Romantic Wheeling Project: Greenwood Cemetery

Obituaries

Greenwood Cemetery, 151,

Of Wheeling, West Virginia,

Has yet to pass away.

Greenwood was born in March, 1866,

to the prominent citizens of Wheeling.

37.5 acres,

Lined with monuments of human sentimentality

and inhabited by those who’ve passed away,

Yet always visited

By those who still stay

Greenwood has welcomed many

Venerated friends and family

As well as tired exiles,

Exhumed from long-dead cemeteries.

Destroyed by highways and construction

Those hallowed sanctums had disappeared

Their denizens were relocated

To other ancestral sanctuaries

While Greenwood has grown

Its land nearly tripled in size

One must wonder if a time will come

When to construction for modern convenience

this large haven of our hearts will succumb.

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The Romantic Wheeling Project is a multi-genre place-based learning project where 12th grade Honors English students at Wheeling Park High School used themes of British Romanticism like Natural over Artificial, Emotion over Reason, and the Quest for Forbidden Knowledge to explore their emotional connection with The Friendly City that raised them. Students were to choose one landmark, neighborhood, or place in Wheeling to inspire their open form creative writing. The student wrote short stories, poems, songs, and played with other genres to express their connections and views of Wheeling through a Romantic lens.

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