SCRAPBOOK

a look into the past & an old box of photos

By David Roffman

June 2008

We have, after 54 years in business, begun a scrapbook collection for your perusal. Every two weeks, we will post entries and rare photographs seldom seen for your nostalgic pleasure. Little things that just come to mind; old photographs that for some reason have been put away in my special box beneath my desk...people, places, things I remember. Things like:

Kay Halle

Oak Hill Cemetery is a twenty-two acre historic cemetery and botanical garden located in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. Oak Hill began in 1848 as part of the rural cemetery movement, directly inspired by the success of Mount Auburn Cemetery, when William Wilson Corcoran (also founder of the Corcoran Gallery of Art) purchased 15 acres of land. He then organized the Cemetery Company to oversee Oak Hill; it was incorporated by act of Congress on March 3, 1849. Oak Hill's chapel was built in 1849 by noted architect James Renwick, who also designed the Smithsonian Institution's Castle on Washington Mall and St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York. His one story rectangular chapel measures 23 by 41 feet and sits on the cemetery's highest ridge. It is built of black granite, in a handsome but restrained Gothic Revival style, with exterior trim in the same red Seneca sandstone used for the Castle.

By 1851, landscape designer Captain George F. de la Roche finished laying out the winding paths and terraces descending into Rock Creek valley. When initial construction was completed in 1853, Corcoran had spent over $55,000 on the cemetery's landscaping and architecture. Over the years, many of Washington, DC’s notables have been buried here at Oak Hill, including Dean Gooderham Acheson, Secretary of State for President Harry Truman; Katharine Graham, head of The Washington Post; Joseph Henry,
1st secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; Herman Hollerith, inventor; Philip Barton Key, U.S. congressman for Maryland's 3rd District, 1807-1813; and John Howard Payne, composer of "Home Sweet Home," and W.W. Corcoran himself.

Oak Hill Cemetery used to be a popular retreat for Georgetowners. Residents would picnic on the sloping lawns. It was here Abraham Lincoln's son Tad was temporarily entombed before his body eventually went home to Illinois on a train with Abraham's body after he was assassinated.

On a recent stroll through the cemetery, we stopped by the grave of
Katherine Murphy Halle, a dear friend of ours, who passed away in 1997. Her gravestone reads “An American Girl Who Moved with Pride and Joy Through This American Century.” Sweet.

Cyd Charisse

Cyd Charisse is now principally celebrated for her on-screen pairings with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. She first appeared with Astaire in a brief routine in Ziegfeld Follies (produced in 1944 and released in 1946). Her next appearance with him was as lead female role in The Band Wagon (1953), where she danced with Astaire in the acclaimed "Dancing in the Dark" and "Girl Hunt Ballet" routines. Another early role cast her opposite Judy

Garland in the 1946 film The Harvey Girls. In 1957, she rejoined Astaire in the film version of Silk Stockings, a musical remake of 1939's Ninotchka, with Charisse taking over Greta Garbo's role. In his autobiography, Astaire paid tribute to Charisse, writing: "That Cyd! When you've danced with her you stay danced with." We like that. Cyd Charisse died earlier this month. We remember her in our Georgetown scrapbook for her 1980s visit to the C&O Canal where she was part of the then Presiden’s Walk to Stay Healthy program. Cyd chose the canal towpath as a good example of nice places to walk to stay healthy. Here is the photo we took on that cool spring day.