A lively cemetery walk in Sharon

SHARON — The dead returned gloriously to life on Friday afternoon,  rising up from their graves at Hillside Cemetery and telling tales about the town’s past.

Actually, it was Sharon residents and members of the town’s Historical Society, all of them playing key figures from Sharon’s history during the seventh annual cemetery walk held on Friday afternoon.

Society member and volunteer tour guide Beth Rybczyk said the event is a way to help residents connect with the town’s history.

“The tour gives people a chance to see the folks who developed the community,� Rybczyk said. “Dead people may be buried, but history is not.�

Mark Sweeney played the gatekeeper to the cemetery for the event, giving visitors a history of the cemetery, which dates back to 1739.

“Local history, in fact all history, is important,� Sweeney said. “This year we’re showcasing different people who are not really as famous as the people we showcased at previous walks.�

Residents from the past who “came back from the dead� included Dr. William Worthington Herrick, played by Fred Baumgarten (Herrick was a doctor and president of the New York Academy of Medicine); Reed Gillette, played by Marc Minahan (Gillette operated a pharmacy in town), and Cora Clum, played by Sarah Paley Coon.

“Anyone here see that TV show,  ‘House?’â€� Baumgarten, in character as Dr. Herrick said to visitors to his gravesite. “I could have shown that whippersnapper a thing or two!â€�

Coon is one of Clum’s 56 great-grandchildren; she played her great-grandmother, dressed in turn-of-the-century clothes, and talked about her family.

“In the 1950s, our grandchildren saved up some money to buy me and [husband] Ed a color television set,� Coon said, in character. “Imagine that? A color TV! So much has changed in my lifetime.�

Historical Society Director Liz Shapiro said the annual event, “gives residents a sense of pride about their town.�

It’s also an excellent introduction to the Halloween season (trick-or-treaters get a special thrill at the Historical Society on the Green, which Shapiro and a cadre of ghoulish helpers turn into a haunted historical house).

And, one hopes, it might also serve as a reminder to youngsters in town to be careful of the cemetery’s ancient stones if they run through it on Oct. 31.

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