Jonathan Boldt and I caught up yesterday for a smoak and to reflect on the first week of the Charles Peterson memorial GoFundMe. The campaign had raised 8% as of last night, but Jonathan is optimistic and believes these are early days.
We contacted Sandra Bondarevska, whom you know from earlier posts as the author of Petersons in Ireland, and who was the first to attempt this memorial several years ago. We wanted her to be involved with this not only as the author of the definitive biography but as representative of the Latvian-Irish diaspora and Latvia in general. She has asked that we incorporate the Auseklitis, the emblem of Latvian national unity and their heritage:
Jonathan will talk with Mr. Berlin, who is making the monument for the project, about the additional cost, but honestly, when you look at the spreadsheet, it won’t add very much to the project. I will, incidentally, clean up the initial post this coming week to make everything clear when visitors are referred to what we’re trying to accomplish.
We also went over the questions and comments received both on the blog and by email:
- I don’t understand why the body and the monument can’t be together.
- What does it mean that the “grave has been re-issued in 1955 and 2013”?
- I was trying to wrap my mind around “cenotaph” and failed to understand. Does this mean there will be a headstone with no body?
- What is the “nearly lost record” that was recovered?
Jonathan: There has been some misunderstanding on the project’s core objective. I’ll try and explain the situation regarding burials here in Germany and where we are at this point.
As opposed to the United States, where grave plots are bought and owned by the families of the deceased, in Germany grave plots are given out by the cemetery in the form of a lease for 25-year periods [a common practice in many countries, as it turns out].
Charles Peterson was buried in 1919. In 1944 when the original 25 year lease ended, the hostilities of WWII prevented cemetery officials from contacting Charles Peterson’s children Conrad and Isolde. His cousin Konrad had returned to Latvia, which was then under Soviet domination, so that Konrad wouldn’t have been able to help either.
Conrad Peterson, RAMC
Mark: Conrad (b. 1904) served with the Royal Army Medical Corps in North Africa. I’ve learned through Sandra Bondarevska that after his discharge, he lived in Great Britain, and married a nurse he met in hospital for his PTSD, from which he never really recovered. Isolde—or “Soldie” as her family and friends called her (b. 1911), was in Éire. Neither would have been able to receive correspondence from Ohlsdorf Cemetery.
Jonathan: The Ohlsdorf Cemetery Park archives unfortunately have no records between 1919 and 1955, when the plot was leased to another family. In 2013, it was leased to a third family. It was by good fortune or grace or whatever you want to call it that I was able to find the “nearly lost record” I mentioned last time–and which you can view for yourself in last Sunday’s post–which gives definitive proof that in the plot I photographed Charles Peterson is resting.
Out of respect for these families, we would not seek an exhumation even if one were possible, and de facto it is not: the cemetery administration has confirmed to me that the grave cannot be opened. Charles Peterson will therefore remain where he was buried in 1919.
What does this mean for us?
Baltimore Battle Monument
It means the cemetery administration has approved what’s called a cenotaph. Cenotaphs, such as the Battle Monument in Baltimore, MD or the Cenotaph on Whitehall in London, are memorials placed as sites of remembrance despite the lack of the bodily remains of the honoured deceased. Our alternative isn’t a different memorial – it’s no memorial. Unlike other cenotaphs—the Vietnam War Memorial, for example—we not only know Charles Peterson is resting in Ohlsdorf but we will have accomplished exactly what this project set out to achieve: a place to remember Charles Peterson and his legacy.
Vietnam Memorial
Mark: I had family that lived in Washington, D.C. for a number of years, and every time we went I tried to visit the cenotaph we call the Vietnam Memorial because two of my cousins and two older friends served in that conflict. Despite the fact that no one is buried there, each time I walked into that gash, I found it quite moving.
Now I’m certainly not comparing men who died in war with a pipe maker who lived over a hundred years ago. I just want everyone who enjoys Peterson pipes and those who wish to honor the memory of Charles Peterson to think about the fact that it would be fitting to have a memorial for him in the cemetery where he’s buried.
If you go to the GoFundMe site, you’ll find several avenues to signal boost the campaign. As far as I know, no one from Pipe Smokers of Ireland has made a Facebook post on the memorial. Likewise with the Pipes Magazine Peterson forum and a few other social media outlets. I want to thank The Nebraska Pete Geek for all his efforts, and to you as well, if I haven’t heard from you.
If we want this to happen, think about being the change you want to see in the world.
A GEORGE KAPP MEERSCHAUM
Not long ago a truly beautiful meerschaum came up on eBay that my friend and colleague Ken Sigel acquired. In the vast scheme of Peterson estate pipes it didn’t go for much, in part because no one knows who George Kapp is and why he’s so crucial to Peterson pipes.
The 1884 Business Directory of London gives this
address for George’s shop, which helps us to date the meerschaum between 1884 and 1887.
George and his brother Frederick emigrated to London’s Soho district, probably in 1865 as that was the date George put an advertisement in the Clerkenwell News for a shop boy, and in 1866 their business first appeared in the London trade directories.
At that time you’ll recall that pipe smokers all smoked clays unless they were fortunate enough to acquire a meerschaum. Briar pipe making was in its infancy and wouldn’t make much of a mark until the mid 1870s.
Now here’s where it gets really important for us: George died in the late 1870s. He was married to an English girl named Sarah, who like George knew the young Charles Peterson, who had come to work in Dublin for Frederick, George’s brother, in 1875. A romance ensued between Sarah and Charles—a real one, by all accounts—and they wed on June 17, 1887. She brought to Dublin the money left to her by George and she invested it in Charles’s first patent. So when his friends and co-workers referred to him as “Captain Peterson,” they were joking about the fact that the Peterson System pipe was a joint venture between he and his wife Sarah.
One more thing: what you’re looking at isn’t a tobacco pipe, but a tube, that is, it was made to smoke cigars with. The cigar was inserted in the removable chamber, which fit into the rest of device with a cork gasket.
One last thing. Look at the tarnished engraved sterling and the extraordinary intricacy of the carving here. Frederick, George’s brother, was equally adept as you recall from pipes you’ve seen by him here on the blog and in the Peterson book. Now imagine the young Charles Peterson coming in for an interview. Now you understand the kind of artisan we’re talking about and why he deserves a memorial.