Too-Real “Living History” Almost Reached Over To Knock Me On My Behind At Oak Wood Cemetery Yesterday Afternoon

From the Editor—

Our various local historical organizations do a marvelous job in helping places and objects here connect with visitors in ways far more meaningful than that of simply setting out preserved artifacts.

Think of lessons taught on special occasions at Weber-Blaess.

An already immersive one-room environment is thoughtfully reinforced by commitment to period-appropriate teaching style.

So, too with the historical trolley tours offered during Saline’s Summerfest: Guides in-costume, in-character helped bridge the gap of what was seen through windows as it passed into and out of view, and the real people who breathed and walked those grounds. [1,2,]

And yet when you pass through the same experience again and again, the impact naturally diminishes. Those familiar with anything like the Walt Disney World “Haunted Mansion” or the old Universal Studios “JAWS” ride can relate. I vividly remember my first time through each, and little to nothing about any since. [3,4]

Ginger Winter is the Rotary Club of Saline engine behind the marvelous Cemetery Enactment Tour program that took place yesterday in the oldest section of Oak Wood Cemetery. I started meeting with her more than five months ago to gather information for a series of articles previewing the event in =Saline Journal. The first ran on Memorial Day. As we continued to meet throughout the summer, sometimes in my office, most times at the cemetery, I got to know not just the scripted content heard yesterday by visitors to the grave sites, but also a wealth of background material that had come before it, and the painstaking process by which it had been gotten. [5,6,7]

I discussed this then-upcoming event with others, too. As City Council now wrestles with the issue of how to address deteriorating marker stones in Oak Wood, Bob Lane had taken initiative to organize backup records in their stead. With that, further backgrounds emerged on those very real individuals whose lives once intersected with our city — now too briefly revisited in just thirteen stations one day this year.

With that you’d think any concern about spoiler alerts for me had been soundly disregarded. While I’m never so incurious as to think =been there, done that=, I’d certainly forgive others in similar shoes who might have been.

Monroe Street parking wasn’t a problem when I arrived just after two o’clock yesterday; I readily took a space down from the Ruckman family marker. Erik Grossman stopped to chat while walking to his own tour time while I was pulling camera gear from the trunk of my car. Nothing out of the ordinary, except maybe that it was a rare instance when I didn’t expect to take notes.

Touch base with Ms Winter.

Photograph a representative number of stops on the circuit.

Head out to my own next story obligation in town.

All of that changed when I got to my first place, the Webster Ruckman enactment. Not only was I familiar with him from my own preview coverage of his part, but I’d watched his history unfold less than a week earlier during the Brecon Village dress rehearsal. To the unfamiliar, a cemetery setting must understandably seem an incongruent if not disruptive backdrop. Challenging acoustics. Awkward travel for audience. [8]

If so, it all worked to more powerfully tell the tale. It felt like I was intruding into someone else’s place, obligated to follow the rules and timing of those who were now always here. Night and day. Beatiful weather and bad. Too often forgotten, but today not just commanding attention but defying visitors to indulge distraction or even give fleeting thought to anything other than the person before them.

At first I struggled against this. I looked for signs that these enactors could not be who they said they were. A quartz wristwatch worn under costume sleeve perhaps. Surely a disposable plastic water bottle bottle among their nearby things. Anything!

Any such thoughts were naive. Cemetery enactments are an example of a whole that has come together to make something greater than the sum of its parts. Someone can show you a written summary of what happened. I can publish photographs. Videos may appear online. Fine historical records, all. None, however, is living history.

This event was. Consider it a most worthy part of such volunteer initiative offerings here, such as those listed above, the Rentschler Farm Museum program, and others. [9]

For better or worse, I just didn’t see it coming yesterday — and almost ended up knocked on my behind by the experience. I’m now a better resident of Saline having gone through it.

References

1. “Weber Blaess” Jim Hoeft, Saline Area Historical Society.
2. “Historical Trolley Tour” Saline’s Summerfest.
3. “Haunted Mansion” Walt Disney World.
4. “Yesterworld: The Jaws Ride You Never Got To Experience” Yesterworld Entertainment (November 25, 2016) YouTube.
5. Rotary Club of Saline (home page).
6. “Saline Rotary’s Oakwood Cemetery Enactment Tours” The Rotary Club of Saline Michigan.
7. “You Should Get to Know former Saline Resident Webster Ruckman at Some Point in Your Memorial Day Schedule” Dell Deaton (May 28, 2018) Saline Journal.
8. “Like So Many Histories From Saline, Dress Rehearsals For Upcoming Cemetery Enactments Stretched Their Own Bounds” Dell Deaton (September 24, 2018) Saline Journal.
9. “Imagine Seeing Rentschler Farm Museum through the Eyes of a Child During Your Next Visit, Part 1” Dell Deaton (May 25, 2018) Saline Journal.