The Park City Museum is advertising its annual Glenwood Cemetery event Saturday, Oct. 7, as “Scandals and Tales of Woe.”
Think of this article as “Tallies of Woe.” It’s a numerical analysis of the data associated with the death records of those interred in Glenwood. The data set, also known as the “Book of the Dead,” was created by volunteers with the Glenwood Cemetery Association in the 1980s using old handwritten records and other research. It was a big effort and much appreciated by the historical community.
Given the inconsistencies of record keeping over a century, this analysis is not presented as a rock-solid statistical study. There are gaps throughout. Some records include age but not cause of death, and vice versa. The language used for cause of death can introduce ambiguities: Does “consumption” mean tuberculosis or “miner’s consumption,” a form of silicosis? Gender is inferred by traditionally masculine or feminine first names. Typos and outdated terminology abound.
Despite this fuzziness in the data and the interpretive leaps made for this article, the information gleaned from the death records provides a reasonable indication of the life expectancy that Park City residents experienced, as well as the top causes of death. Think of it as a core sample.
Before diving in, here’s an overview:
- 944 total records.
- 875 records with age of deceased noted (a range from stillborn to 97 years).
- 862 records with gender defined with reasonable certainty (328 female, 534 male).
- 748 records with cause of death listed.
- Dates of death range from 1880 to 2009 (median date of 1905).
Life expectancy: Overall, the average life expectancy in this cohort was consistent across genders. Males had a life expectancy of 34.6 years, while females had one of 34.2 years. How does that compare to today’s data? Men die younger than women in the United States, on average. As of 2021, American women have a life expectancy of 79 years, compared with men at 73 years, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.
Leading causes of death: Far and away, the top killer in the Glenwood cohort is pneumonia, at 125 victims or 17 percent of all listed deaths. This parallels the data gleaned from Gary Kimball’s “Death and Dying in Old Park City” (See “Way We Were,” Aug. 3, 2021).
The No. 2 cause of death in the Glenwood cohort is heart disease (74 deaths), while the o. 3 spot is taken by stillborn births (64). The fourth-leading cause is tuberculosis (37), and the fifth is miner’s consumption (32). Tied for the sixth-leading cause at 28 deaths each are mining accidents and meningitis. Scarlett fever (25), general accidents (24), and strokes (24) round out the top 10. Cancers (15) as a cause of death are down the list at No. 15.
Comparing and contrasting: According to the CDC in a 2019 study, the current top causes of death nationwide are heart disease, cancers and accidents. The category of “pneumonia and influenza” ranks 10th on today’s list. So we share some but not all of the same dreads our forebearers did, and here in Park City, we should all wear helmets when recreating!
Given that Park City was a silver-and-lead camp, it is an interesting side note that only two out of the 944 Glenwood deaths were due to lead poisoning. Apparently, the galena ore mined here is not particularly bioactive and posed a far lower danger than the silicate dust kicked up by mining operations.
The scandals: In the spirit of the upcoming museum event, there are a few scandals tucked away in the data set — suicide by strychnine, smothered in bed, “executed by the law” among them.
To get a ticket for the annual Glenwood ghost stories event, go to parkcityhistory.org.
Michael O’Malley is a Park City Museum researcher.