Vale Cemetery

A beautiful afternoon to plan for a fall volunteer clean-up day; watch for details soon!

From the City Council minutes as reported in The Schenectady Reflector newspaper on October 2, 1857

Resolved, That the Cemetery Committee be empowered to make the necessary arrangements for a proper dedication of the new Cemetery ground at as early a day as possible.

Resolved, That the new Cemetery be hereafter known and designated by the name of the “Vale Cemetery”

Please note that both of this weekend's events - Saturday's Gravestone Cleaning Class and the Notable Women Tour - have been canceled due to illness/injury.

For Willow Wednesday, a pair of white marble headstones in the Reformed Church plot.

The stone of Elisha Groot, relict (widow) of Abraham C. Groot who died in 1833 feeatures a very stylized willow tree with a sinously curved trunk framed by a pair of classical urns. Urns in cemetery iconography symblize the mortal body with the flames which rise from them representing the immortal soul. Shown as a pair here, they may represent Elisha and her husband.

The smaller adjacent stone also features a very simple and graceful willow. The willow itself became a popular emblem of mourning in the late 18th century through the mid-19th centrury. This stone dates from 1818 and marks the grave of Elsha's doaughter, Jamina Groot Ryneck.

The stones are likely the work of the same workshop though any signatures would be located on the lower portion of the stone below the ground.

The Amsterdam Recorder, in alluding to the Vale Cemetery, concludes as follows: "The location of the Cemetery is admirable; and yet whole the ground has long been the property of the city, and they have been looking about for suitable grounds, they have never till within the last year discovered the appropriateness of this location....There are trees enough to shade sufficiently, and they are mostlly pines. These, with their dirge-like music, will with every wind, sing funeral anthems, retaining theirn green-ness through the winter, will be lively emblems of the life beyond the tomb.

from The Schnectady Reflector newspaper, October 30, 1857.

Makers Mark

Look on the bases of this tall, simple obelisk in Section G near the Vale Crematorium to find the mark of its makers; the firm of Carpenter & Raymond, Builders.

Located in Dayton, Ohio, their offerings included monuments like this, as well as public memorials.

While it’s not unusual to see monuments signed by the stone carvers, markings like this are less common here.

Fell During The Battle of The Argonne

This granite monument in the German Methodist section of the Cemetery honors a young soldier who died on this date in 1918 during the brutal Meuse-Argonne Offensive during the final weeks of World War I.

The inscription reads:

Corp. Walter A. Looman
June 21, 1895
Co. L. 39th Inf., 4th Div.
Fell Sept. 26, 1918
During The Battle Of The
Argonne Near Cuisy, France

Walter August Looman was born in Princetown, Schenectady County to John Looman and Minna Graper. At the time of his enlistment in the Army, he was a resident of Stanley Street in Schenectady and was inducted in March 1918, just seven months before being killed in action. He was one of over 26,000 American soldiers killed in the Battle of Meuse-Argonne which lasted from September 26 until the signing of The Armstice on November 11.

After the War, Walter's mother, Minna Looman, was among the women who took part in the 1929 Gold Star Mothers Pilgrim to visit her son's final resting place in the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery where a white marble cross* marks his grave.

*While some records and this cenotaph at Vale give his date of death as September 26, his grave marker in France lists the 27th.

--

The sun, now it shines on the green fields of France
There's a warm summer breeze; it makes the red poppies dance
And look how the sun shines from under the clouds
There's no gas, no barbed wire, there's no gun firing now
But here in this graveyard, it's still no man's land
The countless white crosses stand mute in the sand.

- The Green Fields of France, Eric Bogle

Vale will again sponsor an Owls of The Vale tree at the Schenectady County Historical Society’s annual Festival of Trees and we need your help to make this year’s tree even more special by donating an owl ornament. Ornaments can be dropped off at our office during our usual business hours or mailed to Vale Cemetery, 907 State Street, Schenectady, NY 12307. Or bring one with you to our Owl Prowl next month.

Check out last year's tree here:

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/14tYDVehmMg/

For more on the Festival of Trees:

https://schenectadyhistorical.org/festivals/

A new flag haas been raised over the restored Grand Army of The Republic plot.