Oakwood cemetery tour shines light on history

HERMITAGE – Oakwood Cemetery contains a lot of stories waiting to be told. Members of the Sharon Historical Society are doing their part, stone by stone.

“We have to thank Mrs. Buhl for keeping Frank here,” Taylor Galaska said, while standing at the steps of the Buhl Chapel.

Galaska, the society’s president, led a group of 30 Saturday morning through the expansive Hermitage cemetery. The tour was one of three the organization held Saturday.

Buhl Chapel, with its Tiffany-stained glass windows and gothic style, was the first stop. It sits just beyond the main entrance of the cemetery, which served as the final resting place for famed industrialist Frank H. and Julia Forker Buhl.

The Buhl name remains in many places and events — Buhl Park, Buhl Day, and the former Buhl Club — throughout the Shenango Valley. Sharon Regional Medical Center was initially named after Buhl’s father, Christian H. Buhl.

But many don’t know Buhl almost didn’t settle in Sharon, Galaska said.

He and Forker naturally got along because his family dealt with iron and steel; hers was in mining.

“It was like peanut butter and jelly: you needed both,” Galaska said.

While they were courting, Buhl asked Forker to marry him multiple times. She finally said “yes” when he agreed to stay in Sharon.

Next was the Whitla family plot. The family was related to the Buhls, who had no children and treated their nephew, Billy Whitla, like a son.

In 1909, 8-year-old Billy was kidnapped from the former East Ward School in Sharon by a man named “Jonesy,” who fabricated a family emergency to persuade the boy to get into his carriage.

The man was James Boyle, who along with his wife, Helen, ended up in Cleveland with Billy, who was released after his father, James Whitla, paid $10,000 in ransom money, Galaska said. Buhl helped with the search for the boy.

The Boyles sent the boy into the streets of Cleveland; Billy was recognized by a shopkeeper who had seen his photo in a newspaper.

James and Helen Boyle were soon apprehended and sent to jail and Billy was greeted by thousands when he returned to Sharon.

“This was like the first ‘American crime,’” Galaska said of the attention it drew.

Valorie Dunch spoke of one of the cemetery’s most famous residents: Lena Miller, known to many as the “gypsy queen.”

She and her family, who were from Belarus, were part of a circus that appeared in Youngstown and Sharon, working as fortune tellers.

While in Sharon, 100 years ago in May, Miller died of pneumonia at the age of 31.

Word spread quickly throughout Romani communities across the United States. Roughly 5,000 people showed up for her funeral, which cost $360 and was handled by what is now Sample-O’Donnell Funeral Home, Dunch said.

Her casket, jewelry, and burial clothing were elaborate; visitors had to pay a fee to view her body.

“Everybody wanted to see the gypsy queen,” she said.

Miller’s gravesite was guarded for months after her death. Now that the story has been making the rounds for about 20 years, people have left coins, necklaces, and other items at her headstone to pay their respects.

Ann U’Halie explained how a number of people were buried at Oakwood, after their bodies were moved from the West Hill graveyard and other places. Oakwood Cemetery was built in 1866, so any headstones dated before that year were moved.

She said a lot of the stones that pre-date Oakwood are flat and hard to read.

Doug Abbatiello talked about the 15 family mausoleums in Oakwood, while he stood in front of the Yeager-Neff mausoleum, which holds three generations of family members.

Charles Henry Yeager founded the C.H. Yeager and Company Store, which once housed the Reyers outlet, 69 E. State St., Sharon.

Christine and Terry Bowman talked about the 2,006 veterans, including three Revolutionary War veterans, who are buried at Oakwood. They were seated next to a burial plot for the Vanaerschot family, which features a life-size statue of Army Sgt. John Victor Vanaerschot.

Vanaerschot and his family grew up on Fruit Avenue in Farrell. He was killed at the age of 28 during the Battle of the Argonne Forest, in 1918 in France. His brother Jules died seven weeks later from the flu.

Christine Mondok presented information about the Fahnline family, which lived on Euclid Avenue in Sharon. John Fahnline Sr. was distraught when his wife, Jennie, died from a heart attack at age 50 in 1909.

He proposed a fountain on East State Street at Oakland Avenue to honor her memory, but plans fell through.

But she did achieve a measure of immortality — the Jennie Walls Fahnline variety of the canna flower was planted at the Washington Monument. John Fahnline Jr. also commissioned an 8-foot portrait of her, Mondok said.

The family owned one of the first ham radio sets, and John Fahnline Jr. went on to help start the WPIC radio station, which included a partnership with the Heiges brothers and The Herald.

Fahnline Jr. is credited with likely saving the seed money for WPIC. People laughed when he decided to sell all of his steel stock in 1929, just before the market crashed.

“No one was laughing then,” Mondok said.

John Zavinski, vice president of the historical society, talked about his research into the life of Peter Lanterman Kimberly, who has a large monument at Oakwood, though he’s buried in another part of the cemetery.

Kimberly’s money went to many good causes and he worked with Buhl on a few projects, said Zavinski, although he’s kind of been forgotten as a community leader and benefactor.

“I’ve never seen a bad word written about either gentleman,” said Zavinski, an editor at The Herald.

Some of Kimberly’s wealth came from iron ore, copper and gold, and he never married. He had a girlfriend, divorcée Elizabeth V. Asay, who inherited a large part of his estate when he died in 1905 of a stroke at the age of 59.

She was a colorful character who joined the circus at 16, spent time living in China, lied about her age, and led the charge on Kimberly’s massive monument.

“I think it’s worth people knowing who he was and what he did,” Zavinski said.

The Sharon Historical Society will hold history walks through the upper east side of Sharon at noon, 2 and 4 p.m. Sept. 18 during WaterFire Sharon.