‘Tales from Pioneers & Soldiers Cemetery’ Archives
Tales from Pioneers & Soldiers Cemetery: Bad Luck Followed Him
By Sue Hunter Weir The Grand Army of the Republic Block which was established to prevent Civil War veterans from being buried as paupers. The block of graves was purchased in 1870-71, and Arthur Pruitt, who died in 1874, should have been buried here. For some reason he was not and was buried in an unmarked grave in the cemetery's paupers' section. Photo credit: Minnesota Historical Society, 1938. Bad things can happen to people for any number of reasons. Some people make bad decisions. Others simply have bad luck. Arthur Pruitt may well be one of the unluckiest people buried in the cemetery. The last ten years of his life was a series of tragedies, all of them beyond his control. Arthur Pruitt was born in Kentucky sometime around 1837. He married Irene Elizabeth Tribble in Scott, Illinois on May 21, 1857. On May 7, 1864, he enlisted in Company B of the 27th Illinois Infantry. He signed on for 100 days. His military records state that he was 28 years old, that he was 5 [...]
A Grandson remembers his Grandfather
Tales of Pioneers and Soldiers Cemetery by Sue Hunter Weir Emilie and William Gaspar with their children Photo Courtesy of the Gaspar Family William Gaspar had a dog named Brownie, who loved to eat chocolate-covered peanuts. When William went to visit his son Joseph, in Loretto, Minnesota, he would walk Brownie to his son’s grocery store and buy him a treat. These are small things, and certainly not the most important things that William did in his life, but they give us a sense of who he was, that other types of information - lists of dates and places - cannot. Emilie Gaspar, William’s wife, was the second person buried in the cemetery after the City Council reconsidered an earlier decision not to allow burials after 1919. Emilie met the criteria for an exception—she owned a plot, and other members of her family were already buried there. Emilie’s mother, Mary Ann Klapperich Kelly Gaspar, was buried there, as were Mary Ann’s first two husbands. [...]
They Have Wandered Into an Unknown Land
Tales from Pioneers and Soldiers Cemetery By SUE HUNTER WEIR Corrie Family Marker The inscription carved on the Corrie family’s marker undoubtedly referred to life after death, but it also accurately captured the lived experiences of thousands of people buried in Minneapolis Pioneers and Soldiers Cemetery. They are the ones who traveled thousands of miles to establish new homes in Minneapolis. Once settled, they tended not to travel far. They may have moved from house to house but for the most part they rarely strayed far from their first neighborhood—near to jobs, churches, family members and friends. The Corrie family came to Minneapolis from England by way of Canada. Frederick Charles Corrie, the patriarch, was born in 1852. When he was 30 years old, he moved with his wife, Frances (Fannie) Hill, and their oldest son, also named Frederick, to Quebec. Two more children, Herbert and Tenice Rose, were born there. In 1889, they made one more major move—this time [...]
