Relearning nature in North Philly

In the early 1990s, the Fair Hill Burial Ground at Indiana and Germantown Avenues was the perfect environmental statement about urban America of the time.

Forgotten by City Hall, it was ringed by drug dealers hawking wares like "Holocaust," syringes littered the sidewalks, and derelicts camped under the 12-foot tall weed trees that had grown over the headstones marking the graves of some of the nineteenth century's most prominent progressives.  Lucretia Mott, the mother of American feminism, Robert Purvis, the black founder of Philadelphia's underground railroad, Anna Jeannes, for whom Jeannes Hospital is named, and many others who had devoted their lives to social justice lay under the dangerous mess above.

After nearly 20 years of chopping, clearing, weeding, picking up debris and replacing countless broken locks on the gates to the surrounding fence, the 4.5-acre lot is now clean and green enough to invite children in to play.

This video by Jean Warrington nearly made me cry.  It's a simple thing--a great teacher with students from the neighborhood school who don't get much exposure to grass, trees and fresh air.  It's simple, but it represents years of work by dedicated volunteers from the neighborhood, Quaker meetings, fellow travelers and dozens of funders who, through some very grim times, believed things could change.

I think the people buried there would be pleased.

Signe Wilkinson,
Fair Hill volunteer since 1991