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200 North Main St | Bloomington, Illinois | 309-827-0428
Below you will find links to pdfs of a variety of information that will be useful in preparing to bring your students to your scheduled tour of the Evergreen Cemetery Walk. These PDFs include:
This section includes information for teachers, chaperones, and students to review before attending the Evergreen Cemetery Walk. The handouts below include information on location of event, teacher check in at the event, student and chaperone expectations, appropriate behavior guidelines for students, inclement weather policies, photography policy, parking information, and more.Teachers, please make sure you copy and distribute the student and chaperone information sheets to all students and chaperones who will be attending the Evergreen Cemetery Walk.
This section includes words that may be unfamiliar to students who participate in the Evergreen Cemetery Walk. Words included in this document can be found in the character biographies (found in the teacher packet) and those that will be heard during the performances at the Cemetery Walk. Words are divided by character, including a separate list of cemetery/monument related terms. Words are defined according to Merriam-Webster dictionary unless otherwise noted.
This document includes a brief history on the evolution of cemeteries and a history of Evergreen Memorial Cemetery. Also included is information on monument materials, cemetery art and symbolism, monument types, and cemetery structures, of which many can be found in Evergreen Memorial Cemetery. This information will be very useful in helping to prepare students for participation in the Evergreen Cemetery Walk.
The Evergreen Cemetery Walk is a great educational program for students to participate in. It is our intention that students will develop an understanding and appreciation for cemeteries as a source for history, that students will begin to understand our local history and its importance, and that students will understand the natural connection between history and the arts. In addition, the Cemetery Walk will help teachers meet a variety of History and English related ISBE Learning Goals and Common Core Standards.
Aside from general discussion, these are activities which teachers who have attended Walks in years past have done with their students that may prove beneficial for you and your students as well.
This section contain articles written by Museum Librarian Bill Kemp for his weekly Pantagraph column "Pages from Our Past." The articles featured here have a connection to each of this year's featured characters and offer additional insight into events, activities, or themes related to each of our characters.
Featured with Napoleon Calimese
Following in his father and older brother’s footsteps, Napoleon first worked as a barber on Beaufort Street in Normal. In 1920, not long after he returned home from serving during World War I, he met and married Louise Davis. Seven years later, the couple was appointed superintendent and matron of the McLean County Home for Colored Children (later renamed the Booker T. Washington Home)–having been “thoroughly recommended by businesses and professionals of Normal who [had] known them for years.” The couple oversaw the only licensed home for children of color in Illinois outside Chicago for the next three decades.
Featured with Louise Calimese
Following in his father and older brother’s footsteps, Napoleon first worked as a barber on Beaufort Street in Normal. In 1920, not long after he returned home from serving during World War I, he met and married Louise Davis. Seven years later, the couple was appointed superintendent and matron of the McLean County Home for Colored Children (later renamed the Booker T. Washington Home)–having been “thoroughly recommended by businesses and professionals of Normal who [had] known them for years.” The couple oversaw the only licensed home for children of color in Illinois outside Chicago for the next three decades.
Born in Decatur and educated in Bloomington schools, Christian was a capable, intelligent, and enthusiastic leader of the local Amateur Musical Club. She encouraged cooperation among local organizations involved in music and strove to bring high quality music to all. During World War I, the Club organized Red Cross benefit concerts and community sings, with patriotic music either starting or ending all concerts. May (as she was known) was a fiercely independent, single woman. She studied voice, and taught instrumental music, often performing publicly on the piano, as a soloist or with others.
Born in Bloomington in 1864 to a well-established family in McLean County, Florence Stevens was a teacher for brief time before her marriage to Harris Kaywood, but little is known about her during the years of her marriage. In 1910, she was appointed police matron by the Bloomington City Council, a position she held for the next 16 years. Police matrons were hired to take care of female prisoners and their children, which was by no means easy work. In 1919, she was credited with saving a woman who attempted suicide in her jail cell.
Having suffered the “greatest injury ever sustained by a football player in a game of schools...where the player lived and accomplished anything afterwards” while attending Bloomington High School, Kirkpatrick was determined to make something of himself despite enduring pain and fatigue the rest of his life. Using his “gift of gab” and “reasonable judgement,” he tried auctioneering. However, Kirkpatrick could not tolerate the physical demands of the job. He at last found success in 1908 after taking over his father’s small furniture business with his younger brother, which prospered for many years until it was sold to Leath & Co. in 1937.
A devout Methodist, Munsell began a career practicing law in 1846, but immediately decided that preaching was more to his liking. He became a licensed preacher that same year and joined the Illinois Conference of the Methodist Church. After serving as principal at two seminary schools, he was elected president of Illinois Wesleyan University in 1857 — a dubious honor at best, as the school’s doors had been shuttered due to financial difficulties. Though the university prospered in many ways during his 16-year presidency, he was forced to resign in 1873 amid allegations that he had been “overly familiar” with several of the female students.
Wright and his wife Mary had eight children, four of which survived to adulthood. His love of children was quite possibly what led him to his chosen profession–a social worker at the New York Juvenile Asylum. In 1867, he was made the Western Agent in Chicago and was in charge of the children as they were sent westward on the “Orphan Train.” After the Great Chicago Fire, Wright and his family relocated to Normal. There he served as the chief “placing out” agent and was assisted by other agents, including his son. Wright was proud that the NY Juvenile Asylum was the only “child saving” institution that maintained an agency in the West.
To read biographies of past cemetery walk characters, visit the biographies page of our online resources.
Questions? Please contact the Museum's Education department 309-827-0428 or via email education@mchistory.org.