Today I visited Walt Whitman’s Tomb and house with my dad. We went to the tomb first and I was amazed how strudy the little mausoleum was! And because of the bricks in the ground and tree limbs (not very wheelchair friendly) I couldn’t get close to the tomb to peek in, but my dad told me that the names of Walt’s family members were still visible on their tombs after all these years, so I thought that was pretty cool! Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of the inside of the tomb because my dad couldn’t figure out how my cell phone camera worked. Even when I set it up and said press this button, he still press the wrong one haha. But I took pictures of what I could get to myself and will post them below. I also really liked the tree beside the tomb with all the cravings. I didn’t go with you guys on Saturday, so I missed the tour. Does anyone know if the cravings on the tree are oyher authors, or fans of Whitman or something?? I couldn’t find a plaque or anything about the tree at the site. The tree reminded me of a tree we saw when I went to Ireland with Rutgers. We visited Lady Gregory’s house, who was a patron of Irish poets and a friend of Yeats, Joyce and George Bernard Shaw (and other poets and writr/artists) and on her property she had what she called an autograph tree where all the authors who had come to visit her throughout her life craved their intials or whatever they wanted as their autograph. It was pretty cool to see, so I figured maybe the tree by Walt’s tomb was a similar thing. If anyone knows, let me know. I’m just curious. I felt very peaceful visiting Whitman’s tomb. It felt like something we should do since we have been studying him all semester. And it seemed fitting that his tomb across from a little pond that’s in the cemetary. Reminds us of Timber Creek. Also, I don’t know if some of you left them when you visited on Saturday, but there were flowers by his grave marker that seemed pretty fresh. Some were colored daisies. And I thought how nice they looked there and how Walt would have liked them. I was definitely glad that I went to see his tomb. Welearned that it cost 4,000 dollars then to build that would probably be 50k today, i don’t know. It’s just interresting to think about. I also felt a little proud to have visited Whitman’s grave. I guess it’s because we’ve been studying him, but he very easily could have returned home to New York to be buried and instead he chose Camden.
As for the house, I couldn’t get in because of their being steps and me haing my wheelchair of course (plus my chair wouldn’t have even fit through the door! it was so narrow!), so I basically just saw the outside of the house and couldn’t get a good picture of it from the car, but I did see it and get a feel for it. I kept thinking how narrow the staircase must have been inside. Enjoy the pictures and let me know if I missed anything interesting on the tour!
Okay apparently I cant post my pictures to the blog because I took them with my cell phone and emailed them to myself. But when I saved them to my desktop to upload them it says there is an error posting them. So, if you want to see my pics, I’ll have my cell with me on thursday in class. If anyone knows why I couldn’t upload them let me know.