The final tour of Lowell Cemetery for this fall occurred yesterday morning. Despite the abysmal forecast for this weekend, the 42 folks who joined us on Friday afternoon and the 30 present yesterday morning traversed the cemetery without a drop of rain interfering. For the three years that I’ve been conducting these tours, they have always commenced at the Knapp Avenue gate near Shedd Park. Because of the size of the cemetery, however, starting up front cuts out many interesting graves near that back of the cemetery. For that reason, and to give those who have already been on tours a reason to come back, in the spring of 2012, the tours will begin from the Lawrence Street gate (which is where Catherine Goodwin commenced most of her tours during the twenty years she conducted them). In the fall, we’ll return to the Knapp Avenue gate in what should become a regular rotation of starting points.

Besides the regular tours, I hope to add more segments of my YouTube-based “virtual tour” of the cemetery which already includes pieces on Augustin Thompson (the inventor of Moxie) and Horace Ebert (whose grave stone is a perfect replica of his living room easy chair). Finally, at the beginning of each tour, I invite participants to share their own knowledge with comments and questions. There’s not been a tour that I’ve done where someone hasn’t volunteered some fascinating bit of information that I then incorporate into future tours. I extend the same offer to all readers: If you know of some unique grave marker or interesting story about someone interred in Lowell Cemetery (or in any of the other cemeteries in the city – maybe we’ll give tours of the others someday), please share them either by leaving a comment or by emailing me at DickHoweJr[at]gmail.com.