Episode 87: Extra Innings - More Baseball Players at Arlington

It turns out that beside Spottswood Poles, there are six other professional baseball players interred at Arlington so I figured that I would present a short vignette for each of them. The story that stood out the most to be was baseball player turned bomber pilot Elmer Gedeon who was awarded the Soldiers Medal before being killed in action in WWII.

Army Captain Elmer Gedeon is buried in Section 34, Grave 3047

Civil War Army veteran and post-Civil War Navy veteran Oscar Bielaski learned to play ball in the service and would go on to become the first Polish American professional Baseball player.

Army Private Oscar Bielaski is buried in Section 17, Grave 17991

I couldn't find a playing picture or image of Bill Stearns, but when he was 45, after he had retired from professional baseball, he volunteered as a an Army private during the Spanish American War. He was posted to Puerto Rico, came down with malaria, and died of the disease, becoming the first Major League Baseball player whose death was directly related to military service, even if it wasn't a combat-related death. Army Private William Stearns is buried in Section 13, Grave 13931.

Doc Lavan used his initial earnings as a baseball player to pay for medical school was a player and practicing doctor at the same time. He was also a Navy doctor in both World War I and World War II.

Navy Commander John Leonard "Doc" Lavan is buried in Section 3, Grave 1352-E

Spottswood Poles is not the only Harlem Hellfighter pro ball player at Arlington. Future Hall-of-Famer Jud Wilson was younger than Poles and after serving in France, was in his prime at the height of the Negro League.

Army Corporal Ernest Judson "Jud" Wilson is buried in Section 43, Grave 1114

Hal "Hoot" Rice served as a tank platoon leader in the Pacific during World War II before playing pro ball after the war.

Army Second Lieutenant Harold Housten "Hoot" Rice was cremated and his ashes placed in Columbarium Court 5, Section MM, Column 8, Niche 3. 

Episode 86: One of the Best Baseball Players You've Never Heard of, Spottswood Poles

Record keeping was haphazard in the early days of baseball - it was even less standardized for African American players in the Negro Leagues. Even so, with the statistics that are available, we can say for certain that Spottswood Poles was one of the best. With hitting like Ty Cobb and speed that rivaled Cool Papa Bell, it is likely that if Poles had played in the heyday of the Negro League, not long before Jackie Robinson shattered the color barrier, that he would be in the Hall of Fame today.

Poles baseball career was interrupted by World War I. He joined the unit that would go on to be known as the Harlem Hellfighters (see Episodes 31-32) and see some of the heaviest fighting of any American unit in the Great War. Army Sergeant Spottswood Poles was 74 when he dies in 1962 and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Section 42, Grave 2324.

 

Episode 85: The First Arlington Burial

The first person buried at Arlington wasn't a soldier or a sailor killed in the Civil War, but Mary Randolph, a socialite who decided to publish a cook book as a way to earn money when her family hit on hard times.

Originally published in 1824, The Virginia House-Wife was the first-of-its-kind cookbook published in America. It is still in print today with its most recent edition published in 2013. Intended for a regional audience, the book emphasized fresh ingredients common to Virginia and other areas of the South.

After Mary's youngest son was injured from a fall while serving in the Navy, her cousin George Washington Park Custis, the owner of Arlington Plantation, allowed him to stay at the estate during his convalescence. Mary moved to Arlington House to care for her son and her devotion took a toll on her own health. He died and Mary passed away four years after the publication of her book, not realizing that she would continue to be one of the most famous women in Virginia for the next forty years, though the civil war.

When it became clear that Mary would not regain her health, she selected one of her favorite spots on the plantation as her final resting place, about 100 feet south of the Arlington House front porch. She died on January 23, 1828. She was 65 years old. Today her grave is located in Section 2, Grave S-6. The brick wall surrounding her grave was to protect it from free roaming cattle.