Carol Shepley-Movers and Shakers, Scalawags
and Suffragettes:
Tales from Bellefontaine Cemetery. This history of
Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis is told through the stories
of some of the 87,000 people who are buried there. Shepley’s
guidebook to St. Louis’s notable residents is organized into
sections, such as artists, fur traders, and Civil War generals,
and features biographies of William Clark, James Buchanan
Eads, Susan Blow, and Adolphus Busch, not to mention some
of even more notorious backgrounds. For example, the book
delves into the stories of lesser-known scalawags, such as
Alfred H. Plant,who scandalized his family on December 20,
1889, when he married Mollie Murphy, a local prostitute. The
next day his relatives had him committed to St. Vincent’s Insane
Asylum, where he lived until his death at 72. He is buried in the family
plot at Bellefontaine, and his bride rests eternally a short distance
away. Cemetery records and interviews with such insiders as
the cemetery’s superintendent and gatekeeper inform the
research. The contributions and controversies that make up
St. Louis history are revealed, and the architecture and
landscape of the cemetery are celebrated as significant to the
region.
CAROL FERRING SHEPLEY lives in St. Louis and has written for
Money Magazine, Time, and Harper’s Bazaar. She is a former
art critic for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and is an adjunct
professor of art history at Maryville University.
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