Sports fans love a good player tribute or memorial.
They flock to places like stadiums, the
various hall of fames, hometowns of heroes and museums to see artist’s
renditions of the athlete and their careers.
There are simply hundreds of places to visit to pay homage to the many
great athletes of the world.
Bloomington
Illinois has added a venue in Evergreen Memorial Cemetery!
A cemetery is not your standard variety
venue.
Many cemeteries feature stone art.
Many
old stones were carved with scenes of nature or animals and the way those are
depicted generally has a meaning.
There
is some of that art in Evergreen Memorial, but there is also new art that just
grows with the trees.
It all began in
2015 when a tree died near a spot where a plane had crashed during the Memorial
Day ceremonies of 1948.
Instead of
cutting down the tree and removing the stump, management decided to have it
carved into a memorial commemorating that crash.
A carver was hired and when completed, a
replica of the plane that crashed adorned the top of the stump that remained
after removing the damaged portion of the tree.
So started a tradition has Evergreen Memorial on the way to becoming more than
a final destination.
Now the cemetery is
a favorite local destination for viewing some nice chainsaw art carving.
The second creation is near the grave of
Dorothy Gage. Bill Baker of Top Notch Chainsaw Carvings completed a carving of
Dorothy from L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz in 2018.
Gage was Baum’s niece and was the person he
named the character after.
Bill Baker carved two more memorials in 2019.
One is of an infant in a tree also near the grave of Dorothy Gage, the
other of Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourn who is also buried in Evergreen Memorial
Cemetery.
Radbourn was born in Rochester NY in 1853 but was raised in and called
Bloomington home.
He spent 12 years in
Major League Baseball with the Buffalo Bisons, Providence Grays, Boston
Beaneaters, Boston Reds, and Cincinnati Reds.
He passed away in 1897 and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame
in 1939.
Bill Baker related that the carving of Radbourn was interesting because most of
the photographs he used as a reference were taken from the waist up.
Only a couple full-length shots seem to exist
that Baker was able to locate.
Baker
also states in a social media post about this carving that an imperfection in
the old tree used for the carving was located in the exact spot of the left
eye.
Imperfections aren’t unusual, but
his further research revealed that Radbourn was blind in his left eye after a
hunting accident where he was accidentally shot by a friend.
In Bakers words, some things were meant to
be.
The eye imperfection remains in the
final works.
Other details of the art
are a wooden bat placed against Radbourn’s right hand and BOSTON on his
jersey.
Several parts of the work are
blackened to give it a more lifelike appearance.
Evergreen Memorial Cemetery is home to a lot of old oak trees and the property
is the final resting place of many of Bloomington, Normal and McLean Counties
prominent historical figures as well as many historical characters.
The families of Supreme Court Judge David
Davis (a friend and confidant of Abraham Lincoln), Adlai Stevenson, the
Gridley’s, the Funks, Sergeant Joshua Rodgers and others are all laid to rest
here leaving a variety of material, personalities and memories to be
commemorated and carved.
Evergreen Memorial Cemetery is located 2 blocks east of Main Street, south of
downtown Bloomington at 302 Miller Street.
More images of the memorial to Charles Radbourn can be found here:
https://alanlook.photoshelter.com/portfolio/G0000VI_GJst9ZUY/I0000nQhxx2t8zmE
More images of Evergreen Memorial Cemetery are here:
https://alanlook.photoshelter.com/portfolio/G0000lUNl4ZC1MWU/I0000AuQkYE8cKyo
