Susan B Anthony's grave, two days later
The flow of visitors to Susan B. Anthony's grave at Mt. Hope Cemetery has slowed to a relative trickle. The crowd-control fences and powerful lights are gone. The grounds are being cleaned up.
The stickers were pulled from her headstone shortly before noon Thursday.
Two days ago, on Election Day, an astonishing 8,000 to 12,000 people made the pilgrimage to Anthony's burial site to honor the work she did to win women the right to vote, and to mark the first time that people could cast a vote for a female major-party presidential candidate.
Honoring what had been a low-key local tradition until this year, nearly all of the visitors placed their "I Voted Today" stickers on Anthony's headstone at Mt. Hope Cemetery, the stone that marks her sister Mary's grave or on any number of other nearby surfaces.
They draped the Anthony family grave site in flowers, balloons and other adornments and memorial gifts.
All of that was scrubbed away late Thursday morning. A city horticultural technician who works in the cemetery, Theresa VanKouwenberg, removed stickers from the headstones, in huge clumps and then one at a time, placing many of them on commemorative placards put out by the city. Other stickers, mingled with fallen leaves, she raked up from the ground.
There was a respectful air to her work. The last sticker gone from Susan's headstone, VanKouwenberg carefully tidied the soil in front of the grave where two tiny yellow rose bushes grow.
The headstone appeared no worse the wear from its starring role on Election Day.
The placards will be given to the Rochester city historian's office for preservation and future exhibition. Some of the flowers will be dried and saved.
Other memorials left at the grave site — candles, photographs, small posters and books — were being boxed and will be kept for display by the Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery, said Marilyn Nolte, the non-profit group's president. She was at the Anthony grave site Thursday morning to help with the clean-up.
Susan B. Anthony grave draws huge crowds Tuesday
Nolte said she and colleagues had no idea so many would appear Tuesday.
"We had imagined there would be many, many people in the morning and many, many people after work. But they just kept coming in all day, and the line got longer and longer," she said.
The first visitors, fresh from voting with stickers in hand, appeared shortly after the polls opened at 6 a.m. The gates to city-owned Mt. Hope were supposed to be locked until 8 a.m., but officials said they were opened early by mistake.
It was just as well. By 7 a.m., dozens of people were on hand, and the crowd only got bigger and bigger as the day wore on. After darkness fell, it began to rain but that did nothing to diminish turnout. People stood in line Tuesday evening for two hours or more for their chance to place their sticker on or near the headstone and to pose for a hurried photograph at the grave site.
Aware of national publicity that advertised the Election Day tradition, city officials had engaged a printer to generate 2,000 commemorative stickers bearing Anthony's likeness and the words "I voted today because of women like her."
Everyone who passed through the line Tuesday morning was given one, but officials realized they didn't have nearly enough. Back at City Hall, employees used copiers to replenish the supply. They eventually churned out 4,800 of them.
The cost of the stickers and staff time, including some overtime, were the only expenses attributable to the event. Everything will be well within budget, city spokesman Patrick Flanigan said.
As the city had promised ahead of time, the cemetery gates were closed at 9 p.m. Tuesday. But more than 1,000 who were already in line were allowed to stay. The last admirer didn't make to Susan B's grave site until 10:30 p.m.
As Nolte observed, the entire affair went out without rancor. "There was no pushing or shoving. Everybody was upbeat," she said. "I think it was wonderful and I don't know anybody who thinks otherwise."
Though the event Tuesday was much more a feminist festival than political rally, and there were relatively few campaign banners or signs, it was clear that nearly all of those who paid their respects were supporters of Hillary Clinton. Their belief that she was on the cusp of winning the presidency helped lend an air of celebration to the affair.
Their hopes, of course, were deflated a few hours after the gates were locked at Mount Hope.
On Thursday morning, as workers removed the visible signs of the Election Day occasion, visitors continued to approach the grave site and stop to ruminate.
Amy Pritchard and her 2-year-old daughter, Olive, had been part of the huge crowd there on Election Day. Asked why she returned two days later, Pritchard, who lives in Webster, hesitated before answering.
"I'm very sad. I think I just wanted to remember the feeling that I had Tuesday," she said. "It felt very ... supportive."