For more years than I can comfortably admit, we've vowed to get to a Memorial Day service somewhere to pay respects on the day we Americans set aside for doing so. And it seems that each and every year, you got it, we manage to break the vow.It's not an excuse, just an explanation, mind you, but in years past either of us or both of us were working on Memorial Day, and most all other holidays, too.
Things are now different. We both still work. We both have holidays free.
We did it again this year. We broke the promise and slept in, missing a chance to be at a service, and that is to our shame.
This year, though, we tried to make amends by visiting a burying ground where veterans of antiquity and now alike lie; Hollenback Cemetery in Wilkes-Barre.
The row of graves, markers, and flag holders with fresh flags, draws your eyes to a hill where Civil War veterans are buried, all members of The GAR, The Grand Army of The Republic. 
Many of the men, whose ultimate fate sits right there on that rise, lived very long lives. I saw several yesterday who survived the nightmare of The Civil War, then carried forth through the 19th century and into the 20th. Many of these men lived into their 90s, which was completely remarkable for that day and age. Consider that life expectancy of Americans averaged in the low 40s at the time, and you can imagine these men must have been viewed as prophets and saints walking the streets and roads of The Wyoming Valley.
I can't count the times I drove past these stone sentries of the long-dead thinking that someday I should bring along my camera gear and try and capture the feeling of the spot.
Yesterday I tried.
The physical feel of the place is tranquil, pleasant. A feeling of, if you have to go
somewhere in the end, this is really a good place to go. This particular portion of Hollenback, should you take a minute to climb the hill, looks down on River Street and General Hospital, and on Conie's Island, a hot dog joint. Now that's America.Far off in the distance, the same gentle swell of mountains which family and friends saw the day they buried their own Civil War Veteran on the higher ground. Although back then I would imagine that the space between here and there was murky with the smoke, dust, and dirt of progress, the air filled with the prosperity of coal going about its business of being king. Surely the rhytmic chant and chug of steam locomotives was
likewise ever present.Indeed, within a five minute walk of Hollenback sits the ventilation fan-house of what was once an enormous colliery, The Dorrance.
We didn't walk much of the cemetery yesterday, concentrating mostly on the Civil War graves. One such grave, not tucked neatly into the row, caught Carol's eye. First, a context shot of that grave on your left.
Surrounded by far more expensive granite, marble, and limestone testaments to the once clearly wealthy, this modest tablet-style headstone marks the plot of a Civil War Veteran who, unlike some of the men he marched alongside of, camped with, fought bravely near, never saw his 90s, nor his
40s.Henry P. Crum was 36 years of age when he "...fell at Gettisburg." The spelling I've seen before, and do believe to be an accepted alternate to Gettysburg, somewhat like Swoyerville and Swoyersville.
Hollenback Cemetery is an amazing place. It's the names that fascinate me. Slowly driving through other pieces of Hollenback, the names on stones big and small, plain and fancy, the names on mausoleums, are what strike me.
So many are very familiar, so many are the names of streets we drive, names we've all heard over and over for years and years. But there are also many names totally unfamiliar to me.
Big, imposing, chunks of rock refined and chiseled, marking the memory and remains of people whose names I've never heard. No mistaking it, these were wealthy citizens of this valley, people with serious money, money enough to pay for large and perhaps venal monuments to the passing of one's life. Venal or not, that isn't my judgment to make. In fact, I'm glad they are there.
Who were they, the ones with unfamiliar names? More than that, I wonder where they are, their families, their descendents. Did they all leave and never come back? Did a family name end abruptly, or does it carry on and sound completely familiar somewhere else in this world? A place to start searching for answers would be at The Luzerne County Historical Society.
We'll go again to Hollenback Cemetery, and to others as well.
