BGuthrie Photos: MD -- Baltimore -- Druid Ridge Cemetery

MD -- Baltimore -- Druid Ridge Cemetery:

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. DRUIDC_080630_089.JPG: The Black Agnus was here
2. DRUIDC_080630_127.JPG: In loving memory of Capt. Theodore Marburg British Royal Flying Corps and Air Force November 27, 1893 - February 24, 1923 Follow the flag. Too long it has been absent from that line in France where once again an Attila has been stopped, and yet though not visible to the bye, it is and has been there from the beginning. It is there in the hearts of those fifty thousand American boys who saw their duty clear and moved up to it.
3. DRUIDC_080630_174.JPG: This Charles F. Kratz Memorial Park Freedom Wall is just scary!
4. DRUIDC_080630_231.JPG: In Memory of All World War II Veterans This memorial is in honor of all of the World War II veterans who were involved in the fight for the freedom of America and the free world. Whether they fought in the Pacific or European theater, they faced a resolute and often brutal enemy; yet they possessed the inner strength and courage that kept them going on the beaches at Normandy, in the deserts of North Africa and on the islands of the South Pacific. The actions of those who were called to duty were probably best described by the words of Admiral Nimitz: "Uncommon valor was a common virtue."
5. DRUIDC_080630_243.JPG: World War II Heroes 1941-1945 Ordinary people were asked to do extraordinary action in combat during WWII. It was my privilege to know the combat veterans in the 101st Air Borne in this memorial park, "Band of Brothers" Greatest Generation. A veteran's grandson asked. "Grandfather were you a hero in the WWII War?" Grandfather said "No, I served with many of them. But the true heroes did not come home." I was everlasting life for all the veterans that made the supreme sacrifice. Freedom is not free and was paid for with blood and sweat through the centuries so you can read this message from... Sgt. Charles Kratz WWII VFW.
6. DRUIDC_080630_266.JPG: Ella Virginia Houck Holloway Sept. 3, 1862 - Nov. 3, 1940 PATRIOT Maryland State President, US Daughters of 1812 Due to her efforts The Star Spangled Banner became our National Anthem. Placed by the Gov. William Smallwood Chapter US Daughters of 1812 March 25, 2006
7. DRUIDC_080630_271.JPG: Ella Virginia Houck Holloway
8. DRUIDC_080630_379.JPG: Kind of tacky...
Description of Subject Matter: Charmed Life
Black Magic Woman

By Brennen Jensen

It's a singularly beautiful May afternoon. The skies are blue, the breezes soft and soothing. I'm standing beneath a sycamore tree amidst a verdant lawn. Nothing in the vista suggests that this leafy location was once the scariest and most dreaded spot in all of Greater Baltimore.

I'm in Pikesville's Druid Ridge Cemetery, standing before the Agnus family plot -- final resting place of Felix Agnus, esteemed Union Army general and publisher of the Baltimore American newspaper. Agnus died in 1925, but for more than 40 years thereafter generations of local high school and college kids were drawn to this spot -- not on sunny afternoons, mind you, but in the gloom of midnight. They came not to pay homage to a noble Baltimorean, but to visit the life-size bronze statue that once adorned the Agnus plot. The seated figure draped with a vast cowl was known as Black Aggie, and she was "haunted," you see, capable of doing everything from snuffing out your life to helping you lose your virginity. If the evil forces were arrayed just right, the story went, Black Aggie's eyes would glow red and her metal arms would clutch you in an icy embrace.

Well, such are the legends. Joining me at the Agnus plot is a trio of local filmmakers -- Joshua Bell, 24; William "Kush" Kushnerick, 48; and Toni Mangione, 22 -- who hope to get to the bottom of Aggie's tales. Last fall, their company, GTL Productions, began to film a video documentary on Baltimore's most infamous lady and the history and horror that surround her.

"When I was growing up [in Dundalk], I heard stories that Black Aggie was an evil entity you could conjure up in a mirror," Bell says. Curious to learn more, he did an Internet search for "Black Aggie" and was "blown away" to discover a Web site tracing her origins to Baltimore. She seemed perfect fodder for a video documentary. (The trio bristles at the notion that their indie "Black Aggie Project" is reminiscent of the successful Maryland-based indie film The Blair Witch Project. "We use a tripod," Mangione asserts.) They did discover, however, that a Baltimore screenwriter is currently shopping an Aggie-based horror film around Hollywood.

So far, Bell, Kushnerick, and Mangione have interviewed a half-dozen folks who visited the Pikesville monument back in the day, including a retired cop who recalls painting the Aggie's eyes red in the '50s (he put ground glass in the paint to add sparkle), and an 85-year-old historian whose nocturnal visits to the statue began in the '40s. Some came to be scared; others had more prurient motivations: One tale had it that if you sat in Aggie's lap at midnight you would loose you virginity within 24 hours. "Of course," Mangione notes, "that brought hordes of people out."

This observation leads us to another Aggie myth: that nothing would grow in her shadow. "Well, if you had thousands of college kids tromping around you," Kushnerick says, "nothing would grow in your shadow either."

But there's more to this tale than fraternity stunts and beer-drenched tomfoolery. Completed in 1907, Aggie is an unauthorized freehand copy of a statue Henry Adams (grandson of President John Quincy Adams) commissioned from Augustus St.-Gaudens in the 1880s. Completed in 1891, this original was placed on the grave of Henry Adams' wife, Marian, in Washington, D.C.'s Rock Creek Cemetery. (Marian Adams killed herself with cyanide in 1885; her husband was buried beside her in 1918.) The statue's name, "Grief," was bestowed upon it by none other than Mark Twain; according to Bell, the original "has never been molested or rumored to be haunted."

The moniker of "Grief"'s Pikesville cousin is obviously derived from Agnus, but how and when Black Aggie came to be seen as haunted is not clear; the spooky tales may date back to the '20s. In any event, in 1967 Aggie's rowdy nighttime trespassers -- who left graffiti and trash in their wake -- got to be too much. At the cemetery owner's urging, Felix Agnus' decedents gave the statue to the Smithsonian. Hesitant to display the bootleg bronze, the curators relegated Black Aggie to an outdoor storage lot.

Twelve years ago, she was rescued from obscurity by the General Services Administration, which placed the statue in the courtyard of a federal courthouse in Washington. This is where I find her, sitting in a groomed flower patch near where courthouse employees take their lunch breaks. The hooded figure is a tad ominous, but not all that scary, and the workers with whom I speak know nothing of her checkered history. Perhaps Aggie has finally been exorcised of evil. After decades of abuse, the bronze lady is finally resting in peace.

Did you have a close encounter with Black Aggie? Contact GTL Productions at (410) 284-4233 or GTLProductions@aol.com to share your tale.

The above is from http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=2484

--

For me, the most bizarre thing in the cemetery was the Charles E. Kratz Memorial Park. He claims it's to honor the World War II veterans -- specifically the 101st Airborne for some reason although he wasn't in that group -- but it mentions his own name a dozen or more times, almost always in lettering bigger than anything for the other veterans. It even has a person-sized silvery replica of the Statue of Liberty with a photo of him next to it. I guess he's doing good works but paying money to pat your own back is pretty tacky.

CHARLES KRATZ
WWII Veteran honors comrades with memorial & museum.

One afternoon, Charles Kratz gave a homeless veteran outside a Palm Beach dog track enough money for a steak dinner and told him he was in the big one. "I meant World War II", Kratz said. "But he looked at me and said, "They’re all big when you’re in them."" Kratz cited the brief encounter as a trigger for his decade-long crusade to restore dignity to the lives of veterans. The former auto parts business owner served as an Army chemical warfare technician for six years in World War II and recently dedicated the third phase of his personal veterans’ memorial park in Baltimore County’s Druid Ridge Cemetery.

Kratz, a current member of the 101st Airborne Division Association, erected a granite memorial wall, benches engraved with quotes from fellow veterans-including buddies from famous 101st Airborne Easy Co.--and a museum to showcase the war memorabilia he has collected over the years.

The park is the product of $1 million of Kratz’s own money and more than $100,000 in donations. But Kratz emphasized that his biggest goal lay ahead: He bought 90 grave plots around the museum and wants to help homeless and needy veterans by offering them the sites. Because Kratz bought in bulk, he can afford to sell the plots to veterans at half the price--saving them as much as $1,200.

By: Jamie Malarkey
Examiner Staff Writer

The above is from http://www.teeitupforthetroops.com/documents/SE_1stQ_40.pdf
Wikipedia Description: Druid Ridge Cemetery
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Druid Ridge Cemetery is located in Baltimore, Maryland, at 7900 Park Heights Avenue, Baltimore Co., MD 21208. Among its graves and monuments are several noted sculptures by Hans Schuler, as well as the grave of the opera singer Rosa Ponselle. It was also the original home to local legend Black Aggie.
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