History comes alive in cemetery walk

By FRITZ BUSCH

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- Historical personalities of Brown County's past and gravestone funerary art and symbolism came alive to a small crowd of people that took a tour of New Ulm City Cemetery on a warm Sunday afternoon.

Led by Darla Gebhard and Susan Ullery of the Brown County Historical Society, the history of New Ulm's founding, stories of early pioneers and the tragedy of the Dakota Conflict filled the hour-long walk.

Highlights included unique tree stones of the Schell and Hauenstein families that founded New Ulm's breweries. Monuments to Jacob Nix and Charles Roos who helped defend New Ulm and the graves of conflict victims were found.

Eighty-four numbered graves are found in the Pioneer Section of the cemetery. A large stone denoting all 84 graves can be found near the maintenance house in the middle of the cemetery, where the tour began.

Symbols found on gravestones and their meaning included: flowers (life's brevity), fingers pointing up (gone to heaven), ivy (immortality), drapes or curtains (mourning), heart (music, joy, love), dove (peace), cut-off branches (end of life), crossed branches (husband and wife), torch (earthly remains in heaven), anchor (strength, steadfastness, loyalty), children's shoes and socks (they died so fast, they didn't have time to put them on).

Gravestones and their stories included the crypt of of Caroline and Carl Pauli. Caroline ran across Minnesota Street and became the first fatality during an Indian attack on New Ulm in 1862. A baby she was carrying, Ida (Behnke) Bobleter, survived the attack. She was the first white baby born in Brown County.

German immigrant Ludwig Bogen created the New Ulm Post, the first New Ulm newspaper after the Dakota Conflict. It lasted into the 1940's.

The Wicherski crypt contains 11 family members and room for one more.

A diphtheria epidemic in the 1880's took the lives of many pioneers. Some family members died a day apart during the epidemic.

A bush planted next to the Alexander Harkin grave still blooms.

Allie Peterson died at age eight. A life-size statue of the boy marks the grave. Cemetery visitors often place coins in his hand or near his gravestone.