Riverside Cemetery in Montgomery was a busy place Wednesday night.
The Montgomery Historical Society held its seventh annual Cemetery Walk that night, an event that provided a look at the village’s history with the help of many volunteers who portrayed some of the interesting people buried at the graveyard.
The first stop on the tour was a visit to the grave of Josiah Hagar, a shoemaker who lived and worked in a small house known today as Settler’s Cottage. The home serves as the museum for the historical society and is on the front lawn of Village Hall.
Chet Albright, a historical society member, portrayed Hagar, discussing his life and times in Montgomery.
Next, visitors went to the grave of Eloise Mosley. Alice Seidelmann portrayed her aunt and recalled the old days of the village and Mosley’s life in it.
Mosley met her only love at the age of 15 in the village, where her mother had a house near the railroad. Seidelmann said her aunt was always dressed in the best fashions of the day, as her mother was a dressmaker. She met Richard Mosley, who worked at a factory but died while serving in World War II.
Seidelmann said her aunt lived the remainder of her life talking of the day she would be reunited with her “true love.” On the day of her death, the woman told her nurse she “was so excited,” got up out of bed, had breakfast, did her hair and brushed her teeth before her nurse left her room, Seidelmann said. When the nurse returned, Mosley was dead.
Mosley was born in 1911 but died in 2011, just a few weeks after celebrating her 100th birthday.
John Aman portrayed Robert Johnston, who was born in the area in January 1856. He grew up with tales from his father who had gone west in the big gold rush.
Aman said Johnston remembered that in “the spring of 1865, every house in the Fox Valley was celebrating Robert E. Lee’s surrender and the end of the Civil War. The whole countryside was a blaze of light from the courthouse in Yorkville to the small cabin homes. The cannons were fired, bonfires lit, people shouted in the streets and drums were rolling.”
The final stop was to visit the resting place of Thomasine Healy, who left her home of Denmark at the age of 15.
“A lot of young people were leaving for America,” said Jeanne Lee, who portrayed the woman.
Healy worked in the Montgomery area as a domestic helper in many homes and married John Healy when she was 27. The two had numerous children but had a passion for farming and grew and sold their crops in the village.
Village Clerk Debbie Buchanan said more than 300 people attended the Cemetery Walk this year.
Judy Pochel is a freelance writer for The Beacon-News
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