All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories

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**All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories**

Hundreds of brief biographies of permanent residents of Laurel Hill East in Philadelphia and Laurel Hill West in Bala Cywnyd, Pennsylvania. Often educational, always entertaining.

Latest Episodes:

Five Generations of Browns at Laurel Hill Mar 15, 2025

Show notes

ABC:LHWS #042 Five Generations of the Brown family...

...are interred at Laurel Hill

Charles Brockden Brown was American’s first successful novelist. his influence on Edgar Allen Poe was immeasurable. He has a cenotaph in the South section of Laurel Hill East.
Charles' nephew Frederick Brown was a successful druggist because of his ginger root-based nostrums. He was also one of four co-founders of Laurel Hill Cemetery.
Frederick's son Henry Armitt Brown was considered the best orator of his generation and often compared to Henry Clay and Daniel Webster.
Henry's daughter Anna Robeson Brown Burr was a highly successful author with more than two dozen books to her name, both fiction and nonfiction.
Anna's daughter Dorothy Burr Thompson got her PhD from Bryn Mawr and was one of the best-known archeologists in the country. Pamela Burr, younger by 5 years, wrote a play which featured her Bryn Mawr classmate Katharine Hepburn.

Frederick and Henry are buried at Laurel Hill East, while Anna, Dorothy, and Pamela are at Laurel Hill West.

Katherine Rotan Drinker and The Radium Girls (encore) Mar 06, 2025

Show notes

ABC:LHS #072-5 A slight reworking of ABC:LHS #041...

...about Cecil Kent Drinker MD now features his wife Katherine Rotan Drinker, MD, as they take on the investigation of "jaw rot" among young women who had worked as painters of luminescent watch dials.

Charlotte Yhlen & Marie K. Formad: Strangers in a Strange Land Mar 04, 2025

Show notes

ABC:LHS #072-3 In the mid-19th century...

...women from around the world flocked to Philadelphia in order to become physicians.

Everyone has seen the Frederick Gutekunst photo of three medical students from India, Japan, and Syria.

Charlotte Yhlen came from Sweden and became the first Scandinavian-born woman physician but couldn't get work in her home country so returned to the United States.
Marie K. Formad was from Russia. She became one of the premiere gynecologic surgeons in the country.

William J. Mullen: The Prisoner's Friend and Female Medical College Mar 03, 2025

Show notes

ABC:LHS #072-2 William J. Mullen...

...was the first President of Female Medical College of Pennsylvania. He is remembered for his tireless philanthropic work among inmates at Moyamensing Prison and for his over-the-top grave marker in the south section of Laurel Hill East.

Founding the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania Mar 02, 2025

Show notes

ABC:LHS #072-1 With help of Quaker philanthropists...

...a medical school for women was chartered in 1850. Through the courage and strength of the founders and early graduates, it slowly grew into a respected medical school whose memory lives today through the Drexel University School of Medicine.

Women's Medical College: Some Selected Stories Mar 01, 2025

Show notes

ABC:LHS #072 is a condensed history of the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania.

First, I will tell you about the founding of the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1850.
Second, I will talk about William J. Mullen, the school’s first President and a major contributor. He is remembered today for his over-the-top grave marker at Laurel Hill East.
Third, I will discuss the notable photograph of three women doctors in their traditional attire, followed by a discussion about Swedish immigrant Charlotte Yhlen and Russian immigrant Marie Formad.
Fourth, I will tell you about the near-mortal wound suffered by Women’s Medical when their new president Sarah Logan Wister Starr butted heads with one of the top surgeons at the hospital, which led to the resignation of the entire surgical staff.
And for dessert, if you missed it, is a slightly modified version of a podcast I did on Dr. Cecil Kent Drinker a few years ago, but now with the emphasis on his wife WMC graduate Dr. Katherine Rotan Drinker.

John W. Forney: Gadfly, Chameleon, Provocateur Feb 15, 2025

Show notes

BBB:LHWS #041 John W. Forney...

...was a publisher, a politician, a railroad agent, and the only person to serve as both Clerk of the US House and Secretary of the US Senate. Abraham Lincoln befriended the man, but political enemies called Forney "Lincoln's dog." Andrew Johnson drank to excess at Forney’s Stag party the night before he was sworn in as Vice President. A city in Texas is named for him.

Jack Jones: Pioneering TV Anchor Feb 05, 2025

Show notes

ABC:LHS #071-4 John Claver "Jack" Jones...

...was a Philadelphian through-and-through - West Catholic High School, La Salle University. He was befriended by TV announcer John Facenda who got him hired at a local TV station. Jack rose to be evening anchor but died far too young.

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