By Patrick Baron

BLOOMINGTON – The McLean County Museum of History is preparing Evergreen Cemetery for to its annual Cemetery Walk, which coincides with the 100th anniversary of the United States entering World War I.

The event, which features costumed actors portraying individuals from the county’s past, serves more than 3,500 people each year. The event has featured approximately 172 people from McLean County who had an influence locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally. The people who will be portrayed this year are:

•  Carl and Julia Vrooman: Carl served as Secretary of Agriculture under President Wilson and helped launch the War Garden program. Julia was active in philanthropic work and began working for the YMCA with American soldiers while in Europe with Carl. She formed a jazz band comprised of soldiers to entertain and improve the morale of troops stationed in Europe.

• Julia Holder: Julia was a Bloomington High School and worked on behalf of the Red Cross War Fund; she was in charge of a “corps” of volunteers cutting gauze to make surgical bandages for war- wounded during World War I.

• Edward and Lincoln Bynum: Edward and Lincoln fought alongside one another on the battlefields of France during World War I. When the Bynums returned home in February 1919, they were greeted by their father and thousands of grateful Americans who lined the streets of Chicago.

• Ethel Hanson: Before her marriage to Frank Hanson at the age of 28, Ethel was a math teacher at Bloomington High School. When the U.S. entered World War I, she became an “ardent war worker,” working to help organize the Women’s Committee of the Council of National Defense in McLean County, and was active in Red Cross and YWCA work.

• Roland Read: thrice rejected for volunteer service in the U.S. Army and rejected from the draft due to defective eyesight during World War I, Read joined the American Field Services for transport duty in France; upon his arrival there, Read was once again rejected for service. He then applied to and was accepted by the French Army. His duty would take him from Paris, France to Saloniki, Greece where he served as a First Lieutenant in the Serbian Army

• Carolyn Geneva: Carolyn entered Brokaw School of Nursing when she was about 19 years old. She graduated in three years and made head nurse for the surgical department at Brokaw Hospital, She began working for the recently founded Bloomington chapter of the American Red Cross after the U.S. entered World War I. There she taught classes in surgical dressing and later joined an Army Medical Unit and was stationed in tents set up along the west coast of England for six months.

Since the Cemetery Walk began 23 years ago, the Museum has been called upon to assist with other cemetery programs in several states, as well as Canada.

The Cemetery Walk will take place September 30 – October 1 and October 7 – 8. Performances will be held each day at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Ticket sales begin Tuesday.

Patrick Baron can be reached at [email protected].