BRINGING OUT THE DEAD
BY MARLI GUZZETTA
Doctor Charles Winslow, born July 8, 1877 on Nantucket, went far and wide in his life on this

From left to right: Peter Greenhalgh, Susan Beaumont, Erik Ingmundson and Jeremy Slavitts channel Nantucketers from beyond the grave.

earth. He attended Harvard Medical School, then practiced medicine in Paris. He established Marine hospitals in Tahiti, on the Sandwich Islands and in Peru. He died at the age of 66 and was buried in Salt Lake City. But a little part of Winslow will always remain on Nantucket - a part that was embalmed and sent back to the island in a glass jar with a ground glass stopper.

If you want to know what part it is, you will have to attend the NHA's "Tales in the Twilight - A Cemetery Tour" this Saturday. The "show" will have several members of Nantucket's living community dressed in costume as deceased members of Nantucket's historical community to "speak from the grave" of their belated lives.

It will be "tasteful and respectful," according to the NHA's Manager of Public Relations, Publications, and Membership, Peter J. Greenhalgh. "It's not going to be graphic. It's not like these people were murdered as they slept. We're not going to look like we're risen from the grave, covered in dirt," Greenhalgh said. "But we are going to make it ... interesting."

For example, lanterns will be provided.

The event is due in large part to the work of the NHA's Web master and collections specialist, Georgen Charnes, who is also head of the NHA's cemetery inscription project. For the last few years, Charnes has been photographing the tombstones in Nantucket's cemeteries, transcribing the epitaphs into the NHA's searchable database and cross-referencing her findings with existing documentation.

The event is intended to "use voices of the past to spotlight stories and people from the history of Nantucket," Charnes said.

For Tales in the Twilight, Greenhalgh is resurrecting James H. Barrett (1845-1938), a Civil War soldier who, like many other Nantucketers, served in Company I of the 20th Massachusetts Infantry, and survived. Married to Mary E. Barry, Barrett visited Nantucket public schools on a yearly basis from 1906 until the year of his death to discuss the Civil War, according to Charnes. Barrett died of natural causes at age 93.

Actor Jim Nettles is appearing as Willie House (1914-1995), who arrived on island with his wife to work as domestic servants. He bought a little shack on the edge of town and turned it into a watering hole. He named it the Chicken Box, and over 50 years later, its current owners still do shots for Willie at the bar.

Wife of a whale ship's captain, Susan Veeder (1816-1897) kept an amazing journal, including watercolors, of her time at sea on The Nauticon - which would claim the life of her only infant daughter. Veteran of the Nantucket stage and an NHA Research Librarian, Susan Beaumont

channeling Veeder.

Jeremy Slavitts of the Nantucket Lifesaving Museum is exhuming the voice of Nelson Ewer (1859-1946), a whaler turned surfman and lifesaver who was "very long lived," according

Charnes. "The story of the lifesaving men is such an exciting one," Charnes said. "Their motto was, 'You have to go out, but you don't have to come back.'"

And NHA interpreter Doug Birch will inhabit Dr. Winslow.

The proceeds from the event will go to maintaining the upkeep of Nantucket's cemeteries. In a way, this event is already "enlivening" them - giving new meaning to the soil where old Nantucketer's earned their living and then made their final rest.

Charnes chose the figures to be memorialized in the dusk and twilight.

"I feel like these are stories that help us understand our history. And in understanding our history, we understand

ourselves," she said, and then, one could almost hear a wicked smile in her voice. "Hopefully it will be

entertaining as well." I

When: Saturday, Oct. 28, 4 p.m. Where: Newtown Cemetery,

Sparks Avenue (participants are

encouraged to dress warmly)

Cost: $5 (members), $10 (nonmembers),

$3 (17 and under)

Space is limited.

For more information or to reserve

a space, call 228-1894, ext. 0.