You would not expect to find stories of romance in a graveyard. But then Gwen Kaminski is apparently not your normal cemetery employee.
In perhaps the most unusual story I found on Valentine's Day, Los Angeles Times writer Erika Hayasaki told how Gwen, who works at the Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia, researched the love stories of a number of the people interred there. Then she organized a "Love Stories of Laurel Hill" tour. She took 50 people around the cemetery, stopping to place roses on certain gravestones and telling stories of people who lived, died, and loved long before she was born.
I didn't necessarily like all the stories she unearthed, but quite a few were poignant. One was about Charles and Elvira Ellet, who married in 1837:
"By historical accounts Charles was not a very sociable man," Kaminski said. "He was reclusive, and romance was the last thing on his mind."
Forced one day to attend a social event, he met a petite brunet nicknamed Ellie. According to Kaminski's research, Ellie told her sister that Charles was the "most handsome man she had ever seen." They married Oct. 31, 1837, and had four children. Charles went on to build some of the first wire suspension bridges in the U.S., including one over Niagara Falls. During the Civil War, he was shot in the knee at the Battle of Memphis on June 6, 1862. His wound was not considered life-threatening, and he wrote to Ellie: "My anxiety is now for you, and . . . our dear little ones. Join me here my dear Wife and let us study out the future and talk over the past."
Days passed and his conditioned worsened. When Ellie arrived at his bedside on June 21, he was dead. She buried him at Laurel Hill on June 27, 1862.
"Only two days later," Kaminski told the group, "Ellie died of a broken heart."
I was struck by the people who took the tour and began wondering about the legacy they were leaving. As one woman said, "When you walk through a cemetery like this, you look back on your life and look forward toward death. "What would I want her to say about me and my spouse if she put that rose on our gravestone?"
Stumble It!
