Día de Muertos at Dartmouth

Today, as many people celebrate the Day of the Dead in Mexico and elsewhere (including an altar in Berry Main Street), we want to take a moment to honor two brothers from the town of Gomez Palacio, Mexico. Alfonso Estrada, Jr. (right), and his younger brother Cesar (left) were both members of the class of 1951 who came to Dartmouth to major in business before attending Tuck and Thayer, respectively. After graduating with their masters' degrees in 1952, the two men returned to their home country and became successful while working in the hotel, public works, and soap-making industries. According to our records, these brothers are two of the earliest Dartmouth students from our neighbor to the south. We are grateful for their time here on campus and we are glad that their stories are a party of our story, if only for a relatively brief period of their lives.

To learn more about the Estrada brothers, come to Rauner and ask to see their alumni files.

Tales from the Old Burying Ground

We are very excited to announce the launch of a second podcast series related to items that can be found in our collections; items that will lead you straight to ... the Dartmouth College Cemetery.

Rauner’s Ilana Grallert has been giving tours of the cemetery for several years and has become the resident expert on all matters cemetery. This year, she and Colleen Goodhue of DCAL have produced a podcast entitled Tales from the Old Burying Ground--Stories inspired by the Dartmouth College Cemetery. Each episode is conceived, written and narrated by a Dartmouth College student.  There are stories about blackmail, emancipated slaves, fraternities and murder. Part of the 250th celebration, the eight-part podcast will launch, fittingly, on Halloween with new stories being released weekly.

Over the years we have highlighted several aspects of the cemetery including the story of William Worthington Dewey and the journal he kept of the deaths in “the vicinity of Dartmouth College,” as well as Arthur H. Chivers, Class of 1902 and professor of botany at Dartmouth College who painstakingly reconstructed the entire layout of the cemetery.

Other blogs about the cemetery include the story of the Risley family, stonecutters who created many of the descriptions on the 18th century and early 19th century stones and “Trembling for the Relics of Their Dead,” the story of a group of Dartmouth College Medical School students who were caught graverobbing.