History comes to life in Lynbrook

Judy Pepper (Her entire family froze to death on the Mexico) and Walt Whitman (Wrote about the wreck of the Mexico), presented by Veronica Krendel and John Van Ingen.

Susan Grieco/Herald

Sgt. David Driscoll, Civil War hero from Pearsalls, was presented by Kent Howell.

Susan Grieco/Herald

Photos by Susan Grieco/Herald Edward Felix, a sailor abandoned on the Mexico due to his race, was presented by Derek Jennings.

Susan Grieco/Herald

Capt. Winslow, the cowardly captain of the doomed ship Mexico and Catharine Galligan, a desperate passenger on the Mexico, was presented by Arthur Mattson and Louse Campbell.

Susan Grieco/Herald

• 
• 
• 
• 

“Lynbrook? Ha! Where’s the brook?” was the opening remark of Wright Pearsall, who rose from his grave after 103 years, to the absolute delight of the spectators at the Historical Society of East Rockaway and Lynbrook’s presentation of Tales Tombstones Tell. The event was held on Sunday, Oct. 23 in the Rockville Cemetery on Merrick Road — which was known as the Old Sandhole as early as 1791.

Thanks to a group of talented performers, many of whom are historical society members, Tales Tombstones Tell brought to life a variety of local historical figures, such as Lynbrook’s Belle Fleming, whose father chased her boyfriend with a shotgun in the 1895. Captain Charles Winslow tried in vain to explain to the audience why he ignored “women and children first” in an 1837 shipwreck off the coast of the South Shore; and Irene Davison, an East Rockaway suffragette and benefactor, described her work in the early 1900’s in trying to obtain the right to vote for women.

said one of the event coordinators, Pat Sympson. “Everyone did a wonderful job and we are very grateful.”

Audience members remarked on how much they learned during the ancestral occasion and on the large amount of community history contained in the local cemetery. As each left, they excitedly asked about who would be “brought back to life” next year, to which Pat Sympson smiled and replied, “Only time … and tombstones will tell.”