This park above all others, with a warmth and strength of love – of love of all the working world – should hold out its arms, should invite them to itself, until its naturalness and beauty enter into their lives. ~Michael B. Olbrich, 1921
I’ve previously posted about many of the familiar and historic names found at Forest Hills Cemetery.
In the process of photographing the final resting places of William Vilas and Charles Van Hise, I learned a great deal about the history of my city and my university. On memorial day, I had witnessed an impressive tribute to those who have sacrificed so much for our country. Today, I found three more names that are familiar to Madisonians.
If you have visited Olbrich Botanical Gardens, you know the legacy of an attorney by the same name who acquired the land where the park now sits.
Wisconsin is America’s Dairyland, in large part because of Stephen Babcock, inventor of the Babcock test, which measured the fat content of milk and helped to discourage farmers from watering their milk.
Oscar Rennebohm built a chain of drug stores, served as governor of Wisconsin and a regent of the University of Wisconsin, and established the Rennebohm Foundation in 1949.
Near these three landmark graves is a another section of the cemetery dedicated to military veterans, each with their plain white government-issue headstone. Among them as World War I veteran Richard E Kingston, who served as a saddler with the 127th infantry at Camp Grant, Illinois, before being discharged in 1919.
In addition to his military service, Kingston’s claim to fame may be the carriage in his backyard.
As reported by The Capital Times (Nov 1, 1930), the Kingston family had a cab in their backyard that was converted into a children’s playhouse.
“a cab which stands in the backyard of Mrs. Richard Kingston’s residence… In the 80s and 90s bore Wisconsin Governors, Supreme Court judges, and other prominent Madison and state officials. The horse cab was driven by Thomas Kingston, father-in-law of Mrs. Kingston and drawn by a pair of white horses, and many times carried members of the LaFollette family when they were children.”
I can’t help but wonder if Mr. Olbrich ever rode in that cab.
