Friends of Maple Grove

44th Anniversary Edition Alive with memory and culture

Friends of Maple Grove Cemetery foster community

by Michael Gannon

Senior News Editor

Where in Queens can one find musical concerts and exhibits featuring borough artists — and talk to local residents who date back to the 19th century?

You may not have guessed Maple Grove Cemetery in Kew Gardens.

The Friends of Maple Grove Cemetery, founded in 2005, uses the grounds, the stories of those interred and the Victorian-style Center at Maple Grove to bring culture and history to life.

“Part of the mission of Friends of Maple Grove is to bring the community together, and to bring the community in to enjoy cultural events, whether it’s music, the arts, workshops or to honor the history of these who are buried here,” said Helen Day, vice president of the Friends. “And we feel we are very successful.”

She says the artists and musicians often are the best source of contact for other artists and performers who can visit in the future.

Friends President Carl Ballenas is a retired history teacher. He said the 65-acre cemetery was founded n 1875.

“We have 117,000 stories here,” he said. “Over the years I came to understand that we have become a historical society. The people, the volunteers are all lovers of history. We are at the heart of Queens. What Green-Wood Cemetery is to Brooklyn, I want Maple Grove to become for Queens. And I think we have done it, even though we are on a small scale. We have become an important cultural center for the people of Queens.”

The cemetery is the final resting place for veterans of the War of 1812 and victims of the 9/11 attacks. There are Civil War veterans, former slaves and one victim of the Son of Sam serial killer from the 1970s.

Ballenas began visiting the cemetery because he lived nearby and found it to be a peaceful, restful setting. Then one day he saw the name Theodore Archer on a headstone, and wondered if he had to do with Archer Avenue in Jamaica.

“Sure enough, later in life when I was doing some research at the cemetery, I saw they were connected.” The street also intersects with Sutphin Boulevard.

“And John Sutphin is buried about 10 feet from Theodore Archer,” Ballenas said.

Day first got connected with the group because of her friendship with Ballanas from their time with the Richmond Hill Historical Society. Ballenas became friends with Linda Mayo Perez, former head of the cemetery, as he became interested in using Maple Grove as a tool to teach his students at Immaculate Conception Catholic Academy in Jamaica.

Wanting to build on his students’ reports on historic figures obtained “by hitting the print button” in the early days of the internet, Ballenas soon had them memorizing one minute speeches about their lives.

Ballenas said Perez was receptive to his proposal that they could do the same for the public in presentations recreating the lives of historic Queens figures in Maple Grove.

“She said, ‘Let’s learn the stories of the people here. We buried them and we take care of them.’”

That led to a costume night for parents, which led directly to “Spirits Alive,” a regular presentation during which volunteers dress as historic figures in the cemetery. Many in the beginning were Ballenas’ students — they dressed in period costumes.

Day said one of her favorites to portray is Mary Dennler.

“She was the wife of a Civil War surgeon who served at a hospital in Washington, DC,” Day said. “Both came from upstate New York, and when the Civil War was declared he signed up with the Union Army. Back then the wives went with the husbands, especially in a prestigious position like that.”

Dennler served as her husband’s nurse and assistant, and often would walk the hospital wards at night checking on wounded soldiers.

President Abraham Lincoln also would visit with the men.

Dennler and her husband eventually moved to Long Island City. She headed many clubs and associations and gave many talks, with her stories chronicled in local newspapers.

“This is how we know her stories,” Day said. “They were supposed to be at Ford’s Theater the night Lincoln was shot. But they gave up their tickets because they had visitors and wanted to spend time with them.”

She died in 1935.

Ballenas said the Friends make, rent and buy costumes that the reeneactors wear.

One very popular community activity that returned on Halloween Weekend was “Trunk or Treat,” a safe, family-friendly event that also functioned as a collection for the River Fund food pantry in Richmond Hill.

Another historic figure buried at Maple Grove, Ballenas said, is Millie Tunnell, who was born a slave on a plantation near that of George Washington, whom she saw on occasion.

“She died at age 111, and every year after her 100th birthday reporters would visit to find out about her. That’s how we know her story.”

But Tunnell did not have a headstone until recently. “One-hundred twenty-five years after her death, we placed a bronze and granite stone on her grave.”

He said Maple Grove is as diverse a cemetery as can exist.

“We are nonsecterian, with all faiths and all religions,” Ballenas said. “Walk around and you’ll find a cross and a Star of David. We have Guyanese tombstones, Chinese tombstones. It’s so fascinating.”

And his own curiosity still allows Ballenas, the history teacher, to learn.

While he had walked the cemetery countless times, he recently came across the headstone at the grave of one Susan Monroe Stowe.

Ballenas wondered if the grave from the early 1900s might have to do with Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Sure enough, it was the famed author’s daughter-in-law, who lived in the Kew Gardens-Forest Hills area in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Her husband, who also originally had a burial plot there, remarried and moved out west.

“What I love about this place is that you can be walking along and see a name on a grave and something just touches you, and you say, ‘I want to find out who this person is.’” Q

The lives of famous, noteworthy and important residents of Queens are re-enacted when volunteers with the Friends of Maple Grove Cemetery don period dress in the frequent Spirits Alive presentations. PHOTOS BY CARL BALLENAS