January 22-28, 2004

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"Philadelphia's Vanishing Cemeteries"

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Are you preparing for International Taphophile Meetup Day on Feb. 4? If so, you -- the hunter of cemetery lore old and new; you, the tombstone hedonist, celebrity cemetery freak and lover of all things grave -- should be prepared for Thomas H. Keels. Keels, a Chestnut Hill Local writer who co-authored Images of America: Chestnut Hill with

Elizabeth Farmer Jarvis, has crafted the painstakingly detailed Philadelphia Graveyards and Cemeteries (Arcadia). He details the fates of long-forgotten graveyards (Olive, Machpelah, American Mechanics), the playgrounds and baseball diamonds that sadly sit atop or have uprooted the bodies below, the paved-over locations (Lafayette Cemetery near the Geno's/Pat's corner, Ronaldson's along Ninth Street) and others deteriorating but saved (Laurel Hill Cemetery in East Falls, Byberry Friends Meeting in Parkwood). Keels doesn't merely unravel the mummified locations or praise the upkeep of Trinity Church at Oxford and Rising Sun avenues, a model of late 1600s grandeur. He discusses with the passion of the living neighborhood histories, and how too quickly our societies have allowed these memorials to fall under the rubric of urban blight and neglect.

"Philadelphia’s Vanishing Cemeteries," lecture, slide show and book signing with Thomas H. Keels, Wed., Jan. 28, 6:30 p.m., The Free Library, Holmesburg Branch, 7810 Frankford Ave., 215-685-8756.

—A.D. Amorosi

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