. Financially, it was sounder than it had ever been. Materially, it had expanded, and sentimentally, its value had increased with every year of its existence.
In thirty years Rural had lost eight trustees by death. These men
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had served as long as they had lived, one of them, Judge William T. Forbes, only fourteen years, but another, George T. Dewey, for fifty years. George Crompton had been a long-term man with thirty- five years and Waldo Lincoln an- other with thirty-two. Philip Cur- tis had served twenty-three years before he died, Forrest Taylor, twenty-five, and Myron Converse, twenty-eight.
The first of the group to go had been Benjamin T. Hill. In his case Rural Cemetery exerted a prerogative outlined in the original George I. Rockwood President: 1934-1944 charter. The actual stipulation had permitted free burial for "dis- tinguished strangers." Mr. Hill was certainly no stranger, having been a trustee and officer for twenty-seven years, but there was no charge for his burial. It is the only case on record, with the exception of Daniel Waldo; but in Mr. Waldo's case, this consideration had been mutually agreed upon when he gave the land for the Cemetery.
During these last thirty years there had been only one resignation, that of George I. Rockwood, after twenty years of trusteeship and a ten-year term as president. Mr. Rockwood, inventor of the automatic sprinkler, was president of the Rockwood Sprinkler Company which manufactured his invention. Mr. Rockwood's mother (she was the daughter of Charles Washburn) had given her son the reminiscent Washburn name of Ichabod for his middle name.
Trusteeship had patterned after traditional lines. If the founders could have seen the roster in 1955 they would not have felt that steward- ship had passed far into alien hands. The familiar names of Lincoln, Paine, Kinnicutt, Rice, Dewey, and Bullock seemed right at home on
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the Corporation's record books. The names represented a different generation, but the same early families.
Francis H. Dewey, Jr., was the grandson of the Judge by the same name. Albert W. Rice, the son of William E. Rice, was elected a trustee in 1941 and president in 1944. Daniel W. Lincoln was the direct descendant of Governor Levi Lincoln. Doctor Roger Kinnicutt, the son of Lincoln Kinnicutt, was also a descended relative of Judge Thomas Kinnicutt who gave Rural its name. And Chandler Bullock, the veteran of them all, elected in 1913, was the grandson of Gov- ernor Alexander Bullock.
Albert W. Rice President: 1944-
When in 1941 the By-laws were amended to allow the election of two additional trustees, Russell Paine was elected. His grandfather was Frederick William Paine, the man who so lavishly bestowed his care on Rural in the early years. At the same time, in 1941, came the election of George Sessions, a direct descendant of the man of the same name who had been named Worcester's town sexton in 1850. Since then the Sessions' undertaking establishment had evolved through many successions, always in the same family. This company, the first of its kind in Worcester, had always been close to Rural. It had helped immeasurably when records had been confused, and it had helped when it had been necessary to move various persons from other Worces- ter cemeteries. In 1851 the company had been allowed fifty cents commission for each lot it sold, and in 1867 there had come a short time when six cents had been given to the Sessions Company whenever they made an interment at Rural.
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Trustees, July, 1956
Front row, left to right: Russell S. Paine, Chandler Bullock, Albert W. Rice, Mrs. George S. Barton, Daniel W. Lincoln. Second row: George R. Stobbs, George Sessions, Nathaniel Wheeler, Robert L. Whipple. Absent were Doctor Roger Kinnicutt and Francis H. Dewey, Jr.
Uniquely in the history of Rural, a woman, Mrs. George S. Barton, was elected to Board membership in 1934. She was of the Lincoln family, and her husband's ancestors had pioneered in one of Worcester's earliest firms, the predecessor of Rice Barton Corporation. Rural's Board was further distinguished by the membership of a military man, Colonel Robert L. Whipple, who had served in the Spanish-American War and World War I. He was known, in addition to his military role, as president of one of Worcester's most prominent contract- ing firms.
In 1955 Nathaniel Wheeler became the most recently elected trustee. Mr. Wheeler's father was Doctor Leonard Wheeler who came to Worcester in 1872 to superintend the five-bed City Hospital, located at that time in the Bigelow mansion on Front Street. Doctor Wheeler contributed substantially to the high caliber of Worcester's medical traditions formed in the late years of the nineteenth century.
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No Rural Cemetery Board could be quite complete without a Congressman. George R. Stobbs, who served in Washington for six years, completed the roster in this respect.
It is these persons who have become the guardians not only of the graves of Worcester's early citizens, but also of the heritage which they represent. They have worked with ever-increasing attention to the original intent of the Cemetery founders, whose primary concern had been to provide a quietness of retreat. They have not forgotten the dictionary definition of "rural": "Pertaining to the country, especially in its pleasant aspects." One president once summed it up by saying that he wished to keep the Cemetery "Rural by nature as in fact," believing that Nature should guard the place "where only the past is always near."
During the years, as the Cemetery has become surrounded by the City, the effort of trying to preserve this rural characteristic might well have seemed almost too paradoxical to maintain. On the contrary, the very closeness of the City has served to accentuate the country loveliness of the Cemetery.
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Now Rural's forty acres rest serenely, a perpetual reminder of the transience of life, while everyday travel spins unheedingly past its entrance. But the beauty and significance inside never fails to invite the passer-by.
Wander down the neat avenues and let the peace of the place speak to you. Salute the century-old larch tree that stands as a straight, tall sentinel near the entrance, then rest a moment in the ivy-covered chapel. Stroll past the ancient fences of the Lincoln lot. Touch the gnarled oak tree that stands there on guard, and spare a gentle thought for the little boy who planted its acorn and now rests beneath its
Tree grown from acorn in Lincoln lot
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shade. Count the markers of seventy-eight Thayers, read the words on Daniel Waldo's monument and the wistful inscription on scrolls that serve as the Clarendon Harris stones.
Continue down the path to the long semicircle of graves in the Doctor Green lot, and notice the protecting arms of a giant beech that tries to encircle them all. Let the reminiscent spell carry you through leaf-filtered sunshine, past the rhododendron banks near the Jefferson mausoleum, and down another slope to the Urn Garden. Look up and to your left. There the Elliott shaft, set in a symmetry of sympa- thetic blossoms, seems almost to pierce the sky.
Now turn to follow the pathway to the spot where the Salisburys are buried. Admire the substantial solidity of the George Bancroft monument, and read its inspiring tribute. Find your way through the maze of stones memorializing governors, statesmen, physicians, and industrial pioneers. These were the men who were so proud of the city they called home that that city has now become proud of them in return. Here they are-all of them, men who lay down in the midst of their work, crowded on all sides by the city they had created-near their homes, and with their womenfolk and children. Read with pride their familiar names on stone after stone, then let your heart ache a little for the persons who also rest here, unknown and unremem- bered except by God Himself.
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