Lake View Cemetery 13 (12/20-21/2017)

Wednesday, December 20, 2017
A sunny day and the temperature was above freezing, so we went one more time to Lake View Cemetery to find a few additional significant persons.

Christopher A Columbi, Jr (1942-1991)

Christopher Alexander Columbi, Jr is notable for appearing in the movie, The Deer Hunter (1978), which was partially filmed in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland.

The lake behind Wade Chapel is beginning to freeze

An interesting grave marker: a ledger book marked closed,
for Frank B Gay (1855-1881)

Tree roots taking over these grave markers

Zelma George (1904-1994)

Zelma Watson George was born in Texas, but her family moved frequently because her father was a Baptist minister. She received a degree in sociology at the University of Chicago, and then studied the pipe organ and voice. She obtained a Master's degree in personnel administration and a PhD in sociology at New York University, and subsequently earned multiple honorary degrees. Zelma married attorney Clayborne George who was President of the Cleveland Civil Service Commission, and she became active in civic affairs.
 Zelma George received a Rockefeller foundation grant to study African-American music. Later she wrote the musical drama Chariot's A'Comin!, which was locally aired on television in Cleveland in 1949. She is known to be the first African-American woman to act in a traditionally white role, in Gian-Carlo Menotti's opera The Medium at the Karamu Theater in Cleveland and the Edison Theatre in New York City. George was honored with the Merit Award of the National Association of Negro Musicians. She also acted as adviser to President Dwight D Eisenhower and was a member of various national and government committees concerned with women, youth, and African-Americans.
Notably, George was an alternate delegate to the United Nations General Assembly from 1960-1961. She received numerous awards for her accomplishments, including the Dag Hammarskjöld Award in 1961, the Dahlberg Peace Award in 1963, and the Mary Bethune Gold Medallion in 1973. George was inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame in 1983.

Gloria Pressman (1923-1991)

Gloria Hershey Pressman might have been more than wife to Wesley Pressman of Shaker Heights, and mother of Brad Pressman, both podiatrists. Although difficult to verify, she may be the child star Mary Ann Jackson, who had a role in the Hal Roach Little Rascals movies. Apparently she had a scrapbook with autographs from all the movie stars of the era, and she looked like Mary Ann Jackson, as did her son. Good enough for me!

Wade Chapel doors decorated for the holidays

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Almeda C Adams (1865-1949)

Almeda Adams was born in Pennsylvania, and lost her sight at the age of six months. She was educated at the State School for the Blind in Columbus, OH. Adams sold over 2,00 subscriptions to the Ladies Home Journal to win a contest providing her with two years at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. After teaching piano and voice at the University of Nebraska, she moved to Cleveland to teach music in the local settlement houses. In 1912, with the assistance of Adella P Hughes and the Fortnightly Musical Club, Adams established the Cleveland Music School Settlement that provided free or inexpensive musical training for the Cleveland’s immigrant population, especially children. It was initially housed in the Goodrich Settlement House. Adams made three European tours in 1926 as chaperone for a voice student. The letters she wrote to friends at home became a book, Seeing Europe Through Sightless Eyes (1929). In it she described her reactions to the continent's great art, much of which she had been allowed to touch by such museums as the Vatican.

The Stone family monument

Flora Amelia Stone Mather
inscription on the monument

Flora Stone Mather (1852-1909)

Flora Amelia Stone Mather was a daughter of Amasa Stone, a wealthy Cleveland banker and builder of railroads and bridges. Her sister, Clara, married John Hay, who was the private secretary to President Abraham Lincoln, and Secretary of State under President William McKinley. Flora married Samuel Livingston Mather, a wealthy businessman with shipping and mining interests in the Great Lakes region. Her family had membership in the Old Stone Church and were active in philanthropy.
Flora founded the Goodrich Settlement House in 1896, and supported the Hiram House, the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland, and the Consumers League of Ohio.
She also supported many activities of Western Reserve University (which her father financed to have brought to Cleveland), including the Advisory Council, College for Women (renamed Mather College in her honor in 1931), Adelbert College, as well as Hathaway Brown School and Lakeside Hospital School of Nursing. She financed construction of the Guilford Cottage (later Guilford House), a dormitory on the Case Western Reserve University campus named in honor of her former teacher, and Haydn Hall, in honor of the pastor at Old Stone Church.

Higbee family monument

Edwin C Higbee (1837-1906)

Edwin Converse Higbee founded Higbee and Hower Dry Goods with John Hower in Public Square in 1860. In 1902 it was reorganized as The Higbee Company and moved to Playhouse Square across the street from the rival Halle Brothers Co. The Van Sweringen brothers acquired Higbees in 1929 and relocated the store to their new Terminal Tower on Public Square.

Henry D Coffinberry (1841-1912)

Henry Darling Coffinberry joined the navy during the Civil War and served on the ironclad gunboat Louisville on the Mississippi River. He started as the master's mate and was promoted through the ranks until he was its commanding officer. After the war, he partnered in several mercantile and manufacturing businesses, eventually becoming the financial officer of a company building ships. Coffinberry devised a new type of ship made of iron and steel to ply the waters of the Great Lakes, and thus was one of the pioneers of the modern lake freighter. He became president and financial manager of the company that was incorporated as the Cleveland Shipbuilding Company in 1888 and later became the American Ship Building Company. Coffinberry was also a member of the first board of five commissioners of Cleveland, a director of the State Bank and a member of the Board of Industry of Cleveland.

Home of a giant squirrel?

Tullis family monument

Richard Barclay Tullis (1913-1999)
(It's hard to believe his wife could still be alive...
oh, she passed away in Vero Beach, FL in 2015)

Richard Tullis was born in Illinois. He was president of the Miller Printing and Machinery Co. in Pittsburgh when he moved to Cleveland in 1956 as vice president of what was then Harris-Seybold and later Harris Corp. He became president in 1961, chief executive in 1968 and chairman in 1972. In 1978 the company moved to Melbourne, FL. After retirement, Tullis returned to Cleveland to be chairman of the board of trustees and executive committee for University Circle Inc., which he headed from 1980-1989.
Tullis took a strong interest in the development of Cleveland. In the aftermath of the Hough riots of 1966, he worked with the Hough Area Development Corp. by contributing seed money to construct housing units for families on Blaine and Wade Park Avenues. As chairman of University Circle Inc., he was involved in the construction of 1,100 housing units for low-income and disabled residents. Tullis was a trustee of the Cleveland Orchestra, Case Western Reserve University, Baldwin Wallace College, the Urban League and the City Club of Cleveland.