Fifteen to twenty years ago I first became aware of a, to me, "strangeness" in the way Americans memorialize: in what they memorialize and how, if they do. I did an amateur's research on the matter, and even found a book, Shadowed Ground, written by a professor. The book, to me, did not aid in understanding and I could not make sense on my own of the differences in the events I looked into. I have written on this "looking into" before and will just summarize before getting to the points du jour.
There seemed to be a great divide. On one side of this great divide were the war dead. They seemed to be subject of an Iron Law requiring memorialization.
-War dead: memorialized everywhere, all the time. Iron Law. Includes 9/11.
On the other side of the divide from war dead memorialization was everything and everybody else, viz:
-Triangle Shirtwaist fire. Site intact after event. Not preserved. Reused not as memorial. Plaque.
-Cocoanut Grove fire: Site destroyed. Plaque.
-Beverly Hills Country Club fire: Site destroyed. Not reused. Road sign.
-Iroquois Theater Fire: Site intact. Not preserved. Reused. No memorialization marker.
-S.S. Eastland disaster: Intact. Reused. Marker.
-Texas Schoolbook Depository. Intact. Preserved as memorial.
-Individuals killed. Graves. Memorialized with tombstone.
-Individual mass killers. No memorialization, no graves (Except one. See? We're getting to our point.).
Oh, but see you can't lump those all together, they are all different. Of course they're different, that's owing to them being different! Yeah, one of them's even in Kentucky. Right? You end up making meaningless distinctions like that. I at least could not sub-group those off in a way that sensibly explained why some were memorialized and some not. For that matter, I do not understand why the great divide is so Great, why there should be an Iron Law for memorializing war dead but no psychological imperative applicable to those on the other side of the divide. It seems to me to be pretty ad hoc and arbitrary and yet there is huge loss of life and immense grief on the non-war side.
All of the above events, and on both sides of the divide, involved human agency. What of "Acts of God?"
-Individual natural deaths. Graves. Memorialized with tombstone.
-Chicago Fire. Memorialized-"commemorated."
-San Francisco Earthquake. Memorialized-commemorated.
-Galveston Hurricane. Memorialized-statue.
And now we come to our points:
-Johnstown Flood. "Act of God?" Hmm, Carnegie and Mellon and Frick weren't that powerful.
Human agency involved; similar in degree to that in the Eastland.
Site destroyed. Not rebuilt. Site memorialized. Victims-graves, tombstone memorials.
Human agents of death also memorialized-graves, tombstones. But their homes, too! Their homes right on the death-dealing lake! That they owned! That is different! The "1889 South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club Historical Preservation Society" is unique. That is Cambria County Style. It would be a little like Auschwitz being preserved and cared for to honor Heydrich.
Stella Elizabeth Williamson.
Proper Christian burial. Regular tombstone. Stella Elizabeth Williamson is the only serial murderer in the United States to be so memorialized. That is Cambria County Style.
Her home--the murder site, the babies' first, and still longest burial site!--reused. 'Nother family moved in. Lives there now! As if nothing happened. That is SOOO "1889 SFFHC HPS."
And here's the real Cambria County Style twist. Williamson's babies, her victims: NOT GIVEN A PROPER CHRISTIAN BURIAL! NOT GIVEN TOMBSTONES! I don't know if Cambria County even got them five little coffins. Maybe just put the bones in bags and "buried," disposed of more like it, gotteen rid of, dumped in the pauper's cemetery. Unmarked, un-grieved for, un-cared for, forgotten. Like nothing ever happened.
Human agency involved; similar in degree to that in the Eastland.
Site destroyed. Not rebuilt. Site memorialized. Victims-graves, tombstone memorials.
Human agents of death also memorialized-graves, tombstones. But their homes, too! Their homes right on the death-dealing lake! That they owned! That is different! The "1889 South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club Historical Preservation Society" is unique. That is Cambria County Style. It would be a little like Auschwitz being preserved and cared for to honor Heydrich.
Stella Elizabeth Williamson.
Proper Christian burial. Regular tombstone. Stella Elizabeth Williamson is the only serial murderer in the United States to be so memorialized. That is Cambria County Style.
Her home--the murder site, the babies' first, and still longest burial site!--reused. 'Nother family moved in. Lives there now! As if nothing happened. That is SOOO "1889 SFFHC HPS."
And here's the real Cambria County Style twist. Williamson's babies, her victims: NOT GIVEN A PROPER CHRISTIAN BURIAL! NOT GIVEN TOMBSTONES! I don't know if Cambria County even got them five little coffins. Maybe just put the bones in bags and "buried," disposed of more like it, gotteen rid of, dumped in the pauper's cemetery. Unmarked, un-grieved for, un-cared for, forgotten. Like nothing ever happened.
