Exceptional Women At The Cemetery

Main Entrance to Cedar Hill Cemetery (photo by K. Inboden).

Once again, I visited Cedar Hill Cemetery this morning to attend one their "tours." Today's tour was "Cedar Hill's Exceptional Women." It was led by Women's historian Grace Parks Mitchell. It highlighted the accomplishments of some of Cedar Hill's most notable women including:

• Virginia Thrall Smith
• Isabella Beecher Hooker
• Elizabeth Jarvis Colt
• Anne Tracy Morgan
• Katharine (Kit) Houghton Hepburn (the mother of the famous actress). The actress is also buried in the family plot here.

My  Webster's New World Dictionary (Second College Edition) defines "exceptional" as: not ordinary or average; much above average in quality, ability, etc. There is also a second definition which says "exceptional" is needing special attention or presenting a special problem, as in education, because mentally gifted or, esp., because mentally, physically, or emotionally handicapped. Ironically, in the context of today's tour, in many ways both these definitions are applicable. The tour guide seemed to define "exceptional" in the context of contemporary expectations for women. Many of the accomplishments (see for yourself by following the above links) have to do with promoting birth control and activities that transcended the unique responsibilities that women bear in the family.

It was a beautiful September morning; the slight chill was a bit invigorating. I was surprised that the turnout was pretty sparse despite good publicity: less than a dozen (and mostly regulars). Again, no young people attending. Mostly gray hairs like me but older (I think). The youngest seemed to be the Cemetery Director.

As usual, the tour starts near the flagpole with a brief overview and then we walked to the various graves where a brief biography was reported. The tour lasted from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and ended at the Hepburn plot (see picture below).

Hepburn family plot.

By the end of the tour I had a lot of mixed feelings. Many of the women had struggled against the limitations that society had in place during their time. And yet, despite our so-called progress, society still places all of us in confining categories (race, economic status, sex, age, religion, political affiliation, etc.). In hindsight, these categories are presented as stifling and deliberately and brutally oppressive. However, in their context, such categories are merely a sense of social order for stability.

Many of the women discussed during this tour struggled against the systems in place designed to uphold the role of women as mothers and the heart of the family. During our time, the family has been denigrated and women are being encouraged to be like men. As one who is pro-family as well as pro-woman, I wrestle with the lines that exist and the ones that have been severed. It is somewhat ironic that these thoughts occur in a cemetery.
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Links:
http://www.cedarhillcemetery.org/
http://cedarhillfoundation.org/notable-residents/virginia-thrall-smith
http://cedarhillfoundation.org/notable-residents/isabella-beecher-hooker/
http://cedarhillfoundation.org/notable-residents/elizabeth-colt/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Morgan_(philanthropist)
http://cedarhillfoundation.org/notable-residents/kit-houghton-hepburn/
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Written Sunday 27 September 2015