Mary was off work today and had a busy day, going to two Philadelphia Independence Day parades with sisters Nora, Gertrude and Kathleen and friends. They then spent the afternoon and evening at Willow Grove Park, just outside of Philadelphia. She "never saw Willow Grove more crowded."
Willow Grove Park a prototypical "trolley park" opened in 1896 and closed in 1975 to be replaced by a shopping mall. With ridership of trolley cars being low on weekends, trolley companies in Philadelphia and elsewhere built amusement parks just outside the big cities to attract ridership on weekends. Willow Grove Park encompassed 130 acres in the town of Willow Grove and featured picnic areas, a man-made lake, rides and other amusements as well as a very popular music pavilion. Mary and company attended the concert or regular Willow Grove feature Victor Herbert and His Orchestra. John Philip Sousa performed every summer for many years.
Mary and company likely heard Herbert's new composition, "A Call to Freedom", described in this June 28 article from The Philadelphia Inquirer:
A brief history of Willow Grove Park can be found at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania web site. And a narrated pictorial history of the park's early years as Mary might have experienced it can be viewed in the first 18 minutes of the 1991 documentary about the park entitled "Life Was a Lark at Willow Grove Park".
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