CEMETERY MEDLEY
The old ethnic neighborhoods - German, Irish, Polish,
Czech, Swedish, Lithuanian, aren't what they used to be.
The attempt to be separate and distinct doesn't work for
long in the city; like and unlike live on top of each other.
On the South Side, on East 67th Street, is Oak Woods
cemetery where you'll find Cap Anson, Hall of Fame
ballplayer, 27 years with the Chicago White Stockings
back when this first became a hit song: TAKE ME OUT
TO THE BALL GAME. And Charles Johnson, 1909-
2006, a pitcher and outfielder in the Negro Leagues, who
hounded Major League Baseball to accept black
ballplayers ---- he didn't get in but he helped Jackie
Robinson and Willie Mays get in and he went to work as
a railroad porter. The opera singer Jessie Davis of Morris,
Illinois, 1859-1905, who had a fine career in Chicago and
New York in Il Trovatore and The Huguenots and also
made this song popular:
OH PROMISE ME
The cartoonist Billy DeBeck (1890-1942) who drew the
very popular comic strip ---- Barney Google, and his Googoo-
googly eyes and Walter Eckersall, 1887-1930, who
perfected the drop-kick punt while playing for University
of Chicago during their 56-game winning streak, 1904-
1906, a lot of great black gospel singers are buried like
Pops Staples, and Albertina Walker and Inez Andrews
who sang:
HOLD ON TO GOD'S UNCHANGING HAND
..... and Thomas Dorsey, 1899-1993, who wrote "Peace
In The Valley" and after his wife and infant daughter died
in childbirth in Chicago he wrote
TAKE MY HAND PRECIOUS LORD
And there are 6000 Confederate soldiers who died in
Union prisoner of war camps here.
DIXIE
Edwin Excell, 1851-1921, is there who wrote:
COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS
And Enrico Fermi, who split the atom and produced the
first nuclear chain reaction. And Elisha Hoffman, 1839-
1929, a Presbyterian minister who wrote 2000 hymns
including "Leaning On The Everlasting Arms".
The jazz pianist Little Brother Montgomery. The
bluesman Junior Wells. The murderer Richard Loeb.
Jesse Owens who in the 1935 Olympics set new world
records in the 220-yard dash, the 220-yard low hurdles,
and the broad jump. The Rueckheim Brothers who
invented Crackerjacks. Big Bill Thompson the crooked
mayor during the Al Capone era. And Jake "Greasy
Thumb" Guzik, Al Capone's bagman and treasurer, who
died of a heart attack at the age of 69 in his apartment on
the south Side. And Mayor Harold Washington.
PEACE IN THE VALLEY