Maintaining a welcoming environment for the visiting public and mourners was, and remains, a key mission of national cemeteries. Within the first decades of their establishment, the superintendent’s lodge was important to this experience. Government regulations ordered the placement of signs near cemetery entrances telling visitors they were “invited to enter the office in the superintendent’s lodge, where a register is kept, and where information concerning this cemetery will be cheerfully furnished.”
Lodges functioned as dual-purpose offices and residences for the superintendent (usually a disabled veteran) and his family. He was required to keep the building “neat and in good order” and “in a condition to receive visitors at all times.” A reception area was maintained in the office exclusively to accommodate visitors and to be occupied by the superintendent only for housekeeping purposes. A table with a leather-bound visitor register was a required feature of this area.
On July 13, 1895, renowned suffragist and social activist Susan B. Anthony visited Fort Scott National Cemetery, Kansas, along with her brother Jacob Merritt Anthony and his wife Mary, where they signed the ledger. Fittingly, the Anthony’s would have been hosted by Major George W. Ford, one of the national cemetery system’s only African American superintendents. Ford was a wounded veteran of the Indian Wars, civil rights advocate, and descendent of enslaved persons from George Washington’s home at Mount Vernon, Virginia. Ms. Anthony’s cemetery visit came during a stop at her brother’s Fort Scott home on her return east from a suffrage meeting in San Francisco, California.
Visitor registers provide a glimpse into the activity at national cemeteries and the individuals who passed through their gates. Unfortunately, few were preserved because Army regulations allowed them to be destroyed after they were filled, and by 1947 less-visited cemeteries were not required to use them.
By Richard Hulver, Ph.D.
Historian, National Cemetery Administration
Share this story
Related Stories
History of VA in 100 Objects
In the 19th century, the federal government left the manufacture and distribution of prosthetic limbs for disabled Veterans to private enterprise. The experience of fighting two world wars in the first half of the 20th century led to a reversal in this policy.
In the interwar era, first the Veterans Bureau and then the Veterans Administration assumed responsibility for providing replacement limbs and medical care to Veterans.
In recent decades, another federal agency, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), has joined VA as a supporter of cutting-edge research into artificial limb technology. DARPA’s efforts were spurred by the spike in traumatic injuries resulting from the emergence of improvised explosive devices as the insurgent’s weapon of choice in Iraq in 2003-04.
Out of that effort came the LUKE/DEKA prosthetic limb, named after the main character from "Star Wars."
History of VA in 100 Objects
American prisoners of war from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam faced starvation, torture, forced labor, and other abuses at the hands of their captors. For those that returned home, their experiences in captivity often had long-lasting impacts on their physical and mental health. Over the decades, the U.S. government sought to address their specific needs through legislation conferring special benefits on former prisoners of war.
In 1978, five years after the United States withdrew the last of its combat troops from South Vietnam, Congress mandated VA carry out a thorough study of the disability and medical needs of former prisoners of war. In consultation with the Secretary of Defense, VA completed the study in 14 months and published its findings in early 1980. Like previous investigations in the 1950s, the study confirmed that former prisoners of war had higher rates of service-connected disabilities.
History of VA in 100 Objects
In the waning days of World War I, French sailors from three visiting allied warships marched through New York in a Liberty Loan Parade. The timing was unfortunate as the second wave of the influenza pandemic was spreading in the U.S. By January, 25 of French sailors died from the virus.
These men were later buried at the Cypress Hills National Cemetery and later a 12-foot granite cross monument, the French Cross, was dedicated in 1920 on Armistice Day. This event later influenced changes to burial laws that opened up availability of allied service members and U.S. citizens who served in foreign armies in the war against Germany and Austrian empires.
