All Episodes

ABC:LHS #017-1   Dr. Robley Dunglison...
...was the first professor recruited by Thomas Jefferson for his new University; Dunglison soon became his private physician and was at bedside when the great man died.  He was a founding faculty member at Thomas Jefferson University.  

ABC:LHS #017   Fathers of American Medicine, Part 1
Robley Dunglison was born and educated in England but recruited to be the first Professor of Medicine at Thomas Jefferson’s University of Virginia, where he also became Jefferson’s private physician.  Later he moved to Philadelphia and was recognized as the Father of American Physiology. 
Constantine Hering was born and educated in Germany and learned the homeopathic methods of fellow countryman Samuel Hahnemann; he brought these beliefs with him to Philadelphia and is considered the Father of Homeopathic Medicine in the United States. 
Malcolm Macfarlan was born in Scotland but educated in the United States where he served in the Civil War; upon returning to Philadelphia, he worked under Hering as Chief of Surgery and became the Father of Homeopathic Surgery. 
Oscar Allis was US born and educated; he became the Father of Orthopedic Surgery at Jefferson Medical College and invented a surgical instrument which is still used thousands of times daily around the world. 

ABC:LHS #016   Curtis Publishing and The Saturday Evening Post 
Before the internet, before television, before radio, there were magazines.  Philadelphia was the place you wanted to be if you were in the magazine business.  It had the best presses, the best printers, and the railroads to get them where they needed to go.  Two of the best - Saturday Evening Post and Ladies' Home Journal - came out of Curtis Publishing Company.
Cyrus H.K. Curtis was the king of magazine publishing but could only do it with the help of two amazing editors – his wife, Louisa Knapp Curtis, and his hire from Boston, George Horace Lorimer.  Lorimer needed the help of another Philadelphian, Adelaide Walbaum Neall, to make the Post a success.  And while everyone thinks of Norman Rockwell as the painter of Saturday Evening Post covers, Katharine Richardson Wireman painted covers for the Post and the Journal long before Rockwell.  And when Curtis built his headquarters Building on 6th and Walnut, he hired a local architect Edgar Viguers Seeler.  All six of these people are buried at Laurel Hill Cemetery.

ABC:LHS #015-3   Princess Olga Demidoff Troubetzkoy Stoever (not at Laurel Hill)
...has a stone saying that she wanted to be there. Her colorful life, which often skirted on illegality, took her in different directions. She's somewhere off Spain.

ABC:LHS #015-2   Florence Leontine Lowe... (not at Laurel Hill)
....is better known today as Pancho Barnes, fearless stunt pilot and proprietor of the legendary "Happy Bottom Riding Club" outside Edwards Air Force Base in California.  One of her grandfathers, Richard Dobbins, built Memorial Hall for the Centennial.  The other grandfather, Thaddeus Lowe, invented the Air Force.

ABC:LHS #015-1   Bobo Huhn...
...was spoiled, and had her outrageously wealthy father wrapped around her finger...and her skirts were just a little shorter than anyone elses. Things did not always work out. 

ABC:LHS 015   She's Not There... 
Ethel Huhn "Bobo" Bailey was the spoiled daughter of the spoiled second wife of Philadelphia multimillionaire George Arthur Huhn, who is buried on Millionaire’s Row. 
Florence Leontine Lowe was the granddaughter of Philadelphia builder and architect Richard Dobbins; under her nickname and married name of Pancho Barnes, she became a stunt pilot and opened a popular drinking spot for test pilots near Muroc Air Field. 
Princess Olga Demidoff Troubetzskoy Stoever was briefly the wife of Germantown-born and raised archeologist and businessman Edward Royal Stoever; her life is the thing of legends. 
None of these women are buried at Laurel Hill, but they have great stories that deserve to be shared  

ABC:LHS #014-3   J. Fred Zimmerman...
...was one of a small group of men, fittingly called the Theater Syndicate, which controlled a majority of theaters on the east coast. In doing so, they determined what plays would be staged and what actors would work. They were not well-loved. 

ABC:LHS #014-2   Adam Forepaugh...
...was a wealthy horse trader who more-or-less accidentally took over a circus, but he was a master of publicity whose feuds with P.T. Barnum made national headlines. "See the REAL white elephant."

ABC:LHS #014-1   Edward Fry...
...was impresario for the Astor Place Opera in 1849 at the time of the famed Shakespeare riots, when dozens of New Yorkers were killed. Was it really about disagreements over interpretations of the Bard?

ABC:LHS #014    On with the Show! Three Impresarios 
Edward Fry was impresario for the Astor Place Opera in 1849 at the time of the famed Shakespeare riots, when dozens of New Yorkers were killed. 
Adam Forepaugh was a wealthy horse trader who more-or-less accidentally took over a circus, but gave P.T. Barnum a run for his money in post-Civil War America. 
J. Fred Zimmerman was one of a small group of men, fittingly called the Theatre Syndicate, who controlled a majority of theatres on the east coast, essentially determining what plays would be staged and what actors would work. 

ABC:LHS #013-4   Sheela Allen-Stephens...
...was everyone's friend. She developed a reputation as a reporter who would do anything to get a story, including standing in the middle of Broad Street and yelling at the hotel where Elizabeth Taylor was staying.

ABC:LHS #013-3   Edie Huggins...
...was from St. Louis and the first Black "Miss Cornhusker." When she found her way to Philadelphia as television reporter and host, she quickly became one of everyone's favorites.

ABC:LHS #013-2   Anne Francine...
...was a cabaret singer from the Mainline who co-starred with Angela Lansbury and Patti LuPone, was featured in a Fellini move before she spent one season as the nosey neighbor on television's Harper Valley P.T.A..  You may even remember her from Crocodile Dundee.

ABC:LHS #013-1   Dave Garroway...
...was one of the first people on television who knew how to use the medium. His laid-back style was perfect and he became one of its top stars as host of The Today Show.