I’ve always enjoyed exploring the older sections of cemeteries, admiring the artistry and symbolism of old tombstones (the mossier the better) and calculating life spans. I’ve noticed in the gold towns of the Rockies, if you made it to age 35 you were likely to make it to your 80s. Making it to 35 was the challenge. Heck, making it to 10 was a challenge. Or 5. Or 1.
So, it doesn’t take much to persuade me to stop by a cemetery and wander about.
While driving to southern Illinois to view the April 2024 Total Eclipse, a friend stopped by the cemetery in Iowa City to see the graves of Mr. and Mrs. Irish. He had recently finished reading We Suffered Much, and had a copy with him. So, he posed the book against Irish’s headstone.
Something about that photo was so touching that I began to wish Irish could know that this part of his story, as well as that of his wife and daughters, has been brought back to life.
A few weeks later I was in Iowa City on my way to an event in southern Missouri. With the friend’s idea, I posed a copy of the book with the graves, but this time framed the photo to include daughter Lizzie’s headstone, too.
The inclusion of Mrs. Irish and the two daughters was central to the story, and I find them fascinating in their own right. In fact, it has been difficult for me to not dig deeper into their stories. The curiosity is there, but I have too many other committed projects on my plate at the moment. Maybe some day…
Still, I sometimes just can’t help myself. While in Iowa City that day, I did seek out the one remaining building that had housed Lizzie’s “Irish Business College.” She operated it from 1895 until 1940, when she closed the school and retired – at the age of 84! The building is significantly altered, but I was nonetheless glad that I could be in the location where she had spent some of her time.
Daughter Ruth is buried another sixty or so miles to the east in Davenport Iowa, which was fortunately also along the route. So, a short detour through Davenport found me at the gravesite of Ruth, her husband, and three adult children. With the death of Ruth’s son, the last descendant of Charles Wood Irish passed on.
While writing The Beautiful Snow, I visited the graves of several of the newspaper proprietors whose work was relied upon for the historical perspective as the winter unfolded week by week. Clarence Graham, editor of the Janesville Argus (Minnesota) is in a lush, shaded cemetery in a town not far from me. Joseph Bobletter, who oversaw the New Ulm Weekly Review (Minnesota) is in one of my favorite cemeteries due to the amazing artistry of the headstones there, whether modest or monumental.
The history we study is not really all that far in the past. And visiting the grave sites reminds me that they were living, breathing people, not just research subjects. And they’ve had such amazing stories to tell. It has been a privilege to stop by remember them.