Photograph by Chris Naffziger
The Busch mausoleum
Bellefontaine Cemetery has just rolled out a new self-guided tour route through its rolling hills, and now that the weather has gotten warm, it’s the perfect place to learn some St. Louis history and still practice social distancing. Visitors may know there’s a white line that snakes around the roads through the cemetery, and at notable graves there are numbers marking burials and interments. The white line down the middle of the roads through the grounds has taken a new route in places, revealing interesting new women and men—as well as some prime specimens of trees—while keeping some visitor favorites like Adolphus Busch’s mausoleum along the way.
Dan Fuller, volunteer and event coordinator at Bellefontaine Cemetery, explained that the new route and people featured on the white line are a response to visitor feedback. He encouraged visitors to take a map from the box at the front gate off West Florissant Avenue before beginning the tour. Parking and walking are also allowed, but the cemetery asks that visitors park off the road with the white line. Dogs on leashes and bicycles are also allowed. Below are some of the highlights of the new white line tour.
Susan Rassieur Buder
Photograph by William Swekosky, Missouri History Museum
Former Susan Buder Jewelry Store, 2004-6 Broadway, c. 1940-1959
The last name of Susan Rassieur Buder may sound familiar to St. Louisans; there is a park, school, community center, and library named after her. A German immigrant, Buder owned a jewelry company with her husband, William. She continued to run the business and raise five sons on her own in his absence. She revolutionized the jewelry business in St. Louis and became very wealthy, focusing on charitable works while living at 2025 Park Avenue. In fact, her philanthropy was so famous she became known as “The Little Mother of the South Side.” After her death, her four surviving sons stated, while donating the land for the park that would bear her name: “Mother’s great love for her children and her charity towards indigent large families suggested to us a memorial [park] rather than a mere tombstone in her memory.”
Ida Woolfolk
Raised in the Ville neighborhood and a lifelong member of the Kennerly Temple Church of God in Christ, Ida Woolfolk was a legend in African-American education when she passed away in 2016. Graduating first from the famed Sumner High School in the Ville, she then crossed the street to Stowe Teachers College when it was still located in the heart of the African-American middle-class neighborhood on the North Side of St. Louis. For decades, she was the “grand dame” of education in St. Louis, and leaders turned to her for advice when facing the challenges of managing schools throughout the region.
Ann Clark Thruston Farrar
Photograph by Chris Naffziger
Ann Farrar's grave
Related to many of the most famous people to have lived and passed through St. Louis, Ann Farrar has an interesting life story as well. She was the niece of William Clark, of Lewis and Clark fame; the sister of John O’Fallon; and the wife of Dr. Bernard G. Farrar, who died during the cholera epidemic of 1849 (all three men are also on the white line tour). But she also owned quite a bit of land as well; Hyde Park in North St. Louis off Salisbury Street was on land she sold to the city in March 1854 with the passage of Ordinance 3150. Farrar’s monument is one of the more unique in the cemetery; eight Tuscan order columns hold up a pediment inscribed with her name.
William and Francis Roberson
Perhaps their last name was actually Robinson; the real answer is lost to history, but one thing is known for sure: the story of brothers William and Francis was interesting enough to be included in Cyprian Clamorgan’s 1858 The Colored Aristocracy of St. Louis, a gossipy but invaluable source of information about African-Americans in the pre–Civil War Gateway City. They worked for a time as barbers in Barnum’s Hotel, just a block from both the Old Cathedral and Adam Lemp’s Western Brewery (Harriett and Dred Scott worked at the hotel at one point, too). The 1878 Globe-Democrat obituary for “Professor” William Roberson reveals that he had introduced Turkish Baths to the western United States, sadly dying at the age of 42 while operating his barbershop at the Lindell Hotel. The baths he built were valued by the newspaper at $15,000 at the height of his success. The pastor at his funeral stated: “He was a man of native energy and stamina, a man of business and … a man who owed none of his success in life to favorable circumstance.”
Trees worth checking out
Many people might not realize that Bellefontaine Cemetery is a Level II Accredited Arboretum, with over 4,000 trees representing over 100 species (there are two other Level II arboretums in St. Louis: Tower Grove Park and the Jewel Box). Perhaps one of the most historically interesting trees is the American Elm tree, which survived Dutch Elm disease. The Shingle Oak is the State Champion at 109 feet tall with a canopy 96 feet wide.
