{"id":1536,"date":"2012-10-16T08:51:32","date_gmt":"2012-10-16T14:51:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/?p=1536"},"modified":"2012-10-16T08:51:32","modified_gmt":"2012-10-16T14:51:32","slug":"meet-the-dead-at-oak-hill-cemetery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/2012\/10\/16\/meet-the-dead-at-oak-hill-cemetery\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Dead at Oak Hill Cemetery this Saturday"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Erswell.Downtown Birmingham’s Oak Hill Cemetery<\/a> will host their fourth annual fall history tour<\/a> on Saturday, October 20. Tours leave every 20 minutes, from noon to 4:40 pm and last just under two hours. \u00a0Tickets are $8 and can be purchased or reserved at Ticket Leap<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s tour will be the largest yet, with visitors able to “meet” and hear the stories of some of the more famous \u2013 and infamous \u2013 residents of \u00a0the cemetery. Volunteers lead groups through the cemetery while relating tales from the early days of Birmingham.\u00a0Oak Hill<\/a> is the final resting place for many of the founders of Birmingham and was the first cemetery designated in the city, opening the same year the city was founded (1871). It contains the city\u2019s first pauper\u2019s cemetery, making it the final stop for many victims of the city\u2019s cholera epidemic.<\/p>\n

The annual tour is more of a history lesson than a haunted tour. Visitors will find graves for veterans of every war from the American Revolution to Vietnam in addition to those of city founders. Two of the city\u2019s madams, the Wooster sisters Lou<\/a> and Maggie, are also residents.\u00a0Lou is considered the annual star of the tour and\u00a0will again make an appearance as her\u00a0sister Maggie leads tours.<\/p>\n

Still a working cemetery, last year Civil Rights icon the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth<\/a> was laid to rest across from James Sloss. The cemetery association\u2019s director learned earlier this year that a Titanic survivor was buried at Oak Hill; Titanic survivors Phillip and Emma Mock will have their story told by Emma. Harriet Phillips will also be there to relate the plight of the city\u2019s African Americans.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s tour will again feature city stalwarts John Milner and Charles Linn, the Martin family, undertaker Edward Erswell, and James Sloss<\/a>. Nannie Kirkley, the widow of one of the first police officers killed in the line of duty, will be on hand as will\u00a0Emma Hawes<\/a>, whose death was the cause of the famous \u201cHawes Riots<\/a>,\u201d telling the story of her murder at the hands of her husband.<\/p>\n

Proceeds from the tour benefit Oak Hill Cemetery\u2019s restoration fund. Many of the families buried in the cemetery no longer have descendants in Birmingham or do not have families willing to care for broken headstones and cracking mausoleums, which then become the cemetery\u2019s responsibility.<\/p>\n

The Oak Hill Memorial Association<\/a> raises funds to maintain the cemetery property as well as some of the grave markers. OHMA hosts events like the annual Fall History Tour, Shoot the (Harvest) Moon, Heritage Days, and the Zombie Walk to raise awareness and supplement the cemetery\u2019s already meager budget.<\/p>\n

Rebecca Dobrinski has served as a tour guide since the inception of the Fall History Tour and this year will lead tours as Maggie Bracken, Lou Wooster\u2019s sister<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Photo:<\/strong>\u00a0You may see undertaker Edward Erswell during this year’s Fall History Tour at Oak Hill Cemetery<\/em>. Special.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<\/a>

This weekend brings with it a return of an annual favorite – the annual Fall History Tour at Oak Hill Cemetery. the Rebecca Dobrinski crafts her first post for The Hub while sharing a way to learn a lot about the history of Alabama’s Magic City. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1554,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[24],"tags":[240,349,437,625],"class_list":["post-1536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-cemetery","tag-fall-tour","tag-information","tag-oak-hill"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4PdO-oM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bhamterminal.com\/timetable\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}