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For all of us there comes a day which is the end of the line, but how that happens can change with the times. It would be unusual for a person in Ypsilanti today to die in a boiler explosion or to be run over by a train, but such events were common in the nineteenth century. Nobody in either time period would likely be crucified or fall on their sword as might have happened in the first century Roman Empire; everything has its time and its place.
In this episode we’ll have a conversation with historian and circulation clerk emeritus Jerome Drummond about the culture and institutions related to death and dying in 19th Century Ypsilanti.
Jerome Drummond
Jerome Drummond is a clerk emeritus, recently retired from the Michigan Avenue library, and a member of the Ypsilanti Historical Society and the Genealogical Society of Washtenaw County. He majored in history in college, earning his bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan – Flint, has taught introductory genealogy classes at the library, and is writing a biography of Charles Rich Pattison.
Images
Illustration by Jerome Drummond, created for this episode.
Image of the Grim Reaper from the public domain.