Baptist Society Church (1852) and adjacent cemeteries. Photo taken before 2021’s roof and steeple renovation and before the MOCA workshop in Alfred where I learned to clean stones.

Earlier this year, I attended a production of Our Town by Thornton Wilder. I’m sure many of you have heard of this play about the fictional town of Grover’s Corner set between 1901 and 1913. Written in 1938, it was first performed in New York City, and won the Pulitzer Prize that same year. The play is told in three acts: Daily Life, Love and Marriage, and Death and Eternity. The play itself was a huge success, and as evidenced by Portland Stage, is still performed to full houses today.

When I read through the program that day, I reminisced a bit about my family. I knew that the Limerick Historical Society had performed a reading of this play because I remember both of my parents participating. I had also heard of the author, Thornton Wilder, but really only knew his name. I read that Wilder served in WWI, then attended Oberlin, Yale and Princeton. Although my family has connections with Yale, what stood out was that Wilder had a house built in Hamden, Connecticut and lived there until he died in 1975. My aunt and uncle, and their four children lived in Hamden for many years, and my cousin still lives in their house today. All of this is to say, I felt very connected with the play and the author.

You may ask, why am I writing this piece for the MOCA newsletter? If you know the play well, you may remember the third act. But if you don’t, let me tell you that as the act enfolded, it transported me immediately to the Hillside/Baptist Cemetery. This is the place in Limerick where I spend most of my cemetery time, cleaning stones, and researching families and the old church that sits next to it. In Act 3, as the Grover’s Corner’s inhabitants pass away, they are buried in the town cemetery... but their spirits remain and talk to each other. In the Portland Stage production, the actors sat in chairs (gravestones) next to each other and chatted back and forth.

This idea of the townspeople together again in the cemetery rang so true to me. Whenever I walk through Hillside/Baptist, I read the names, and I touch the stones. The names are familiar to me. Growing up, my parents referred to them as “Limerick names.” Bradbury, Burnham, Felch, Gilpatrick, Hayes, Libby, Philpot, Swasey... these are the names mentioned in their stories, but also the names of roads, corners, and farms in Limerick. But what was most heartwarming to me was the idea of my people (all 675 of them more or less), buried next to each other, who continue to have conversations side by side on that hill on Route 5 in Limerick. What are they saying? Does the traffic bother them as it roars down the hill into the village? Do they enjoy the birdsong and the buzz of insects? Are they still whispering gossip to each other? When I told my mom about seeing Our Town and the connection I felt to “my” cemetery, she said, “You know, Fannie Flagg wrote a book about that same thing.” She was right and I just finished it. It’s called The Whole Town’s Talking if you’re interested.

Sarah (Kinsley) Choi
MOCA Newsletter
Summer 2026 | Volume VLIII, Issue 3