The Historic City Cemetery

Reuban Wythe 1887 - 1944      Not every cemetery story is about a hero. Some are about scandal, desperation, and the way a small community could become captivated by a single family tragedy. The Wythe family of Tonawanda became front-page news in the early 1910s when a young bride named Ruth Cleveland Wythe found herself at the center of a sensational forgery case that spread from Buffalo to Tonawanda.      Ruth Cleveland was still in her teens when she first appeared in the newspapers after being arrested for stealing a diamond ring from a Buffalo jewelry store. Convicted but released on probation, she soon married local roller-skating celebrity Reuben Wythe in the spring of 1911. Reuben was well known across Western New York and Pennsylvania for his speed skating races, often competing before packed roller rinks in Tonawanda, Lockport, Youngstown, and Pittsburgh.      The young couple moved into the home of Reuben’s parents, William and Mrs...

     The Rose family was active in the commercial and transportation industries of the Tonawandas during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Three members of the family buried in City Cemetery contributed to the area's economic development through business, canal transportation, and military service.      Lorenzo P. Rose operated a flour and feed business in Tonawanda for many years. He was also affiliated with the Prohibition Party during the late nineteenth century.       His son, Ira M. Rose, began working on the Erie Canal as a boatman at the age of seventeen. He later became a builder of canal boats and established the first express delivery service in the Tonawandas, transporting freight and packages throughout the community.       Henry A. Rose  served in the Union Army during the Civil War. He enlisted as a private in Company F, 10th New York Cavalry, on February 20, 1864. On July 30, 1864, he w...

 In 1898 georges house in Tonawanda was hit with a tornado. His porch stairs flew over a mile ending up on the shores of the creek. 

 George Rogers ? - 1840 Florence Rogers ?-1820 Edward H Rogers 1835 - 1909 William Rogers ?-1892 William J Rogers 1862-1917 Fannie Rogers ? - 1917 Anna Oldenburg Rogers ?-1917

 In the early 1900's, a Tonawanda woman, Mrs. Rudolph Ismer, became central to a series of events that revealed how uncertain death could be.  In 1907, believing she recognized the description of a suicide victim found on a train in Nebraska, Mrs. Ismer identified the body as that of her son, Arthur Perry. The remains were brought back and buried in the family plot in Tonawanda. But the identification was wrong. Perry later returned alive, revealing that another man had been buried under his name. By that time, his wife, believing him dead had already remarried. That experience shaped everything that followed.  In 1910, when a body was recovered from the Niagara River and thought to possibly be her husband, Mrs. Ismer was asked to identify it. This time, she hesitated. Newspapers reported that she examined the body carefully but refused to make a definite identification, fearing she might repeat her earlier mistake. The body was buried as unknown. Soon after, another twis...