‘Tales from Pioneers & Soldiers Cemetery’ Archives
Catherine and Jerry
No. 222 from the series Tales from Pioneers and Soldiers Cemetery By SUE HUNTER WEIR In October 1892, Catherine Bruce applied for a mother’s pension based on her deceased son’s service in the Civil War. She was 91 years old and “decrepit, in poor health, and poverty-stricken.”Catherine’s son, Jerry Bruce, died on February 1, 1877, from an epileptic seizure. Jerry had enlisted in Company G 42nd U. S. Colored Troops on September 3, 1864, and within a matter of months began experiencing seizures on an almost daily basis. He was deemed unfit for duty for 58 days of his enlistment; the captain of his military unit said that his seizures “ him completely helpless.” He was discharged for disability in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on May 31, 1865. Catherine had previously applied for this pension in 1878. A man close to the Bruce family, David Lewis, testified for Catherine that Jerry had been a “sound man, in good health,” until his service, and that if Jerry had [...]
Hamilton and Lee
from the series Tales from Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery, No. 221 By SUE HUNTER WEIR The Department of the Interior rejected his wife’s claim for a military pension in 1924 but the Department of Veterans Affairs has since acknowledged that Clenis Washington Lee served in Company D of the 30th U.S. Colored Infantry. One hundred and thirteen years after he died, Mr. Lee received his military markers. PHOTO: Tim McCall In August 1905, within a matter of days, Minneapolis’s African-American community lost two of its best-known and well-respected members: Emanuel Hamilton and Clenis Washington Lee. Emanuel Hamilton, affectionately known as “Ham”, died on August 12, 1905. Three days earlier, he became ill at work and rushed to the City Hospital. The city was in the middle of a heat wave and it was initially thought that he was suffering from heat exhaustion, but doctors later determined that he had suffered a stroke. He remained hospitalized, semi-conscious and [...]
Toddler Toted Toys to Top Treasure Trove –1938
Caretaker Albert Nelson’s Journals–1927-53–Tell Stories 220th in a Series from Tales from Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery By SUE HUNTER WEIR Albert NelsonSome of Albert Nelson’s workdays were more interesting than others. Nelson, the Cemetery’s Caretaker from 1927 until his death in 1953, sent a monthly report to his supervisor detailing his work and the number of hours that each task took. He often included a brief account, usually no more than a sentence or two, of unusual happenings in the Cemetery. In his report for April 1938, he wrote “Wed., April 20th, played nurse to a lost baby boy at the Cemetery for two hours until the mother and police called for him at the same time.” That baby boy was two-year-old James Horace Spillane. James Horace SpillaneJames was the youngest of Edward and Helen Spillane’s four children. The family lived just a few blocks from the Cemetery at 1839 East 28th Street. James, who had just turned two on February 10th, [...]
