Southern Exposure 7
Summer 2020
Unearthing Secrets of St. Michael’s Cemetery
ne day in 2016,
Ken Bratsch wan-
dered around St.
Michael’s Cemetery
years looking for the head-
stone of John’s wife, Eliza
Matilda—but found noth-
ing. Four years later, without
nding the headstone of Eliza
Matilda, Bratsch did a great
service to St. Michael’s . . . his
backbreaking work revealed
over 500 hidden headstones
otherwise lost. During his ex-
plorations, he didn’t disturb
the burial sites, just probed for
stones that he could resurrect.
Most stones in St. Michael’s
had poor foundations on the
steep hill, and primitive burials
made erosion and subsidence
an issue. Though he couldn’t
reconstruct 500 new founda-
tions, Bratsch left the stones in
a safe position to minimize the
chance of being lost again. He
photographed the discovered
stones and sent the photos to
Rosemary Bufngton—she
in turn researched the names
and added them to the virtual
St. Michael’s Cemetery on the
public website, Findagrave.
com.
To save his tired muscles,
this year Bratsch has the ben-
et of a two-ton engine hoist
that was recently donated to
the cause. One of the rst res-
urrections earlier this season
was a beautiful c.1881 stone,
made for Ellen Thompson
and her granddaughter, Mary
Ellen McGovern—incidently
a distant relative of Marcella
McGovern. Many McGov-
erns came from County Ca-
van in Ireland; but Ellen was
almost certainly related in
some way. The Thompson
and McGovern families were
Irish members of Holy In-
fancy parish. The beautiful
carving on this marble stone
benetted from being hidden
under the sod, unlike Ellen’s
husband’s matching stone,
which layed at with its carv-
ings exposed to pollution and
harsh weather conditions.
Courtesy of Deborah Snyder
by Rosemary C. Bufngton
With help of a two-ton engine
hoist, the preserved Thompson
/ McGovern headstone was
reclaimed after years buried below
the sod at St. Michael’s Cemetery.
In 1900, Frank McGovern ran the Eagle Hotel,
located on the corner of Taylor and E. Third Sts. in
South Bethlehem. He lived next door at 302 E. Third.
The building next to his was the funeral home of Mar-
cella (Rodgers) McGovern, who succeeded her late
husband, Thomas F. McGovern. Marcella earned
her embalmer’s license in 1890.
Advertisement from South Bethlehem Semi-Centennial, 1915.
SBHS Archives
O
searching for the burial place
of his great-great-grandfather,
John B. Bratsch, a Civil War
veteran. Using the only par-
tial cemetery map in existence
congured by William Sin-
nott in the 1930s—Bratsch
located the general area and
found nothing but sod. After
he rst obtained permission
from Rev. Andy Gehringer at
Holy Infancy Parish, Bratsch
spent the next few weeks col-
lecting tools to probe the sod.
Persistence paid off . . . under
nine inches of dirt, the Union
Army memorial stone of John
Bratsch began to emerge.
Having served in the Army
and Navy, and retired from
the Allentown Fire Depart.,
Ken Bratsch was well-versed
on the right and wrong way
of doing things and educated
himself on all things tomb-
stone—including a visit to the
Arlington National Cemetery
to learn of their preferred
cleaning products.
Back at St. Michael’s,
Bratsch spent the next two
