My Town Monday | Jennette Marie Powell

by Jennette, July 9, 2012

On Memorial Day weekend, my daughter wanted to do something “museum-ish,” so we went to one I hadn’t visited yet, but had been wanting to: the Paul Lawrence Dunbar House.

The Paul Laurence Dunbar House
Photo via nps.gov

I knew about this turn-of-the-20th-century author through my interest in local history, and also because he’s featured in the Aviation Heritage National Park, which I’ve visited a few times. It might seem odd that a writer would be featured as part of that site, until one learns who some of his first publishers were: Orville and Wilbur Wright, in their pre-flight days as printers of his newspaper, The Dayton Tattler.

The paper folded after just a few issues, but that didn’t deter Dunbar. The challenges he faced – and overcame – make him an inspiration for any writer.

Like many writers, he wasn’t exactly flush with cash.
He got paid for some of his early efforts, but not enough to live on, so he had to work a day job.
He self-published his first book, a collection of poetry titled Oak and Ivy.
Back then, there was no print-on-demand, and self-publishing was an expensive proposition, requiring a large print run with a comparable outlay of cash.

But the challenge that really set Dunbar apart was the fact that he was black. The son of former slaves, Dunbar had to contend with racial prejudice. Despite the fact that he had a high school diploma in an era where the majority of men did not, his color relegated him to menial jobs. His first job after graduating from high school was as an elevator operator.

English: Paul Laurence Dunbar (June 27, 1872 –...

Paul Laurence Dunbar, circa 1890. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But even then, Dunbar made the best of his situation. He hand-sold Oak and Ivy, including many copies to his elevator passengers. The need for authors to self-promote is nothing new, and Dunbar was skilled in this area: he recouped his investment in two weeks. Part of his work’s popularity came from its two distinct styles: some of his poems were written in standard English, while others were written in colloquial black dialect.

Today, self-publishing success is one way to attract an agent or editor’s attention, and this too is nothing new. Fellow writers James Whitcomb Riley and William Dean Howells noticed Dunbar’s work and helped publicize it. As is common today, networking with other writers was a crucial part of Dunbar’s success. He also frequently gave public readings to garner interest in his work.

In 1897, Dunbar finally got a job befitting a man of his talents: librarian at the Library of Congress. He sold several works to publishers, and eventually made enough money from his writing to build a nice house in Dayton for his mother, who he’d always been close to. This is the home that later became the museum, not long after his mother’s death in the 1930s.

He continued to enjoy success in his writing, and soon left the LOC to focus on that. Eventually, he amassed a body of work consisting of a dozen poetry anthologies, five novels, four short story anthologies, a play, and dozens of song lyrics. His dialect works came under critical fire for perpetuating the comical, happy-go-lucky stereotype of black Americans, while others praised them as a celebration of his racial heritage.

Dunbar died at the age of 33 from tuberculosis, which he’d fought for over five years. This was exacerbated by alcoholism, ironically caused by doctors prescribing whiskey for his TB symptoms. In light of his short career, Dunbar’s accomplishments are even more inspiring.

Were you familiar with Paul Lawrence Dunbar before? Does your home town have a literary icon?

by Jennette, June 18, 2012

It happened in March, 1913. The perfect confluence of weather combined over the upper Miami Valley in west-central Ohio, and dumped massive amounts of rain on the area for several days. This was on ground already saturated from melting snows, and on Tuesday, March 25, it proved too much for the levees in Dayton. The river breached the first levee around 7 AM, and within a few hours, water 12+ feet deep covered the city. Downriver, the cities of West Carrollton, Miamisburg, Franklin, Middletown, Hamilton, and Cincinnati weren’t spared, but due to the joining of five rivers on the north side of Dayton, plus the Great Miami’s S-curve there, Dayton was the worst-hit. In terms of property damage and lives lost (anywhere from just over one hundred to four-hundred something – records were sketchy), the 1913 flood remains the worst natural disaster in Ohio’s history.

Here’s an excerpt from Time’s Enemy that shows what it might have been like that day, almost 100 years ago:

An inhuman shriek jolted Tony awake. His gaze darted across sloped rafters, to the end of a long room where dim light filtered through a dusty, mud-spattered window. Church bells rang amidst the roar of hard rain, and whistles were going off everywhere, but they weren’t what woke him. He clutched the quilt. Where was he?

He sat up. Then the scream came again. Outside. It started as a loud groan, then escalated to a grating, high-pitched howl that cut to his soul.

It went on and on then faded as whatever it was passed. Tony threw off his blanket and scooted to the nearby window.

A torrent of muddy water coursed through the alley below, coming halfway up the doorway of the warehouse across the street. He’d never seen so much water where it wasn’t supposed to be. “Holy Noah’s Ark!”

He stood, then regretted it when his head smacked into a rafter. With a curse, he rubbed the sore spot as his memories of the previous day fell into place. The Saturn Society. Taylor Gressman. The wanted posters and Theodore Pippin. Goodwin’s Smoke Shop in 1913.

What had he warped into? He twisted around to search the rafters, as if answers hid in their dim recesses. The only reply was the beating rain. Then it hit him. March, 1913. He’d escaped the Saturn Society only to wind up in the middle of the worst natural disaster in Ohio’s history.

The horrible shrieks started again. He crouched and peered out the window. In the raging waters, a horse struggled to swim, its reins caught on the crossbar of a streetlamp. The yellowish-brown waters came to within a couple feet of the light globes. The horse raised its head, its lips drawn back over its teeth, and let out another ear-piercing cry. Tony cringed. A wooden crate bumped the helpless animal, knocking it free, then the current carried the crate and the horse away.

The view out the other window was much the same. A barrel floated by. Small, dark shapes clung to it. Rats.

Photo used on the cover of Time’s Enemy. Courtesy of Dayton Metro Library.

Tony leaned against the window, the glass cold against his hand and forehead, and stared in morbid fascination at the water below. The rain churned its rushing surface between pieces of broken furniture, crates and unidentifiable flotsam. Bumps and clunks came from below, probably furnishings, floating around in the shop’s lower level. He moved to the window, his fingers unable to decide whether to form fists or clutch at the window jambs. His breath formed a foggy circle on the glass. Another loud crash, then a few seconds later, a piano floated by, followed by a mass of splintered lumber that had once been a building.

The water swirled and eddied around the debris, lodging it between a telephone pole and the Smoke Shop. In the pile of wood beneath his window, a broken sign read ry’s Market. They wouldn’t be doing business any time soon.

Something moved in the wreckage. A small arm sheathed in a clinging, ruffled sleeve emerged from the water, and little fingers clutched at one of the larger pieces of wood. Slipped.

Grasped again, lost purchase.

A little girl. “Oh my God.” His voice echoed in the empty reaches of the rafters. The child groped again, failed to latch on, started to slide.

He grabbed the window sash’s blackened han-dle and pulled. Stuck tight. With a grunt he leaned upward and pulled harder. “Come on, open, dammit!” The sash didn’t move.

He could barely hear a thin, plaintive wail over the rushing water. He grabbed the sash handle, yanked upward, and this time the window obeyed.

The girl’s cry reached him again. Helplessness pinned his feet to the floor. Fear he wouldn’t reach her in time mocked him. He’d have to climb out on-to that haphazard pile of wood. One misstep could plunge him into the icy, raging current. But if he didn’t go out there, that little girl would die.

He yanked off his suit jacket. Cold as he was, it would only get in the way. “Hang on!” He climbed over the sash. She tried to grab hold of a broken timber. Missed. Then slipped into the water.

“No!” Despair stung him. The same way it had the night Bethany hadn’t come home, and a state trooper rang their doorbell. Tony had known his daughter was dead before the man said a word. “Hang on!” This little girl had a chance.

Want to read more? Time’s Enemy (e-book) is on sale for only $.99 as part of the Booklovers’ Buffet through June 22, along with over 150 other books, novellas, and short stories. You can buy Time’s Enemy at Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Smashwords and many other online retailers.

What do you think? I’d love to hear from you! I will be away from my computer today and won’t be able to respond to comments, but please know that I appreciate every comment, every re-tweet, and every Facebook Share. I’ll reply and visit your blog, if you have one, when I can! Thanks for reading!

by Jennette, May 28, 2012

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Yesterday, my daughter and I had a mom-and-daughter afternoon and visited a local historical site neither of us had yet visited: the Paul Lawrence Dunbar State Memorial. Dunbar was a celebrated writer who was born in Dayton in 1872 (died in 1906) and is a significant literary figured not only for his work’s own sake, but because he was an African-American who wrote both in black dialect and in standard English.

Dunbar’s parents were both former slaves, and his father enlisted to serve the Union in the Civil War. Dunbar was always proud of his father’s military service, and his first poem was published when he was only sixteen! It’s particularly relevant today as we remember those who served and sacrificed their lives.

“Our Martyred Soldiers”
by Paul Laurence Dunbar (public domain)
Dayton National Cemetery at the Veterans Affairs grounds
In homes all green, but cold in death,
Robbed of the blessed boon of breath—
Resting in peace from field and fray,
Our martyred soldiers sleeping lay.
Beneath the dew, the rain, the snow,
They heed no more the bloody foe,
Their sleep is calm, to them alone
‘Tis giv’n to lie without a moan.
The sun may shine in all his might—
They know no day, they know no night,
But wait a still more lasting ray,
The coming of eternal day.
No longer marches break their rest,
Or passioned hate thrills through the breast,
They lie all clothed in calm repose,
All safe from shots of lurking foes.
The grave’s a sacred place where none
Of earth may touch the sleeping one;
Where silence reigns, enthroned, sedate,
An angel guarding heaven’s gate.
The wind may blow, the hail may fall,
But at the tomb is silence all;
Man finds no nobler place to pray,
Then o’er a martyr’s lifeless clay.
Sleep on, ye soldiers, men of God,
A nation’s tears bedew the sod;
‘Tis but a short, short time till ye
Shall through the shining portals flee.
And when this memory lost shall be,
We turn, oh Father, God, to thee!
Oh find in heaven some nobler thing
Then martyrs of which men can sing.

I’ll share some photos and more interesting facts we learned about Dunbar in future posts.

What are you doing this Memorial Day? Or, if you’re not in the U.S., does your country have a similar day of remembrance? Do you have a friend or family who served that you’d like to tell us about? Please feel free to do so in the comments!

by Jennette, May 7, 2012

Before Area 51, there was Hangar 18.

Yes, there was a small airfield in the Groom Lake vicinity that was used during WWII as a test and training facility, but Area 51 as a super-secret research and development facility didn’t really exist until the 1950s.

The Roswell incident, in which according to legend, an alien spacecraft crashed, happened on July 8, 1947. (It was later pretty much accepted that what really crashed to earth was cold-war intel equipment or a weather balloon, but go with me here…) Also according to legend, U.S. military personnel recovered the wrecked spacecraft and several alien bodies from the site, which was closed to the public for a good while after the crash.

The National Museum of the USAF. Part of Area B is in the background.

The military shipped the bodies and wreckage were shipped to the then-Army Air Corps’ Foreign Technology Division, located at Wright Field, a few miles east of Dayton, Ohio, which would later become Area B of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Supposedly, the spacecraft was stored in Hangar 18. The bodies were placed into cryogenic storage, for later research.

Of course, few who work on base today admit to believing any of this. But it’s fun to think about, and a few years ago, The History Channel did a wonderful documentary on the legends and the conspiracy theories that abound. The show was pretty convincing, and the book they based much of their material on (Exempt from Disclosure by Robert M. Collins) was even more so.

Interestingly enough, (but not surprisingly) there is no Hangar 18 at WPAFB, nor has there ever been, at least that I could find. There is a Building 18 complex, which houses the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Propulsions Directorate – folks who would be most interested in the alien spacecraft, had there been one.

I don’t really believe there were alien bodies and spacecraft bought to WPAFB, and chances are, what really crashed to earth near Roswell was indeed some kind of surveillance equipment – highly classified, so of course the military personnel would not have been able to confirm or deny its existence, or any details about it.

But the legends made me think: what if it was real? What if alien bodies were shipped back here? And what if they weren’t dead, but alive, in a suspended state? And what if one were to awaken, decades later? That’s the premise behind my upcoming science fiction romance, Hangar 18: Legacy. What’s even cooler is that, according to Exempt from Disclosure, the aliens did indeed have significant psychic abilities, which was one of the key elements of my novel even before I’d researched it.

Want to know more? Check out Exempt from Disclosure, or watch this 20-minute video from the The Internet Archive. And for an entertaining take on the legends, give Hangar 18: Legacy a read when it comes out this summer. To be notified of its release, sign up for my newsletter, with the form on the right (visit www.jenpowell.com, if you’re reading this in a feed reader). Here’s the scoop:

U.S. Air Force research psychologist Adam Keller is an empath, accustomed to sensing the thoughts and emotions of others. Because of his gift, he keeps people at a distance. When a disembodied presence full of anger and fear invades his mind and demands rescue, dark thoughts of death threaten to overwhelm Adam. Then he meets a woman whose attraction to him quiets the voice. All he has to do to keep his sanity is risk his heart and experience the emotions he’s long denied himself.

Lisa Stark wants nothing more than to finish the subliminal messaging software she’s worked on for over a year. When someone wants it badly enough to kill for it, Adam senses Lisa’s in danger and comes to her rescue. Lisa fights her feelings for the sexy officer with an uncanny ability to guess what she’s thinking, but their attraction to each other grows, and not only because Lisa’s the only one who can warm Adam’s chilled body and soul. When he discovers the source of his mental invasion is an extraterrestrial thought dead for decades, Adam realizes that Lisa’s software is the key to releasing the being – if he can gain her trust and keep her alive long enough to finish it.

I’d love to hear from you! Do you think there might be some truth to the stories of alien beings and spacecraft recovered from Roswell? Do you think there might still be information that the U.S. government is hiding? Please comment, and let me know what you think!

by Jennette, April 16, 2012

It’s here at last!

It’s been a long time coming. I’d originally planned to release this in December, but that obviously didn’t happen. My revisions took longer than I thought. My readers took a while to read, and my editor took a while to edit – but it’s all good. I’d much rather release late, than release less than the absolutely best book I can. Time’s Fugitive is a long, complex story clocking in at 143,000 words, a length typically found primarily in historical fiction or epic fantasy. It’s definitely historical, and my first readers assure me that it is indeed epic. Here’s what else they had to say. I’ll take their word for it, or better yet, yours!

Here’s what it’s all about:

A past shrouded in mystery

Violet Sinclair remembers nothing of her life before the day she awoke several years earlier, drenched in blood that wasn’t hers. But since she met Tony Solomon, she’s been certain of one thing – sometime in her hidden past, she knew him… loved him… and did something terrible to him.

A present fraught with danger

Time-traveler Tony Solomon is sure he never met Violet before they were coworkers, yet she bears an uncanny resemblance to the woman he loved and lost decades before he was born. After an impulse encounter leaves Violet pregnant with his child, she becomes the target of killers from the future.

A future feared in jeopardy

Framed for murder, Tony will do anything to protect Violet and their child, even if their only escape is to jump into the past, something he swore he’d never do again. But when they jump back much further than planned, they find their troubles are only beginning—and secrets can get them killed.

Time’s Fugitive is out and available in ebook at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords. Other retailers and print version coming soon.

What do you think? Would you willingly travel back to prehistoric America? What if it was the only way to save your child? I’d love to hear from you!

by Jennette, April 9, 2012

That’s mostly what’s going on around here today. I spent last week doing a final proofread of Time’s Fugitive before uploading it to Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble, and now I’m making those last edits. It’s important to me that I produce absolutely the best product I can for my readers! So, I have not had a chance to write today’s post.

Scroll down to see what my first readers had to say about Time’s Fugitive. I’d also like to give a shout-out to Prudence MacLeod, who read and reviewed Time’s Enemy last week. Here’s what she had to say:

5 Stars – Awesome

Last weekend I read Time’s Enemy by Jennette Marie Powell. I really recommend you read this book. It is a great tale of time travel and the consequences of messing with the past. Jennette is a fine writer with a master’s touch at keeping up the tension. (You have to remember to breathe)

Time’s Enemy is Jennette’s first novel, or so I believe. This bodes well for the future for she will surely get better and, I for one, can’t wait for more adventures of Charlotte and Tony. Great work Jennette!

Thanks, Prudence! The wait won’t be long now!

by Jennette, April 2, 2012

I’ve been considering a new direction for Mondays on the blog, which will probably include making My Town a once- or twice-a-month feature, rather than every week. But an announcement I read last week was just too cool to pass up: this summer, the U.S. Air Force will see its first female four-star general – and she’s from the Dayton area!

General Janet C. Wolfenbarger

She’ll also serve here, at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where she’s already spent over half of her 32 years of service. Now a Lieutenant General, Janet C. Wolfenbarger works in acquisitions at the Pentagon, a suitable step before taking the lead at Air Force Materiel Command, which is headquartered at Wright-Patt. AFMC oversees acquisition and logistics, in addition to research and development, and support and sustainment programs for aircraft and weapons systems.

General Wolfenbarger has a long history with the Air Force. Not only has she spent over half her life in service, she was a military kid, with a father in the Air Force. Her husband also served many years as a pilot before retiring in 2006.

Born Janet Libby in Florida, her family moved several times before her dad was assigned to Wright-Patt just in time for her to spend her high school years at Beavercreek High School. While there, she and several classmates started a girls’ soccer team, which eventually evolved into the current, official school team and was the start of her decades of leadership. In 2004, she was inducted into the Beavercreek High School Alumni Hall of Fame.

General Wolfenbarger's past service at WPAFB included managing the B-2 program

When she graduated from Beavercreek in 1976, the Air Force Academy was just beginning to accept women, and Janet Libby graduated in the academy’s first class that included women. She then went on to earn several masters degrees, including one in aeronautics and astronautics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2009, she received her third star, and became the highest-ranking woman in the Air Force.

General Wolfenbarger’s story is certainly inspirational. She’s proof that with determination, confidence, and simply doing one’s best in a job, one can go far. She hopes more young women will consider the Air Force as a career, one she calls “extraordinarily rewarding and challenging.” And with her new assignment, she’s glad to return to Dayton, and said, “I feel as though I am coming home.”

Congratulations to General Wolfenbarger, and best wishes for continued success in her new assignment!

You can read more about General Wolfenbarger in the Dayton Daily News, as well as on the official U.S. Air Force website.

I’d love to hear from you! Have you heard or read any inspiring girls-rule stories lately? What do you think of General Wolfenbarger’s story?

by Jennette, March 26, 2012

This past Saturday evening, 28 of us gathered to take a tasty trip back in time. Not like the people in my books, but figuratively: we were the participants and guests at Carillon Historical Park‘s Tavern Dinner that night.

Our hosts – three ladies and two men – already looked the part in their historical clothing, as they outlined our destination, and why they’d chosen that particular year: 1830. You see, the Miami and Erie Canal had been completed through Dayton the prior year, bringing with it much greater accessibility to supplies from the east, including goodies like sugar and flour. This allowed them to offer much greater variety in the food that could be prepared for a historically-accurate, end-of-winter feast.

The canal also drastically reduced the cost of such goods. A shipment that would have cost $125 to bring to Dayton via horse-drawn wagon or stagecoach, cost only $25 to bring out on the canal. Bring on the food, right?

Most of our meal was cooked here! Cabbage soup and sausage stew are in the kettles. Our hostess checks the oven.

Not quite! After the introduction, we all got a little hands-on experience in preparing some of the evening’s meal. Our group went first to the summer kitchen, where our hosts had been busy since that morning, putting on the cabbage soup appetizer, the main dish stew, and getting the ingredients ready for dessert. They’d baked bread in the stone oven a few days earlier, just as would have been done in 1830. But what’s bread without butter? That still needed to be done, so we all tried our hand at churning. Not a hard job at all, but one that would get tedious if it had to be done all at once, by one person, for it takes about a half hour of steady work. While we churned, our hostess answered questions about the food preparations, and explained how the fire had been going all day, and the soup and stew put on around 2 pm that afternoon. Ever think it takes too long to preheat the oven? This one takes a couple hours! But we’d have cookies by the time dinner was done.

Implements for tea and coffee preparation

Our next stop was the William Morris house, an authentic, preserved historical home which, like the summer kitchen, had been trucked to the park from Centerville, about 10 miles away. There, our hostess described how coffee and tea was shipped in, and the latter roasted and ground. The coffee mill was difficult to crank – luckily, enough had been already ground that we weren’t dependent on what we could do!

After that, we stopped outside the tavern to learn about the musket that might have been used to kill the night’s meal, had we actually been in 1830. Since the group before us jammed the musket, we got to see how the term “flash in the pan” originated, when the musket didn’t create enough force to fire the bullet, but the gunpowder burnt prematurely.

Finally, we headed inside Newcom’s Tavern, Dayton’s oldest building, for dinner.

It's Historically Delicious!

As dusk descended, it certainly felt like a trip back in time to eat in the old, log building by candle light. And the food was wonderful! We started out with bread that was baked in the summer kitchen with the butter we’d churned, and cabbage soup, which was much tastier than it sounds, thanks to its beef broth base and herb seasonings.

The main dish was the sausage stew, which was a mild, savory sausage in a tomato paste base, served with locally-grown rice. The sides were a thick bean-and-corn dish, and apples and onions, which were baked in a crockery pot and dutch oven piled under ash in the summer kitchen’s fireplace. Apples and onions sounds like a strange combination, but it was really good. We also had roasted diced potatoes, with onions, carrots, and turnips.

Candlelight dinner in the tavern

After dinner, we were in for yet another treat. A trio of illusionists who said they’d just ridden in on the stagecoach from Cincinnati performed a few magic tricks and card tricks for us and got more than a few laughs. We capped off the evening with dessert – stewed pears, with the sugar cookies that had just been baked in the summer kitchen. All in all, a fantastic meal!

Have you ever eaten a historic dinner, prepared by historically-accurate means? What do you think of the menu – does it sound like something you’d like to try? Have you ever churned butter or fired a musket?

by Jennette, March 19, 2012

Around here, there are two things you can count on in March: basketball fanaticism, and crazy weather.

We’ve had record-busting temperatures here since last Wednesday, where we’ve broken into the upper 70’s each day. Previous records have been 71-73 degrees. Then there have been years where the temperature never stayed above freezing for the whole day. 1997 and 2004 were cold in mid-March, with lows in the teens and twenties.

Average temperatures in the Dayton area in mid-March hover around a high in the upper 40s, and lows in the upper 20s. In the space of a week, we can go from snowstorms to sunbathing weather. Planning ahead? LOL. At any time, any kind of weather can happen!

So why on earth would anyone plan a wedding in March? I can answer that question because eighteen years ago today, I married my own romance hero. 😀

March: a great day for a white wedding!

We got engaged the prior May, on the day between our birthdays (mine is May 15th, his is the 17th). But we already knew it was happening before that, and I actually had bought my wedding dress about a month earlier. I don’t normally recommend this route, but this particular dress was the perfect dress, and it was half-off in a closeout sale – no trivial savings! And it was long-sleeve. So a summer wedding was out. Sure, we could have gone downtown and gotten married any time (this would have been fine with my husband), but after being a bridesmaid seven times, I wanted the big t0-do like my friends had – which means planning in advance. And if you’re going for one of the more popular months, reception halls, churches, and service providers often book more than a year out. Besides, I never like being part of the crowd, and had no interest in the quintessential June wedding that might conflict with someone else’s, or where our guests were likely to already have wedding fatigue.

January was out – plan something like that around here, and you’re asking for a blizzard. February’s iffy too. So March it was. We chose the 19th because the reception hall we wanted and the church both had the day available. We knew we were taking a risk – anything from snowstorm to sunbathing weather! But the luck o’ the Irish held an extra two days for us: we got the latter. And thank goodness for that, because we were able to get the maximum enjoyment from our very special wedding “limo” – a 1970 Pontiac Bonneville convertible, that my husband and his best man had spent the past year restoring for our special day. And yes, we still have it!

Want the rest of the story? Go download How I Met My Husband: The Real-life Love Stories of 25 Romance Authors and check out my entry, “Looking for Mr. Goodwrench.” It’s free on Smashwords, and will soon be available on other outlets. I designed the cover. 🙂

How’s March been treating you? I’d love to hear from you! Got any March news or history to share? Has the weather in your area been unseasonably warm this March? Or are you holed up watching basketball and haven’t noticed? 🙂

by Jennette, March 12, 2012

According to the sign, the first burial was in 1803

Yesterday saw some beautiful weather here in the Dayton area – sunny, slight breeze, about 70 degrees. A perfect day for a little motorcycle ride.

I rode off to a place hidden away in the suburbs, nestled away behind strip malls, office buildings, and neighborhoods of 1960’s ranch homes. Beavertown Cemetery is a little piece of history. Although it’s less than a quarter mile away from busy Woodman Drive, visiting there is like stepping into another world.

The cemetery was built around a little farming town in what’s now the suburb of Kettering. According to the sign, the first burial at the cemetery took place in 1803. It’s currently owned and managed by the city’s Parks Department.

Shopping centers and busy streets are just out of view

Information regarding the town and cemetery is sketchy. According to one source on daytonhistorybooks.com, the town had around 50 homes in the mid-nineteenth century. There is some more information on the Geocaching site, where it looks like someone hid a cache in 2008. According to this source, the cemetery’s two acres were donated by John Ewry, one of Beavertown’s early inhabitants.

There are two main sections of the cemetery. The one closest to the entrance is newer, and most of the grave markers date from the 1940s through the 1960s. The back section, inside the gravel drive loop, is where most of the older markers are. Many are unreadable.

The section beyond the gravel loop doesn’t appear to be part of the cemetery on Google Maps, and doesn’t contain marked graves. There’s a rumor noted on the Geocaching page that poor, black residents were buried there in the early days, but these are unsubstantiated. If there are any rumors of hauntings at Beavertown, I couldn’t find them.

What was a surprise to me is that every now and then, someone new is buried at Beavertown. I suspect these grave plots have been in families for years.

Even so, it’s a fascinating place to pick up little bits of history. One can see how much shorter the lifespans were 150 years ago, and how much bigger families were – because many didn’t survive until adulthood. Through death, we get a little glimpse of what life was like back then.

What do you think? Have you visited any historic cemeteries in your area? Do you like to wander through, and get a little snapshot of life in the past?