Wired cemetery

Under the oak tree canopy and dirt path driveways of Palm Cemetery in Winter Park the 6,118 life stories that have come to a close underground have just been reopened, bringing history back from the dead.

Last chapters of final-resters date back 107 years, with each one until now only summarized by short engravings on headstones offering at most a one-sentence synopsis of each life.

There are nine words engraved for Loring Chase, commemorating his history as a Winter Park founder in 1881. Former U.S. Senator Paula Harding is forever cemented with just a seal and her title. And internationally celebrated sculptor Albin Polasek and Winter Park matriarch Clara Ward are each forever resting with only a dash between dates left to summarize their storied lives.

But in the cemetery today, with a touch of a smartphone screen, the stories of the dead come back to life.

Winter Park cemeteries are resurrecting themselves into the 21st century with the addition of a new app, called WPC Explorer, serving as both a grave locating tool and a virtual memorial site.

Family members of the deceased can add memorials that include photos, videos and biographies of their loved ones and ancestors to the app. Visitors to the cemetery can search for graves by name or use the “nearby” feature to see who is buried in the area.

Soon, standing over Clara Ward’s resting site and pressing a button will bring years of Ward family history to your fingertips. From her founding of the Lakemont Dairy in 1906 to provide fresh milk for Winter Park’s kids to her death in 1958 – a year after the Wards sold the farm, which would eventually be developed into Winter Park High School – Ward’s great-granddaughter, Beth Ciullo, said the app will give her a way to bring her family’s story back to the future.

Ciullo said she’s been visiting the graves of her family and building an extensive family history and genealogy for years.

“I can gather all this information and that’s great for my family, but unless there is someplace to put it, nobody is ever going to see it. That’s why this [app] is so important,” Ciullo said.

Currently, the app, which was developed by the city, is functional in both Palm Cemetery and Pine Cemetery in Winter Park.

Eventually self-guided tours of the cemetery will be available in both locations. Using the app’s GPS feature, visitors will be able to go directly to the gravesites of many notable figures.

“It’s not quite ready yet,” said cemetery representative Janna Baumann. “We’re hoping to work out all the kinks soon.”

Baumann said the app allows history buffs and genealogists the opportunity to link names on headstones with photos and personal information that make history come alive.

Using this app, a stroll through Palm Cemetery becomes a lesson in local history.

A search for Clara Ward’s grave takes you down the very same dirt road that decades of Winter Park citizens have walked to bury their dead, under towering pines and oak trees that remind visitors what the area looked like in the pioneer days.

With a modern device to guide them, using GPS linked to a satellite in outer space, users are led directly to the grave location and provided with a photo and life story of an ancestor or historical figure.

Suddenly the dead are alive again, if only long enough to share their story with the current generation.

“My family story is large, but it fits in a shoe box. I can keep it there where it will be forgotten, or I can share it through places like this where everyone can enjoy it,” Ciullo said.