The Crown Series
This month we would like to introduce Jeannie Regan-Dinius, Director of Historic Preservation with the Crown Hill Heritage Foundation. Arborist Carrie Tauscher brings us the Tree of the Month, the Bald Cypress, and we are continuing our monthly Crown Series by going a little further down the Crown into Section 13 to highlight a father and son whose huge contributions in their respective fields recently came to our attention.
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John Harlin Geisse
Aviation Pioneer
(July 17, 1892-December 4, 1988)
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Image Credit: Geisse Family
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A native of Wisconsin and a WWI-era Reserve Military Aviator, John Harlin Geisse pursued a career in aeronautical engineering, beginning as the chief engineer of the Navy Aeronautical Engine Laboratory in Philadelphia from 1922 to 1929, where he designed a new cooling system. In 1933, working for the Aeronautics Branch of the Department of Commerce, a forerunner of the Federal Aviation Administration, he organized a small airport construction program at a time when many airports were being built.
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John Francis Geisse
Retail Pioneer & Leader: Founder of Target Stores, Venture Stores, & The Wholesale Club
(September 1, 1920-February 21, 1992)
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Image Credit: Geisse Family
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While his father pursued a career designed to make aviation more widespread and safer, John Francis Geisse was firmly grounded in retail marketing and merchandising, launching three successful retail chains designed to bring upscale products to more people at lower costs. Geisse was born in Madison, Wisconsin. After serving in the Navy during World War II in the Pacific and Atlantic theaters, including the Normandy invasion, he retired from the Navy in 1947 as a Lieutenant Commander of the USS Tuscaloosa before moving to Minneapolis.
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Tree of the Month - Bald Cypress
By Carrie Tauscher, Crown Hill Arborist
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This quad of bald cypress is a beautiful example of how a grouping of trees can be greater than the sum of its parts.
Bald cypress is a native Indiana tree that is a deciduous (loses its leaves in fall) conifer (produces cone fruiting structure like a pine or spruce tree) and is part of a very small set of plants that grow cones and lose their leaves seasonally. These trees have fine, feathery compound leaves that turn a vibrant copper color around the first frost each year. They hold on to their beautiful copper plumes for a week or two and then shed them to the ground, leaving a soft, barefoot-traversable layer of self-created mulch.
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Introducing Jeannie Regan-Dinius
Director of Historic Preservation at Crown Hill Cemetery
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We would like to welcome Jeannie Regan-Dinius into the role of Director of Historic Preservation, a new position with the Crown Hill Heritage Foundation. In this role, Jeannie will oversee all of the Foundation’s preservation efforts, which will include inventorying and determining preservation needs for the cemetery’s historic structures, historic family mausoleums, monuments and statues, and tombstones. She will be integral in the Foundation’s efforts to preserve the architectural, cultural and natural heritage of Crown Hill Cemetery.
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Thanks to our corporate partners!
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