History
In 1892, Wooldridge lost the last of his sisters, leaving him with no immediate family; he was a lifelong bachelor. This prompted him to buy a lot at Maplewood Cemetery.
The monuments were gaining attention even in Wooldridge's lifetime, as represented in the November 7, 1897 issue of Republic. Stories told of the monuments include the Minnie statue actually representing a childhood sweetheart whose early death due to horse riding prompted Wooldridge's bachelorhood (family records say it was of a niece) and that Wooldridge was such a miser that money was buried with him in his tomb.
Read more about this topic: Wooldridge Monuments
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There is nothing truer than myth: history, in its attempt to “realize” myth, distorts it, stops halfway; when history claims to have “succeeded” this is nothing but humbug and mystification. Everything we dream is “realizable.” Reality does not have to be: it is simply what it is.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)