I have always been fortunate with supply and demand. My family has supplied me with many stories relating to the old days of Concord while my demand for interesting stories seems to be quite bottomless. I attribute the fact that I am the fifth generation to reside in our little town of Concord where these interesting events have been created. I also attribute the fact that no person from Ireland ever allows a good story to go untold.

With this thought in mind, I hope you venture back to the Blossom Hill Cemetery for another tale. It was the fall of 1938 when my father and his many young friends living in the north end of Concord, affectionately known as Fosterville, would venture across North State Street to enjoy the most peaceful playground of all. This playground is the Blossom Hill Cemetery, hallowed and providing solitude it would offer the young children acres of land to walk, play hide and seek or flashlight tag.

It provided a constant lesson in history as the North End children read many an epitaph and helped to improve their vocabulary with strange old names that no longer existed. There was a pond that provided ice skating, this pond cleared of snow by the local children to allow them to skate on a weekend afternoon. The wooded area behind the cemetery was a maze of old roads that wound through the timbered Rattlesnake Hill.

In the fall of 1938, my father was just a lad of seven years old, very impressionable with the likelihood of believing most stories spun by the local men and woman from Ireland. Funerals were common and the children respected the dead, vandalism was not a thought and patriotism was evident as the children of 1938 would right a crooked American Flag decorating the grave of a veteran.

Many of the children from 1938 went on to serve in World War II and the Korean War, including my beloved father. The fall of 1938 provided my father with a story that he shared with me time and again. A respected local businessman passed away that fall, a man who was like most men, he feared death and made a point to tell his family he had no interest in being buried beneath the ground. Always a bit claustrophobic he left instructions for his family, instructions that were indeed followed.

In 1938 there were still stories being told from years before, disturbing stories that made people shudder. Stories that related to death and disrespect. Many of the children knew about grave robbers and some knew that the worst experience in the world would be to awaken in a buried casket. Yes, these things did happen but it was many years before my father and his young friends roamed the hallowed ground of the Blossom Hill Cemetery.

I will not disclose the name of the gentleman that died in the fall of 1938 for he has descendants that still reside here in the Concord area. His feeling of claustrophobia stayed with him during his living years and was only relinquished with his last breath. The story was told that this kind gentleman left instructions for an above ground burial. A vault of sorts that resembles many vaults scattered across northern New England cemeteries.

But this vault was indeed different. If this recently deceased gentleman should awaken after he was interred over in Blossom Hill Cemetery he had a method of escape. The interior of the vault was manufactured in such a way that he could use the tools buried with him to release interior iron pins and access an opening. If his opening was not adequate, he dictated a backup plan with his last words.

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A telephone would be entombed with him, the telephone was to be wired into the local system so that he could call for help should he awaken late some evening after his entombment. The burial was observed from afar by a group of young children, amongst them my young dad.

He told me he saw the construction of the above ground vault and the placement of the old black telephone within reach of the casket. The casket was left unlocked and the tools to unlock the interior iron pins securing the vault were nearby.

The days following the burial were indeed interesting. My dad and his friends busied themselves calling every neighbor in the north end of Concord, identifying themselves as the deceased gentleman and requesting some assistance with vacating his vault in Blossom Hill Cemetery.

A strange tale indeed, but a true story. A story that I have pondered time and again. As I walk Blossom Hill Cemetery on a daily basis I often glance over at the old vault from 1938 and wonder. I wonder about the man that feared death and I wonder about the children from all those years ago.