{"id":34483,"date":"2025-05-18T10:35:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-18T15:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=34483"},"modified":"2025-05-18T10:35:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-18T15:35:09","slug":"a-new-neighbor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=34483","title":{"rendered":"A New Neighbor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A new neighbor moved in recently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A bunny! A tiny little bunny!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope bunny hangs around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

In 2019, a few days before my vision went permanently wonky, I took a tour of the National Cathedral<\/a>. Not the usual tour. I took the “Behind the Scenes” tour, which was a lot of fun, very informative and interesting, and, at points, absosmurfly terrifying. (We crossed a narrow walkway just before the Rose Window, and then we went out on the roof. Worth the terror.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the tour, the guide (Andy) talked about Rowan LeCompte, a boy from Baltimore who read about the Cathedral while it was still under early stages of construction and decided he wanted to design the stained glass windows, a dream that he ultimately fulfilled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For reasons too long and too convoluted to explain, I discovered a few months ago that LeCompte is not only buried in Baltimore, but he’s buried one section over from my great-grandparents in Loudon Park Cemetery. And I decided that, when next I went to visit the cemetery, I would look for LeCompte.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I planned on going next week, for Memorial Day, and still do, but I was in Baltimore yesterday for other reasons and decided I could just “bop” over to the cemetery. (The last time I was there was last<\/i> Memorial Day, when I also visited the small Catholic cemetery where Baltimore baseball fixture Jack Dunn<\/a> is buried.) I did somewhat regret the impromptu decision; traffic was absolute shite<\/i> on the Beltway due to construction and the Orioles game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My great-great-grandmother’s site looked better than it has in a long time. It’s been recently mowed (there was a lawn crew working on that side of the cemetery yesterday), the grass looks good and healthy, no signs of recent flooding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
My great-great-grandmother, Susan Gardnar (second down)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On the newer side of the cemetery, I parked near my great-grandparents, made sure everything was okay there, and then went and explored the next section over, looking for LeCompte.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had no luck. Since this was a spur of the moment trip, I did no prep\u2014I knew that he was there, and I’d figure the rest out as I went\u2014and didn’t know what I was looking for. Finally, after I’d covered the whole section, I went under a nearby tree, pulled up Find a Grave, and looked to see if there were any pictures of the site. There were, and I saw instantly why I hadn’t found LeCompte; I was looking for something larger, not just a small, ground level stone. Fortunately, the photos on the site also showed the general area, including a tree and very prominent cross. The tree has since been removed, but the cross stone is still there. I’d walked past it at least twice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then I found Rowan LeCompte, designer of the stained glass at the National Cathedral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Stone
Rowan LeCompte, designer of the National Cathedral’s stained glass<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While one cannot see my great-grandparents’ site from LeCompte’s\u2014there’s a headstone blocking my great-grandparents’ in the line of sight\u2014the Joh statue on the opposite side of the “street” from my great-grandparents is easy to make out. So, the general area is visible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking from LeCompte toward my great-grandparents<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Like I said, I’ll be back next week to do my usual Memorial Day stuff, like visiting my grandparents and leaving flags.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new neighbor moved in recently. A bunny! A tiny little bunny! I hope bunny hangs around. In 2019, a few days before my vision went permanently wonky, I took a tour of the National Cathedral. Not the usual tour. I took the “Behind the Scenes” tour, which was a lot of fun, very informativeContinue reading “A New Neighbor”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[4581,4811,5239,5240],"class_list":["post-34483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-loudon-park-cemetery","tag-national-cathedral","tag-rowan-lecompte","tag-stained-glass","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34483\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}