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PODCAST

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories

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

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All Episodes

26:31

LTC Edgar Loftus: Facing Down a Nazi Ace

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/09/06

Part 5 of All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #078 Edgar Loftus was a Wharton grad who rose in the Army Air Corps to Lieutenant Colonel. On VE Day, he was ranking officer in charge when a small squadron of German Aces landing their aircraft at his air base to end their war. The story is remarkable.

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25:51

Jacques Louis Francine: I Bombed Japan

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/09/05

Part 4 of All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #078 Despite his very French name, Jacques Louis Francine was from a well-established Philadelphia family. HIs grandfather was a Union general, his father was the world's expert on tuberculosis. Jacques was the ultimate outdoorsman, collecting specimens for the Academy of Natural Sciences in northern Canada and starting a canoe camp. But he was also a decorated fighter pilot and bomber pilot with more than 30 missions to his name. He is buried in

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31:43

Holger "Hold Your Horses" Hoiriis: Barnstorming,...

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/09/04

Part 3 of All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #078 In 1924, Danish-born Holger Hoiriis moved to the United States and bought an airplane. After barnstorming for a few years, he hitched up with German American photographer Otto Hillig who wanted to cross the ocean. Holgier thus became the first pilot to carry a paying customer across the Atlantic. He was also the first pilot to complete night airmail delivery for the US Postal service. After the war and when Holger was no longer around to

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37:32

Philadelphia Fliers: Grover Cleveland Bergdoll, Hobey...

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/09/03

Part 2 of All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #078 Beer heir Grover Cleveland Bergdoll was an early adaptor to flight and it is his Wright Brothers biplane that suspends from the ceiling of the Franklin Institute. He was also the most notorious American Draft Dodger during the Great War. You met Hobart Amory Hare "Hobey" Baker in an earlier podcast when fellow guide Paul Sookiasian and I talked about his athletic prowess; I return now to discuss his life as a pilot, and add new information

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30:00

Lincoln's Air Force: Defying Gravity in the 19th Century

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/09/02

Part 1 of All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #078 The first American balloon flight took place from Philadelphia, as did the great balloon riot of 1819. Thaddeus Lowe, who has relatives at Laurel Hill East, was the man who introduced the balloon to American warfare when he helped guide Union troops from 500 feet above the earth during the Battle of Fair Oaks. Until replaced by spy planes in the 20th century, balloons were one of the best surveillance tools in warfare.

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180:51

Look! Up in the Sky! Laurel Hill Pilots, part 1

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/09/01

Thaddeus Lowe is not buried at Laurel Hill, but has many connections there. He was an balloon aeronaut during the Civil War, thus father of the United States Air Force. Grover Cleveland Bergdoll's family is in a huge mausoleum at Laurel Hill West. An early student of the Wright brothers, he became a poster child for privilege when he dodged the draft during the Great War. Hobey Baker's athletic gifts made him a natural pilot, but he crashed and died on the day he was scheduled to return

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47:32

Sara Oberholtzer and Philadelphia Thrift

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/08/14

Biographical Bytes from Bala #057 for mid-August 2025Sara Louisa Oberholtzer was a feminist, an abolitionist, and a temperance advocate who helped establish school bank accounts for millions of American children during the "Thrift" movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Her legacy for thrift in Philadelphia is second only to Benjamin Franklin's.

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24:16

Antoinette Westphal: Drexel Forever!

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/08/05

From All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #077, Part 4Antoinette Westphal was Drexel through and through. While a student there in the late 1950s, she captained both the field hockey and lacrosse teams, and wrote the newspaper's gossip column. She married fellow grad Ray Westphal and they started a family as Ray turned an idea into a successful business. Antoinette started her own spa, and took an interest in Drexel's art collection. After her death, Ray's generous donation caused creation

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39:20

Joseph Wharton: The Law without Morals Is Useless

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/08/04

From All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #077, part 3 Joseph Wharton was a Quaker businessman and philanthropist whose work is still felt throughout the city and the world. He was the primary founder of Swarthmore College. His business acumen allowed the US Mint to make a healthy profit in the years he was involved. Fisher Park in northeast Philadelphia was his gift to the city. The Wharton State Forest in New Jersey is the largest mass of land owned by the state. And, of course, the

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28:48

Henry Biddle: Educating the Freedman

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/08/03

From All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #077, part 2 Captain Henry Biddle was wounded in the Battle of Glendale and died a few weeks later after having befriended his treating physician. His wife donated money in his name to found Biddle College in North Carolina, which has since changed its name to Johnson C. Smith University. His son Spencer Fullerton Baird Biddle was a Navy man who became a cattle rancher and introduced the highland cow to America and was a co-founder of the American

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22:04

Charles Macalester: Inventing Glengarry & Torresdale

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/08/02

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #077, Part 1 Charles Macalester established the town of Torresdale, founded Presbyterian Hospital, financially advised eight US presidents, and may have been the richest man in the world. A codicil in his will provided for the beginning of Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, one of the top-ranked liberal arts schools in the country. The river mansion Glen Foerd stands as another of his creations.

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02:17:32

Some College Namesakes, Part 1 (complete)

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/08/01

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #077 - College Namesakes Several Laurel Hill residents have institutions of higher learning named in their honor. Charles Macalester made a contribution that helped to turn a small liberal arts school into one of the finest small colleges in the land. Joseph Wharton made fortunes several times over, but is best remembered for starting what has become one of the top business schools in the country. Henry Biddle died from wounds received during the Peninsula

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59:31

Robert A. Groff, MD: Cutting Brain

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/07/12

Biographical Bytes from Bala: Laurel Hill West Stories #046For about 30 years in the middle of the 20th century, medical wisdom had declared that destroying organically healthy brain tissue was a legitimate treatment for varying psychiatric disorders. The concept of psychosurgery dates back to the Neolithic period but became more prominent in the 19th and 20th centuries. The champion for destroying healthy brain tissue was a Philadelphia born-and trained neurologist Walter Freeman, who performed

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31:04

BG Henry Naglee: Civil War Hero, Famed Vintner,...

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/07/06

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #076Philadelphian Henry Naglee was a West Point graduate who fought in Mexico, the West, and the Civil War. He took a liking to the West Coast and built the first permanent commercial structure in San Francisco, installed vineyards that produced the finest brandy in the country, and is namesake for the Naglee Park section of San Jose. But he was a scoundrel with women, one of whom repaid him by publishing his love letters and his self-portrait of doing

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31:35

Mabel Tinley, alias Lasca Vega, alias Mrs. John Van...

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/07/04

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #76, part 3 Mabel Tinley was a Philadelphia-born con woman with a hypnotizing gaze who worked her way into New York Society with boldness and beauty. Fellow cemetery historian Tom Keels tells her remarkable story and suggests an inscription for her stone - should she ever get one. Here Lies MABEL TINLEY AKA Mrs. Richard W. Roelofs, Fickle Wife and Inattentive Mother, Lasca Vega, Vaudeville Vamp, Louise Vermeule, Serial Shopper, Mrs. John (Catherine

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47:31

MAJ Wakeman Griffin Gribbel: Unsuccessfully Dealing...

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/07/03

From All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #076 This segment of the podcast talks about the evolution of the diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from nostalgia and soldier's heart to shell shock and battle fatigue and the thousand yard stare. W. Griffin Gribbel was a wealthy Chestnut Hill businessman and Great War veteran whose wealth, career, and family could not save him from his post-war nightmares. His behavior often got so out of control that he had to be confined in an asylum

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20:26

Morton McMichael Hoyt: Third Time's Not a Charm, Either

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/07/02

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #076, part 1 Morton McMichael Hoyt was named for his great-grandfather the mayor. His sister, Elinor Wylie, was a famed poet and author. Before he had turned 21, he married Jeanine Bankhead, older sister of up-and-coming actress Tallulah. When the marriage failed, they tried again. And then a third time. Then there's the time he jumped off a steamship on a bet ... or was it a dare ... to impress a 17-year-old. And he was captured by the Nazis in 1942 and

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03:01:42

A Handful of Eccentrics

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/07/01

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #076 The July 2025 episode tells of five people who really didn’t fit anywhere else. Morton McMichael Hoyt married the same woman three times and once jumped off a steamship to impress a 17-year-old girl. Major Wakeman Griffin Gribbel was gassed and wounded during the Great War; during one of several psychotic breaks, he mortally wounded a police officer, but a jury found him “not guilty.” Fellow guide and amateur cemetery historian Tom Keels tells the

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28:45

Louis Bossle: The Best Rat Catcher in the Land

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/06/25

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #076, part 4Rat Catcher Lou Bossle was proud of his profession - it is even carved onto his Laurel Hill West tombstone. Twice in the 1890s, Philadelphia newspapers sent a reporter to keep him company in rat-infested basements while he was on the job. I'll tell you about the long relationship between humans and rats, and share some of the methods used by ratcatchers of yore. If you're a little squeamish, this one might make you squeam.

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49:34

Milton C. Work: America's Bridge Master

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/06/15

Biographical Bytes from Bala #045 for mid-June 2025The card games whist and bridge arrived in Victorian Philadelphia and captivated its upper-class population. Bridge clubs formed all over town, but people soon realized the man in the know was Milton C. Work, a Philadelphia lawyer. A scoring system that Work popularized for contract bridge remains the one that most players use today. Learn about the history of playing cards, the development of bid games, and a lot more on this month's

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