All Episodes

ABC:LHS #076-2   Post Traumatic Stress Disorder...
...evolved from nostalgia and soldier's heart to shell shock and battle fatigue and the thousand yard stare. 
W. Griffin Gribbel was a wealthy Chestnut Hill businessman and Great War veteran whose wealth, career, and family could not save him from his post-war nightmares. His behavior often got so out of control that he had to be confined in an asylum. After a minor plane accident in 1929, he threatened everyone in his house with his collection of firearms. When a police officer came to the house to help take him away, Gribbel shot and killed the man, but was acquitted at his trial.
 

ABC:LHS #076-1   Morton McMichael Hoyt...
...was named for his great-grandfather the mayor. His sister, Elinor Wylie, was a famed poet and author. Before he had turned 21, he married Jeanine Bankhead, older sister of up-and-coming actress Tallulah. When the marriage failed, they tried again. And then a third time. And he was captured by the Nazis in 1942 and spent the war in a German concentration camp. His ashes were consigned to earth at Laurel Hill West. 

ABC:LHS #076   Five people who really didn’t fit anywhere else.
Morton McMichael Hoyt married the same woman three times and once jumped off a steamship to impress a 17-year-old girl.
Major Wakeman Griffin Gribbel was gassed and wounded during the Great War; during one of several psychotic breaks, he mortally wounded a police officer, but a jury found him “not guilty.”
Fellow guide and cemetery historian Tom Keels tells the rollicking story of Mabel Tinsley, one of the great con artists of the Gilded Age.
Louis Bossle was the city’s best-known ratcatcher; when he died, his nickname “Ratcatcher Lou” was carved on his obelisk.
Tom Keels returns for a segment on one of our Civil War generals Richard Naglee, whose California vineyards made the finest brandy in the land, but whose amorous ventures got him in deep trouble more than once.
These five people come together under one podcast on July 1st, then each individual gets their own podcast on the 2nd through the 6th.

BBB:LHWS #045   Milton C. Work...
...was a Philadelphia lawyer who took up cards - specifically whist and bridge. Bridge clubs formed all over town, but people soon realized the man in the know was Milton C. Work, a Philadelphia lawyer. A scoring system that Work popularized for contract bridge remains the one that most players use today.
Learn about the history of playing cards, the development of bid games, and a lot more on this month's episode. 

ABC:LHS #075-5   Baron von Munchausen...
...was a German military man who traveled the country spreading his tales of wonder, which always featured himself in the role of a hero. Clarence Wiener came from a wealthy Philadelphia family.  He started to burnish his reputation during his brief stay at Harvard. Eventually, truth and fiction blended together. His widowed mother married an American-born violin teacher who was also a Baron. When Clarence died, he ended with an unmarked grave in the family plot.

ABC:LHS #075-4   Princess Olga Demidoff...
...was from one royal family and married into another, the house of Trubetskoy. She eventually married Philadelphia archeologist Edward Stoever, but supported herself as both an escort and as madame in a high-end New York brothel. Her name is on the tombstone, but she is located on an island off of Spain. 

ABC:LHS #075-3   In Paris before the Great War...
...he was known as Roberto Carles Eskens, but acquired the title of “The Marquis D’Eskens de Frenoys.” 
Baron James Ivan Michael von Suttka was born in Canton, Ohio, and claimed to be an Olympic caliber pistol shot.
Both men married rich American women. It is difficult to prove whether their titles were authentic - but I doubt it. 

ABC:LHS #075-2   Elizabeth "Libby" Shindler...
...was an Indiana farm girl / schoolteacher who caught the eye of philanthropist / hatmaker John B. Stetson and became his third wife. When left a widow with several million dollars, she was pursued and captured by a Portuguese nobleman who was not quite what he claimed. 

ABC:LHS #075-1   In the last quarter of the 19th century...
...there was a surge in marriages between European nobility and American heiresses as families exchanged money for titles. These women became known as "dollar princesses," and soon your east coast soiree was not complete without a contessa or marchioness to add to the flavor. 
 
 

ABC:LHS #075   In the late 19th and early 20th century... 
...more than 450 American heiresses traded their fortunes for a European title; they were called "dollar princesses."Elizabeth Shindler Stetson was the hatmaker's third wife who married into a Portuguese title.
Roberto Carles Eskens claimed Belgian nobility as Marquis d'Eskens de Frenoys; or was he a German valet with a good story and a vivid imagination?
James Ivan Michael von Suttka has "Baron" on his headstone and "Olympic medalist" in his obituary; neither was true.
Clarence Wiener was a peripatetic military gadfly who claimed innumerable medals and honors for himself; he was especially upset when his wealthy widowed mother married Baron von Graetner. Wiener was in a category of story tellers as enthralling as the Baron von Munchausen.
Princess Olga Demidoff Troubetzskoy Stoever was from a royal Russian family and married into another. She was married to Philadelphia archeologist Stoever and her name is carved on his stone. Fate had other plans for the princess. 
 

BBB:LHWS #044   John W. “Jack” Merriam...
...made his fortune in real estate development – Oxford Valley Mall, Cedarbrook Apartment Complex, and others. Among his acquisitions was the Curtis Publishing Building on Washington Square, with its magnificent Maxfield Parrish / Louis Comfort Tiffany glass mosaic in the lobby. He was namesake for the Merriam Theater on South Broad Street, and he left tens of millions of dollars in support of local art institutions.

ABC:LHS #074-5   2LT Elisha Kent Kane Wetherill...
...was a PAFA-trained artist who specialized in landscapes and beach scenes. He joined the Army in 1915 and served during the Battles of Ypres and the Somme. While he survived a gas attack, his lungs were apparently damaged, which led to his premature death in 1929. 

ABC:LHS #074-4   Alfred Reginald Allen, MD...
...was a UPenn med school grad, a clever researcher in neurologic injuries, a brilliant composer of operas and hymns, founder of the Savoy Company, and one of the finest photomicrographers in the world. But when he joined the Army, it was as a combat officer. He was killed, ironically, by shrapnel to his brain at Meuse Argonne. He has a cenotaph at Laurel Hill East. 

ABC:LHS #074-3   CPT Alan Wood Lukens...
...was variously reported as killed in action, missing in action, hospitalized at an unknown site in France, and possible prisoner of war. He had been killed in action in September, but it took the Lukens family until January to determine what had really happened to Allen. He was awarded a posthumous Distinguished Service Medal

ABC:LHS #074-2   1LT Dillwyn Parrish Starr...
...joined the military long before the United States entered the war. He had been a football star at Groton and at Harvard. He ended up with the Coldstream Guard where he was killed in action during the Battle of Somme. He is buried in France, but his family has added his name to their stone at Laurel Hill East.