Barbara Headle likes cemeteries.<\/p>\n
Headle, senior instructor, Department of History, likes the memory-laden parcels that many avoid because they provide information that can make history relevant to students.<\/p>\n
\u201cCemeteries are mirrors of our community,\u201d Headle said recently.<\/p>\n
For the second year, as part of a service learning component for her course \u201cCemeteries, Legacies and American History,\u201d UCCS students led events at the Fountain Fairview Cemetery culminating with an Oct. 12 cemetery crawl. The events raised almost $1,400 to help repair damage caused by vandals.<\/p>\n
But this was no zombie, Halloween-style scare-the-daylights out of you fundraiser. Instead, Headle\u2019s students combined multiple skills and used the cemetery as both a backdrop and a primary information source. A dowsing event in Sept. and an Oct. 7 Murder and Mayhem event featuring a coroner\u2019s inquest preceded last Saturday\u2019s windy afternoon crawl where students braved dropping temperatures and noisy I-25 traffic to complete a class assignment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was no term paper,\u201d Headle said. \u201cThey lived history.\u201d<\/p>\n
Using a theme of Fountain\u2019s earliest settlers, students researched lives using a variety of sources ranging from cemetery and other public records to accounts found at the Fountain Public Library, the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum and the Fountain Historical Society. From there, the students created a historically accurate character, completed a costume, and re-enacted that character for more than six hours.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe student becomes the person who is buried and tells the story of his or her life,\u201d Headle said.<\/p>\n
The characters ranged from a town marshal killed in the line of duty, to a prospector from Rhode Island who moved West in a quest for gold and became a successful rancher. The lives of women were told as well, including Maria Hurtado, one of two sisters kidnapped by the notorious Felipe Espinosa in the 1860s. She was later released and lived to be 96.<\/p>\n
For the Murder and Mayhem event, recent alumna Mary Trotter played the role of Anna Pettingill whose suspicious death prompted a graveside coroner\u2019s inquest.<\/p>\n
\u201cBack then, the jury \u2013 which included the husband\u2019s mistress and some of his best friends \u2013 ruled her death a suicide,\u201d Headle said. \u201cWhen we reenacted the case, the jury of visitors held up their hands and said it was a murder.\u201d<\/p>\n
Headle said her students took the assignments seriously, creating authentic costumes and patiently repeating their stories for those who toured the cemetery after paying an admission fee. The monies will be used to restore headstones damaged by vandals in the summer of 2012. A security camera is also on the cemetery\u2019s wish list.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey all earned A\u2019s for the assignment,\u201d Headle said. \u201cThey were all outstanding.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former students no longer seeking grades returned to help with the project. Headle heaped praise on them and on Ian Smith, program assistant, Department of History. Smith assisted in the story of the murdered town marshal, playing the part of past Fountain mayor William Riddoch.<\/p>\n
\u201cKim Sweetwood (a UCCS undergraduate and now chair of the Friends of Fountain Fairview Cemetery), was keeper of all my mental notes and head of the \u2018don\u2019t panic anyone\u2019 committee,\u201d Headle said. \u201cWithout her help in all of this, I would probably be a resident of Fairview myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
See a video of the cemetery crawl completed by Nina Frischmann, lecturer, Department of History below<\/p>\n