Writer & Traveler with a passion for history, photography & the unusual
This beautiful bronze neoclassical relief of a woman laying flowers in Green Mount Cemetery, 1501 Greenmount Avenue in Baltimore, Maryland, is dedicated to lawyer Harry Norman Baetjer (1882-1969) and his wife, Katherine Bailey Bruce Baetjer (1881-1923). The couple had four children, including 2Lt Edwin George Baetjer, II. Edwin was killed in action aboard a B-29 when it crashed in China after a bombing raid over Anshan in what was then the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo.
In this photo shoot, model Reese C. poses at Kilgore Falls in rural Maryland. I returned to my 35mm lens for some of these portraits, which while not traditionally considered a portrait lens, has a quality I can’t quite put my finger on.
Kilgore Falls is a great place to shoot. I’ve been looking for a waterfall like this for years, something with the classic waterfall look, and secluded enough to not be interrupted by a horde of visitors. We did this photo shoot on a relatively cold autumn morning, so few people were there, but it was too cold to get too close to the falls.
Continue reading “Portraits of Reese”Francis Scott Key (1779-1843) was a Maryland lawyer and author who wrote the poem that became famous as the lyrics to “The Star-Spangled Banner“, our national anthem. During the War of 1812, Key was aboard a British ship negotiating the release of American prisoners during the Battle of Baltimore and witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry.
The sights inspired him to write a poem called “Defence of Fort M’Henry”, which was later put to music and re-titled “The Star-Spangled Banner”. Key and his wife were buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery Frederick, Maryland and this monument was erected in his honor.
This intimidating bronze figure in Green Mount Cemetery, 1501 Greenmount Avenue in Baltimore, Maryland is dedicated to John George Baetjer (1843-1915) and Mary Anna Koppelman Baetjer (1846-1920) and their family. Designed by Hans Schuler, a graduate of the Rinehart School of Sculpture, the seated woman is simply titled “Meditation”. J. George Baetjer, a lifelong Baltimore resident, was a successful dry goods merchant.
Edgar Allan Poe is among my favorite authors, but his life wasn’t without controversy. As a young man, Poe enlisted in the U.S. Army and served several years before applying to the United States Military Academy at West Point. Before going to West Point (and subsequently getting booted out), he stayed at the home of his widowed aunt Maria Clemm, where he met her ten-year-old daughter Virginia Eliza Clemm.
Their narrow red brick duplex stood at No. 3 Amity Street in Baltimore Maryland. Today, it is the Edgar Allan Poe House & Museum. Poe lived in this house with the Clemms for approximately one year before attending West Point. Besides his aunt and her daughter, Maria’s ailing mother and possibly her 14-year-old son Henry also lived there (Henry died at a young age at an unknown date).
Touring the small rooms and claustrophobic passages to the second floor and the attic, I can’t imagine what it was like with four people living there without electricity, air conditioning, or plumbing. Despite these conditions, Poe managed to publish Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems in 1829.
Continue reading “Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum in Baltimore, Maryland”
As a fan of both history and wax museums, I was thrilled to discover this museum in Baltimore’s struggling northeastern neighborhood of Oliver. The National Great Blacks in Wax Museum features over 150 life-sized wax figures representing a range of personalities from African American history, as well as a few ancient ones as well.
The museum’s depiction of ancient history is, for lack of a better word, imaginative. In the entryway, a large figure of a dark-skinned Hannibal the Great sits on a war elephant. Hannibal, a Carthaginian leader who fought the Romans circa 218 BC, was ethnically Phoenician, not from Sub-Saharan Africa. Likewise, the museum depicts Egyptian pharaohs as black when they were actually Middle Eastern in origin. Some even had red hair.
Perhaps the most controversial exhibits have to do with the Atlantic slave trade, lynching, and racism. It’s estimated 12 to 12.8 million Africans were forcibly transported across the Atlantic over a span of 400 years under horrible conditions. The wax exhibit leaves nothing to the imagination.
Continue reading “National Great Blacks in Wax Museum in Baltimore, Maryland”During the 1930s, a man appeared in America offering salvation through the simple act of eating. “Father Divine”, professing himself to be God incarnate, urged his followers to transcend race and poverty through the power of positive thinking. His message crossed racial lines because he appealed to shared traditions in American culture. This eccentric preacher offered Americans, both black and white, rich and poor, hope that racial unity and personal perfection could be achieved through the union of religion and the dinner table.
Father Divine began life as George Baker, Jr. in the border state of Maryland less than fifteen years after the Civil War. His mother, Nancy, had been born a slave in the 1840s. Two Catholic masters owned her over the course of her life, Lemuel Clemens and Henry B. Waring. Both required that she attend the Catholic churches they had erected on their respective properties.
In 1864, when Maryland outlawed slavery, Nancy went into service as a maid and already had two daughters by unknown persons. She married a man named George Baker in the 1870s and the two moved into a ghetto outside of Rockville, Maryland known as ‘Monkey Run.’ George Baker, Jr. was born shortly after, in May 1879.[1] Nancy and her family attended Rockville’s Jerusalem Methodist Church, a separatist branch, where, according to historian Jill Watts, “inevitably, the intense spirituality and religious dedication of the African-American community left a deep impression on George.”[2]
His mother died when he was a young man. She was five feet tall and weighed four hundred and eighty pounds. A coffin had to be built inside their house and could only be removed after the doorway had been hastily expanded. Historian R. Marie Griffith theorized that Nancy’s extreme size, acquired after moving to Monkey Run, was a response to the oppressive conditions of slavery she had experienced as a young woman.
Continue reading “Father Divine: The Man Who Called Himself God”
