WARREN HARDING - Marion, Ohio
29th President
1st in my collection |
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This crazy hobby started during a fall "color tour" in
northern Ohio, and totally unexpectedly . We lived in suburban
Detroit at the time and I had been making weekly site visits to a
client in Mansfield, Ohio. The only way to get from Detroit to
Mansfield was to drive, three hours down Wednesday and three hours
back on Friday. It was fall, actually Halloween
week, and years before we had Jesse. Lyn agreed to accompany me and
turn my business trip into a very low key week-end
getaway. She got to have a businessman's lunch with me. She got
to visit Mansfield's floral gardens and the Johnny Appleseed
monument. We got to drive around, visit some cities we had been to
previously, and generally enjoy viewing the fall colors.
 We
were passing by Marion, Ohio (the home of the Ohio State
Penitentiary) when we passed a HUGE freeway sign informing us:
"Warren G Harding's Tomb, Next Exit". How can you resist
such an offer? With the sunlight fading, we pulled off and followed
the several directional signs for around a mile to the front corner
of a cemetery. There, we were greeted with a HUGE circular marble
structure, ringed in fifty foot high marble columns and open to the
air. It was immense! It was bizarre! I got out the camera and took
Lyn's picture in front of it. We walked up the stairs and located
inside the open air courtyard were marble tombs marked as being
President and Mrs Harding. A small floral arrangement was maintained
by the local VFW, and several historical markers decorated the
wrought iron fencing. Several small and tasteful signs described the
political career of President Harding and the circumstances of his
death (natural causes, during his term). Unknown at the time, burial
places of presidents that die during their term regularly outclass in
size and grandeur those that live out a retirement period. We were
directed to visit Harding's childhood home and museum, but it was
already closed for the day. Instead we just enjoyed the crisp smell
of the fall air, ringed in beautiful autumnal trees, then climbed in
the car and headed for home.
You can guess the rest of the story. After we arrived home and
developed the pictures, I could not stop pondering the thought that
if Warren G Harding (a president of very modest accomplishment) had a
HUGE marble eternal resting place, what would a GOOD president (say,
Lincoln or Washington) have? Where were they all buried? Were any
cremated or buried at sea? Could you find and visit each tomb? Would
they all be spectacular? Besides JFK's eternal flame at Arlington and
"Grant's tomb" in NYC, I had absolutely no idea about the
whereabouts and circumstances of any presidential remains. So within
a week of these thoughts and with very little research effort, my
Information Please Almanac and my Goode's World Atlas provided me all
the information I would need to complete my collection (of one). I
simply logged the data, then transported it into colored push-pins on
a Rand McNally USA road map which I mounted on a small cork board and
hung on the wall over my worktable in the basement. My hobby had
officially started and would be finished in eight short years.
The pushpins revealed that all presidents were indeed buried and
accessible to visit and that they were scattered around the eastern
US with several concentrations. The Washington DC area contained 4
(Washington, Taft, Wilson, JFK). 2 each were buried in central
Virginia (Jefferson & Madison - 5 miles apart), Richmond (Monroe
& Tyler - same cemetery), Boston (John and Quincy Adams - same
vault) and the Nashville area (Jackson & Polk). The rest were
spread all over, with 5 in New York state, 5 in Ohio, and 1 each in
New Hampshire, Vermont, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Indiana,
Tennessee, Illinois. The recent Presidents (Truman, Eisenhower, LBJ)
were outliers in Missouri, Kansas and Texas but the others might lend
themselves to a series of circle tour trips over the coming years and decades.
I had simply fallen in love with the notion of seeing the USA by car,
and simultaneously decided to try to attend a baseball game in each
of the major league stadiums. Years later I would open that challenge
to minor league teams, too. But while 40 presidents would take me
eight years of pilgrimage, the 200+ ball teams (that only play
between April and September, and are only home for half their games)
have proved to be a much greater challenge. But I also put up
pushpins in my cork board for the major league, and top level minor
league baseball teams, too. I had succumbed to a chronic case of wanderlust.
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