Good Monday morning,

Welcome to what many consider the most wonderful month of the year. Crisp days and cool nights, radiant landscapes, pumpkins, great pictures, ghosts, gratitude, and long shadows — the color of October is sublime!

Here at the Frazier, we so appreciate the over 23,000 new members who came to us through our October 2020 free membership campaign. Next week, we’ll share how you can join our loyal longtime members who have made the Frazier a small part of their big world for many fall moons.

In this week’s Virtual Frazier Magazine, Rachel Platt and Anthony Smith from Cities United tackle the tough topic of violence in Louisville. We have a guest contribution from our friend Krista Snider at the Belle of Louisville, Lonna Versluys recaps the Frazier Classic, Hayley Harlow Rankin continues her series on parks projects in West Louisville, and Casey Harden shares an interesting but troubling tale from Meade County.

But first, there’s another benefit for Virtual Frazier Magazine subscribers. As the official starting point of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail®, we are not only partnering with the Louisville Orchestra on a Frazier member discount for its Pops: Music of Prohibition concert, we also have a Prohibition-era playlist and a great article from the Orchestra’s conductor, Bob Bernhardt.

I hope you enjoy,

Andy Treinen
President & CEO
Frazier History Museum

History All Around Us

Principal Pops Conductor Bob Bernhardt on Louisville Orchestra’s Music of Prohibition

You have the “secret” password to access the speakeasies and dark cabarets of the 1920s and ‘30s! Just plan now to join in as the Louisville Orchestra takes you on a musical journey to explore a cultural explosion with Music of Prohibition on Saturday, October 23 at the Kentucky Center.

In the U.S., Prohibition was a nationwide constitutional ban (18th Amendment), starting in 1920, on the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages. It ended in 1933 with the passage of the 21st Amendment, which is the only time a Constitutional amendment was passed for the purpose of repealing another.

From the beginning, Prohibition became less popular each year, and an entire industry was created as a way of doing an “end-around” so that folks could get their entertainment, and their drink. That industry was fueled by not only a revolution in music, fashion, and economics, but a fundamental shift in social structures that followed WWI.

Music of Prohibition is a concert experience in tribute to that “industry,” written for three singers, a rhythm section, and a symphony orchestra. We bring you a peek into a bygone time with images, both little-known and familiar, presented on a big screen. Our show will take you on a time-traveling journey to the rollicking speakeasies and dark, secret cabarets of the 1920s and ‘30s — from the centers of bootlegging and bathtub gin in America to cities in Europe desperate to throw off the darkness of “the Great War,” and back again.

The concert starts in New York with “Powerhouse” by Raymond Scott, setting up the hustle and bustle of the Big Apple. (If you recognize the piece, it’s because it was used in dozens of Warner Brothers cartoons starting in the 1940s.) The music of Irving Berlin, Vincent Youmans, and Harry Warren keeps us speakeasy-bound until some traveling music takes us to the Moulin Rouge in Paris and a tribute to the great Josephine Baker.

From Paris, we travel to Berlin for music made famous by Marlene Dietrich, Kurt Weill, and later the Andrews Sisters. The latter’s version of “Bei Mir Bist du Schön” became an immediate worldwide sensation, and a big hit in Nazi Germany in the late 1930s — until its origins in the Yiddish Theater were widely publicized, and the embarrassed Nazi Party immediately banned the song.

After Paris, we take a slow boat back to Atlantic City and enjoy the music of W.C. Handy, Jelly Roll Morton, and others, then take the train back to New York for a final set that begins with “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” and ends with “Puttin’ on the Ritz,” a rousing finale to a jazzy, bluesy, and booze-illy unique time in American history. A good time will be had by all!

For more information on Music of Prohibition, visit Louisville Orchestra online or call (502) 587-8681.

For a fifteen percent discount on tickets, visit Kentucky Performing Arts and use checkout code BOOTLEG. For a link to the musical lineup featured in Music of Prohibition, click here.

Bob Bernhardt
Principal Pops Conductor, Louisville Orchestra
Guest Contributor

Anthony Smith on Violence and the Killing of Tyree Smith

Imagine as a parent you send your child off to the bus stop, and three minutes later you get a phone call with them saying, “Mama, I got shot.”

Sixteen-year-old Tyree Smith made that phone call. He was buried this past weekend, having been shot and killed while standing at his bus stop in the Russell neighborhood.

Now, his mother and family, his school family at Eastern High School, and our entire community are mourning this tragedy.

A reward is being offered for arrests in the case as a heartbroken mother says her child did everything right, and was a good and hardworking teen, but it didn’t seem to matter.

Tyree was Louisville’s 145th homicide victim, a number that has since gone up. Inside those numbers is a devastating loss involving young people.

We are a city in crisis, along with so many other cities experiencing similar violence.

I called Anthony Smith, the Executive Director of Cities United, a national group focused on eliminating violence in American cities related to Black men and boys, to talk about Tyree, our violence, and what we do next.  It’s past the time to talk he says, we need action, and we need to re-imagine now.

If you would like to learn more about Cities United, visit citiesunited.org. You can also learn more by accessing "Reimagining Public Safety," a group published in September 2020.

I also wanted to share two links from District 4 Councilman Jecorey Arthur that have information about ways citizens can get involved to make Louisville a better place. The resources include the Office for Safe and Healthy Neighborhoods Ambassador Program and BLOCS (Building Louisville’s Out-of-School Time Coordinated System).

Rachel Platt
Director of Community Engagement

History All Around Us

The History of the Conjured Chest, c. 1830 – 1976

Artifacts tell stories and help us interpret our history. While many of these objects shine a light on life in times past, others carry dark and tragic stories. Some of those stories get told so often they become legend passed down through generations.

The Kentucky Historical Society in Frankfort has some of the most legendary artifacts, many of whose stories are heartbreaking. One of the most well-known pieces is Conjured Chest, which was donated to the Kentucky Historical Society in 1976. This chest of drawers has a tragic history starting circa 1830 in Meade County, Kentucky, located approximately fifty miles west of Louisville. According to the lore surrounding the chest, whenever someone puts their clothes in the drawers, tragedy follows.

The history of this object begins with a man named Jeremiah Graham. He and his wife were expecting their firstborn, and Jeremiah was intent on having an elaborate dresser made for the child. The chest was designed and hand-carved by a local slave named Remus. Oral tradition within the family claims Jeremiah was so displeased with the chest that he beat and killed Remus. Remus’s family and other enslaved Africans were angry with this senseless death and wanted vengeance. They put drops of owls’ blood in every drawer to place a curse on the Graham family. Unaware of the blood, Jeremiah placed the chest in the nursery.

What ensued was a series of additional tragedies — a list that grew longer as one family passed the chest down to the next, not knowing its history. The following list of sixteen incidents was taken directly from the Kentucky Historical Society:

1. Jeremiah Graham’s child, for whom the chest was made, died in infancy.

2. Jeremiah’s twin brother, Jonathan, had a son. This son’s clothes were placed in the chest, and he was stabbed by his body servant on his twenty-first birthday. Jeremiah and Jonathan’s sister-in-law, Amanda Winchell Graham, wife of Moses Graham, put the chest in the attic.

3. John Ryan, a recent immigrant from Ireland, eloped with Catherine Winchell. Amanda Winchell Graham arranged for them to live on land belonging to the Grahams and gave them the chest, which they both used. Farm life left them poor and made Catherine ill. John planned to go to New Orleans to find work and was killed in an accident.

4. Catherine Winchell Ryan died.

5. Louise Gregory, a child of Eliza Ryan and John David Gregory, died around the age of ten years old.

6. Eliza and John David Gregory’s only son, Ernest Gregory, married Stella Stonecipher. Stella put her wedding clothes in the chest. The couple wed in 1895. Stella died within two years of their wedding.

7. Mabel Louis Whitehead, a relative of the Gregory family, came to live with Eliza and John David Gregory in 1884. Mabel married Wilbur Harlan in 1897. In 1901, Mabel and Wilbur had a baby named Chester, whose clothes went into the chest. Chester died at two weeks old.

8. Wilbur Harlan’s clothes were placed in the chest. Wilbur died in 1905.

9. John David Gregory’s nephew, Emmett, was the son of John David’s sister, Lucy B. Gregory. Lucy hid knitted gloves and a scarf in the chest for her son’s Christmas gift. Emmett worked for the railroad. One evening in December 1909, Emmett got off the train and fell thirty feet through a trestle.

10. Nellie Gregory, daughter of Eliza and John David Gregory, married Fred Fraize in August 1905. Nellie had placed her wedding clothes in the chest. Fred deserted Nellie.

11. When Eliza Gregory’s husband, John David, died in 1908, Eliza rearranged her house and moved the chest into her room. Eliza soon took her own life and died on April 4, 1915.

12. The chest was then moved to Louisville with Eliza and John David Gregory’s granddaughter, Virginia Cary Hudson Cleveland, and her husband, Kirtley Cleveland. Virginia put her first child’s baby clothes in the chest. The baby was born prematurely and died the same day on August 8, 1915.

13. Virginia and Kirtley Cleveland had two daughters, the second being Ann Cary Cleveland. Ann’s clothing was placed in the chest. Ann was struck with polio around 1929. Although she recovered, Ann endured polio-related symptoms all her life.

14. Virginia and Kirtley Cleveland’s older daughter was Virginia Hudson Cleveland, whose wedding clothes had been placed in the chest. Wilbur Brister married Virginia Hudson Cleveland in 1943. In December 1944, Wilbur was rushed to a hospital for an appendectomy. He died December 9, 1944, from an overdose of ether.

15. Virginia’s and Kirtley’s neighbor, Herbert H. “Sonny” Moore Jr., put his hunting clothes in the chest. Moore was killed in a gun accident at the home of neighbors on April 5, 1946.

16. Richard, Virginia and Kirtley’s son, put his clothes in the chest. Less than a week later, he was stabbed through the hand at school.

It was after all these horrid experiences that Virginia Cary Hudson Mayne finally decided to part with the chest. She donated it to the Kentucky Historical Society, hoping to rid her family of the curse. Her fear was that if she donated the chest to another family, tragedies would befall them as well.

Casey Harden
Director of Exhibit Ideation

This Week in the Museum

West End Parks Projects, Part Two: Waterfront Park Playworks and Maple Street Greenspace

There are so many exciting projects in the works for parks across West Louisville, we had to make it into a three-part series! On September 27, October 4, and October 11, Manager of Collection Impact Hayley Harlow Rankin will share what’s happening where and how you can get involved, two parks at a time. — Simon Meiners, Communications & Research Specialist

Over the past year, Louisville Metro alongside non-profit organizations across our city have recognized the need, now more than ever, to invest time and resources into revitalizing greenspaces in West End neighborhoods, places where community residents live, play, and grow. Especially during a pandemic, when the ability to spend time outside has become increasingly important to mental health, taking care of our parks so that every citizen has access to a safe, open space is essential.

Playworks at Waterfront Park, Portland Neighborhood

In 2018, Waterfront Park launched Phase IV of its large-scale expansion that will effectively connect downtown Louisville and the area between Tenth and Fifteenth Streets in West Louisville by the extended Riverwalk. Historically, this section of land that lies beyond the main harbor and beneath Interstate 64 served as the location for our city’s first fortress, Fort-on-Shore, as well as an industrial site. But now, it will become Playworks, an interactive outdoor space for people of all ages.

Waterfront Park has partnered with the Kentucky Science Center to design a twenty-two-acre area that will engage park-goers with the history of the land in creative ways. True to its name, Playworks will transform traditional work into playful fun through three different zones: The River, The Big Dig, and The Overlook, allowing visitors to learn about the industrial history of the area while playing in themed sections of the park.

The River and Big Dig zones will connect visitors to the history of Louisville’s riverboat transport and industrial manufacturing through kid-friendly shipping equipment, pulleys, dump trucks, and more, while The Overlook takes inspiration from the highway with ramps, nets, and slides that allow individuals to access different vantage points.

This is an exciting expansion project that will connect our city on multiple levels. Playworks will not only connect West Louisville to Waterfront Park, but also connect our city’s recreational pathways and connect people to place through educational and interactive play experiences. This park aims to enhance our riverbank and serve nearby communities. Over the past two years, Waterfront Park has gathered community feedback through surveys and workshops with a focus on the Portland and Russell neighborhoods. Though the Playworks project has recently moved from the design and public engagement stages to construction planning, you can view the entire plan and support the project at playworksatourwaterfront.org.

Maple Street Greenspace, California Neighborhood

The journey to a public greenspace on Maple Street began with the Maple Street Flood Mitigation Area in 2009, when a historic flood devastated this area of West Louisville. The FEMA grant secured by Louisville MSD allowed residents to move to a safer place, removed buildings in danger of future flood damage, and restricted any land acquired through the grant for outdoor recreation and conservation.

Today, the former Louisville Metro Parks Foundation, rebranded the Parks Alliance of Louisville as of August 2021, has taken the leading effort to transform the flood area into a twenty-acre park. The Foundation’s mission is to “drive equitable investment in our public parks to elevate the wellbeing of our community.” They are park advocates, working to increase awareness, support, and education on the benefits of public greenspaces.

For years, Louisville MSD has gathered input on uses for the greenspace, which has continued to be a community-focused approach through the Parks Alliance of Louisville. Recent community feedback events will ensure this park includes what California neighborhood residents want, such as play areas for children, walking paths, and exercise stations — all activities that reflect everyday life.

The Maple Street Greenspace has been unused and undeveloped for over a decade, but the end of the road is near. The Parks Alliance has confirmed that construction could begin as early as the beginning of 2022, adding a much-awaited asset to the California community.

Read about the background of the flood and greenspace project through Louisville MSD here.

You can support the Maple Street Greenspace Project by filling out the community survey and making a donation here.

Proceeds from the annual Jack O’Lantern Spectacular, which is back in full force on the walking path this year, also directly support the work of Parks Alliance of Louisville! Get your tickets today at jackolanternlouisville.org.

Hayley Harlow Rankin
Manager of Collection Impact

Museum Store: Picture: Muhammad Ali

After watching the new Ken Burns film Muhammad Ali (2021) and reliving Ali’s story, I was consumed with thoughts of the boxer’s ties to Louisville. Picture: Muhammad Ali (2018) provides rare staff photographs of Ali from the Courier Journal — images captured over six decades, illustrating the story of the Louisville native now regarded as the Greatest of All Time. The book is now available for purchase in the Museum Store.

Video: Krista Snider on the Belle of Louisville’s Haunted Cruises

The iconic Belle of Louisville is a part of our Spirit of Kentucky and Cool Kentucky exhibitions. We recently shot a video in partnership with our river-bound friends about the history of steamboats along with a behind-the-scenes tour of the Belle. It’s part of a virtual field trip we’ll be offering soon, but we liked it so much we wanted to share it with you now! — Mick Sullivan, Curator of Guest Experience

Like many unique things in our beautiful city, the iconic Belle of Louisville is often taken for granted. What many don’t realize is that the Belle is actually the oldest boat of her type remaining in the world!

While most steamboats from the era were in operation just a few years, the Belle has continuously operated since she launched in 1914. As our Legendary Lady turns 107 years old this month, in this video, we share more about why the Belle, represented in the Cool Kentucky exhibition at the Frazier History Museum, is so special — and how she still operates today on nineteenth century technology.

If you haven’t been onboard the Belle or her sister vessel the Mary M. Miller in a while, then you may not know how much we’ve changed! We’ve added lots of new programming, live music, and special events that celebrate the history, heritage, and distinctiveness of the River City.

Coming up on Saturday, October 30, only the brave will come aboard the Belle for two eerie excursions: the Haunted Hull-o-ween Family Cruise, from 1 to 3 p.m., and the Haunted River Cruise, a 21 and over event, from 8 to 10 p.m. Passengers on both cruises will explore the vessel with their very own Ghost Guide, stopping along their journey to hear terrible tales inspired by the antique steamboat’s own history and the murky depths of the Ohio River.

For more on these events, Belle history, and all our vessels, visit belleoflouisville.org.

Krista Snider
CEO, Belle of Louisville
Guest Contributor

Monday Funday Family Day

Monday, October 11 is Conference Day for Jefferson County Public Schools, and the Frazier is the place to be! From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., we’ll be hosting crafts in the galleries, scavenger hunts, kid-friendly tours, and special story times for families. The best part: Admission is free with your free membership! You can visit our website for more details on how to sign up. As for our Family Days, all you have to do is stop by — and we’ll be so glad to see you.

Heather Gotlib
Manager of Youth and Family Programs

Frazier Classic: A Day of Contribution and Competition

On Friday, September 24, the Frazier hosted the sixth annual Owsley Brown Frazier Classic Sporting Clay Tournament. The weather was beautiful as thirty-six teams took to the Jefferson Gun Club course. After twenty-two stations, the Florence Farm team was crowned the tournament champion. Doug Kovacs from the Kentucky Monthly team was the overall leader. After a morning of friendly competition, the teams enjoyed a catered lunch of chicken and ribs, live music, and craft beer and Kentucky Bourbon. The event raised over $80,000, which will support the Frazier’s exhibits, events, and educational programs.

We thank those that spent the day with us, our incredible volunteers, Committee Chair Larry Lowe, committee members, and auction donors. The day would not have been possible without the support of our sponsors: iAmmo, Kentucky Farm Bureau, Lewis & Grant Auctions, Republic Bank, Vaughn Petitt Legal Group, PLLC, Dinsmore, Oxford Rhine, and the Stewart Family. Our in-kind sponsors were key to a successful event, so thank you David Baughman, Mark Nethery, Jerry Stamler, Ted’s Cigars, Kentucky Monthly, and the Kentucky Bourbon Trail®.