Jim Croce

 

Jim Croce

(1943 -1973)

An America singer-songwriter, he released 5 albums  and 11 singles. Bad Bad Leroy Brown and Time in a Bottle were number ones. If you listen to his music, you will find it’s incredible. Try these tracks:

Lover’s cross

Alabama Rain

Photographs and Memories

Operator

Workin at the Carwash Blues

These Dreams

Roller Derby Queen

Rapid Roy(The Stock Car Boy)

One less Set of Footsteps

I Got a Name

You Don’t Mess Around With Jim

He was a genius, and his life was cut short at the age of 30 in a plane crash, just as he was becoming a Superstar. When I saw his grave in Frazer, PA at the Haym Salomon Memorial Park, it had dimes all around and on the stone. I can only assume they are left there because of the line he says to the operator in the song, “Operator”……….”You can keep the dime”

As you can probably tell, I am and always have been a huge fan of his music. Check it out!

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe

(1809 – 1849)

An American Author and Poet, Best known for tales of Mystery and Macabre…..He is also credited with contributing to the emerging genre of his time, science fiction. No one is really sure how he died.

Some of his “Tales”:

The Raven

The Black Cat

The Tell-Tale Heart

The Masque of the Red Death

The Premature Burial

These are just a few….. Many of his works have been made into films.

He is buried in Westminster Burial Ground, Baltimore MD.

 

 

Maurice Barrymore

Maurice Barrymore(Born Herbert Arthur Chamberlayne Blythe) was the patriarch of an American Acting Dynasty. He was a great stage actor in the late 19th century, and married Georgina Drew, a member of another great acting dynasty, the  Drew Family. His children were famous actors in their own right:

John Barrymore

Ethyl Barrymore

Lionel Barrymore

All three are in the American Theatre Hall of Fame. Ethyl and Lionel both won Academy Awards, but John Might arguably be the most remembered for the life he lead.

John’s son, John Drew Barrymore, was an actor, but not nearly as famous as the generation before him.

But-

I’ll bet you know his famous daughter, whose name came from two of the most famous acting families of the 19th century-

Drew Barrymore.

Maurice is buried in at Mount Vernon Cemetery, Philadelphia, PA.

 

Harry Houdini

 

 

Harry Houdini

(1874 – 1926)

Born Erik Weiss, later Erich Weiss, he was a Hungarian American illusionist and escape artist. At least one of, if not the most famous magician ever. He had world wide fame as a magician, made movies, debunked spiritualists, was an aviator(some say the first man to fly an airplane in Australia, but some dispute it), he did it all! To this day people are still trying to figure out how he did his tricks(magic?)

Ironically, he died on Oct. 31, (Halloween), 1926.  He is buried in the Machpelah Cemetery in Queens, NY.

Trivia:  His wife (Bess) wanted to be buried with him when she died, but her family buried her in a Catholic cemetery(Gate of Heaven) 35 miles away in  Hawthorne, NY because the one he is in is Jewish.

Babe Ruth is also buried in the same cemetery as Bess.

Evelyn Nesbit

 

Evelyn Nesbit (1884 – 1967)

Don’t know where to start with her. She was a super, SUPER model in the early 20th century….she was a cultural celebrity, her picture on magazine covers, newspapers, souvenirs, calendars, you name it. The  scandal involving the man who plucked her from a chorus line(Stanford White, who built Madison Square Garden) and her future husband(Pittsburg millionaire Harry k. Thaw) was billed as the crime of the century, and it was only 1906 . The story is chronicled in a great book, “American Eve” if you get the chance to read it. There is a picture of the cover above.

Two movies that I know of were made involving the scandal and her life: “The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing” from 1955 and “Ragtime” from 1981.

She died in a nursing home in 1967 and was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.

Josh Gibson

Josh Gibson (1911- 1947)

An American who played the position of catcher in baseball’s Negro Leagues. Baseball historians consider Gibson to be among the very best catchers and power hitters of any league, including the Major Leagues. Elected to the Baseball hall of Fame in 1972, he was known as the “Black Babe Ruth”. Some fans even called Babe Ruth the “White Josh Gibson”.  Unbelievably, because of an unwritten  “gentleman’s agreement” policy that prevented non-white players from playing, he never got to play in the major leagues. . The Baseball Hall of fame maintains he hit “almost 800” home runs in his 17 year career, and his lifetime batting avg. is estimated between .350 and .384. Statistical achievements may never be completely accurate because the Negro Leagues did not compile complete statistics or game summaries. Basically he was one of the greatest ball players ever, but doesn’t (but he should) get much credit.

He  died at the age of 35 and is buried in the Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburg, PA