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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 on how to view the Virtual Evergreen Cemetery Walk on a variety of electronic devices, and enable closed captions.
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 from the Museum's weekly Pantagraph column "Pieces 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 Edwin Hewett
Edwin Charles Hewett taught at Illinois State Normal University and served as president from 1876 to 1890. As president, he assembled a teaching exhibit for the Philadelphia Exposition—the World’s Fair in 1876—and hired Ange Milner as ISNU’s first fulltime librarian. He debated famed feminist and suffragist Susan B. Anthony on the topic of women’s right to vote when she visited Bloomington in 1870. He was decidedly against women participating in the “unfeminine act” of voting. Anthony is visiting Evergreen Memorial Cemetery this year, where Hewett is buried.
Featured with Emily Howard
Almira Sarah Ives Burnham shared a studio with fellow artist Emily Howard. Born in Burma to missionary parents, Howard and her family were shipwrecked upon their return to America. Similarly stricken by disaster, Burnham suffered a house fire the week after several of her paintings were destroyed in a train fire coming back from the Illinois State Fair. With humor, stubbornness, and quiet defiance, these friends refused to let misfortune define their lives—preferring dedication to their art.
Cheney was an inventor, hot air balloonist, sports promoter, saloon keeper, and dandy known for several inventions and more than a few scandals around town. As a teenager, Cheney fought in the Civil War. When he was older, he was eager to find creative ways of making money, even if it meant selling liquor after hours, stealing a racehorse, or risking family finances. Feisty and competitive, Lee Cheney had plenty of fight in him before he died in a chair of heart failure at 64.
Funk was a suffragist and society woman who campaigned for Charles Evans Hughes for U.S. president—a progressive candidate who supported universal suffrage for women. As a member of the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association, Funk was in Springfield in June 1919 when Illinois became the first state to ratify the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. She celebrated its passage at a convention in Chicago in 1920.
Featured with Susan B. Anthony
Edwin Charles Hewett taught at Illinois State Normal University and served as president from 1876 to 1890. As president, he assembled a teaching exhibit for the Philadelphia Exposition—the World’s Fair in 1876—and hired Ange Milner as ISNU’s first fulltime librarian. He debated famed feminist and suffragist Susan B. Anthony on the topic of women’s right to vote when she visited Bloomington in 1870. He was decidedly against women participating in the “unfeminine act” of voting. Anthony is visiting Evergreen Memorial Cemetery this year, where Hewett is buried.
Featured with Almira Sarah Ives Burnham
Almira Sarah Ives Burnham shared a studio with fellow artist Emily Howard. Born in Burma to missionary parents, Howard and her family were shipwrecked upon their return to America. Similarly stricken by disaster, Burnham suffered a house fire the week after several of her paintings were destroyed in a train fire coming back from the Illinois State Fair. With humor, stubbornness, and quiet defiance, these friends refused to let misfortune define their lives—preferring dedication to their art.
McCoslin was an African American barber who cut white men’s hair in Bloomington, a convention of his times. An intelligent, civic-minded, and charismatic man, McCoslin had his letters home from the Civil War published in the Pantagraph. Following the war, he helped arrange a reception for guest speaker Frederick Douglass in 1866. McCoslin’s early death was probably due to exposure to illness during his service. He is thought to be buried in the older section of Evergreen Memorial Cemetery.
Stewart filed a housing complaint during the Civil Rights movement that helped achieve a strong fair housing ordinance in Bloomington in 1967. As someone who had always lived in mixed-race areas growing up, she was surprised to see all-black neighborhoods on visits to St. Louis and Chicago. Stewart opened her home and “kept” ISU and IWU students while working as a pastry cook at Illinois Wesleyan University until her retirement in 1972.
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.