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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.

history

All Episodes

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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31:11

Clarence Wiener: Laurel Hill's Baron Munchausen

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/06/06

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #075, part 4Baron von Munchausen was a German military man who traveled the country spreading his tales of wonder, which always featured himself in the role of a hero. Clarence Wiener came from a wealthy Philadelphia family. He started to burnish his reputation during his brief stay at Harvard. Eventually, truth and fiction blended together. His widowed mother married an American-born violin teacher who was also a Baron. When Clarence died, he ended up in

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13:08

Princess Olga Demidoff Stoever: A Princess with Attitude

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/06/05

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #75, part 5 Princess Olga Demidoff was from one royal family and married into another, the house of Trubetskoy. She eventually married Philadelphia archeologist Edward Stoever, but supported herself as both an escort and as madame in a high-end New York brothel. Her name is on the tombstone, but she is located on an island off of Spain.

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21:53

Marquis d'Esken de Frenoys & Baron Michael von Suttka

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/06/04

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #075, part 3 In Paris before the Great War, he was known as Roberto Carles Eskens, but acquired the title of “The Marquis D’Eskens de Frenoys.” Baron James Ivan Michael von Suttka was born in Canton, Ohio, and claimed to be an Olympic caliber pistol shot. Both men married rich American women. It is difficult to prove whether their titles were authentic.

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32:45

Countess Santa Eulalia, aka Libbie Shindler Stetson

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/06/03

From all Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #075, part 2 Elizabeth "Libby" Shindler was an Indiana farm girl / schoolteacher who caught the eye of philanthropist / hatmaker John B. Stetson and became his third wife. When left a widow with several million dollars, she was pursued and captured by a Portuguese nobleman who was not quite what he claimed.

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22:32

The United States and Peerage Titles

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/06/02

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #075, Part 1 In the last quarter of the 19th century, there was a surge in marriages between European nobility and American heiresses as families exchanged money for titles. These women became known as "dollar princesses," and soon your east coast soiree was not complete without a contessa or marchioness to add to the flavor.

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02:23:46

Laurel Hill Nobility, Part 1

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/06/01

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #075In the late 19th and early 20th century, more than 450 American heiresses traded their fortunes for a European title; they were called "dollar princesses." Elizabeth Shindler Stetson was the hatmaker's third wife who married into a Portuguese title. Roberto Carles Eskens claimed Belgian nobility as Marquis d'Eskens de Frenoys; or was he a German valet with a good story and a vivid imagination? James Ivan Michael von Suttka has "Baron" on his headstone

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47:02

Jack Merriam & Dream Garden

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/05/14

Biographical Bytes from Bala: Laurel Hill West Stories #044 for mid-May, 2025John W. “Jack” Merriam made his fortune in real estate development – Oxford Valley Mall, Cedarbrook Apartment Complex, and many others. Among his acquisitions was the Curtis Publishing Building on Washington Square, with its magnificent Maxfield Parrish / Louis Comfort Tiffany glass mosaic in the lobby. Another was Maybrook Castle next to the Wynnewood Train Station on the Main Line. He was namesake for the Merriam

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27:16

2LT Elisha Kent Kane Wetherill: Gassed!

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/05/06

From All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #074, part 52LT Elisha Kent Kane Wetherill was a PAFA-trained artist who specialized in landscapes and beach scenes. He joined the Army in 1915 and served during the Battles of Ypres and the Somme. While he survived a gas attack, his lungs were apparently damaged, which led to his premature death in 1929.

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19:14

MAJ Alfred Reginald Allen, MD: The Choices a Man Makes

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/05/05

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #074, segment 4 Alfred Reginald Allen, MD, was a UPenn med school grad, a clever researcher in neurologic injuries, a brilliant composer of operas and hymns, founder of the Savoy Company, and one of the finest photomicrographers in the world. But when he joined the Army, it was as a combat officer. He was killed, ironically, by shrapnel to his brain at Meuse Argonne. He has a cenotaph at Laurel Hill East.

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21:36

CPT Alan Wood Lukens: Lost in the Fog of War

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/05/04

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #074, segment 3CPT Alan Wood Lukens was variously reported as killed in action, missing in action, hospitalized at an unknown site in France, and possible prisoner of war. He had been killed in action in September, but it took the Lukens family until January to determine what had really happened to Allen. He was awarded a posthumous Distinguished Service Medal

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19:29

1LT Dillwyn Parrish Starr: From Groton to Gallipoli...

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/05/03

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #074, section 2 1LT Dillwyn Parrish Starr joined the military long before the United States entered the war. He had been a football star at Groton and at Harvard. He ended up with the Coldstream Guard where he was killed in action during the Battle of Somme. He is buried in France, but his family has added his name to their stone at Laurel Hill East.

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10:56

Philadelphia and the Great War

All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories ·

2025/05/02

Excerpt from All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories #074, part 1 The United States tried to stay out of the European conflict that started in 1914 but eventually joined the fray. Philadelphia, "The Workshop of the World," provided doughboys with blankets, footwear, and head gear. By the time the US Congress declared war in April, 1917, hundreds of Americans had already been fighting, and many had died, the first of more than 125,000 Americans to die, including 1400 Philadelphians, in what many

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