For at least the fourth time, bones have turned up during excavation on the site of Maryland Avenue Montessori School on Milwaukee's East Side.
The bones were uncovered Wednesday morning during work to install a new greenhouse on the Maryland Avenue side of the triangular property bordered by Maryland and Prospect Avenues.
After Milwaukee Police determined the site was not a crime scene and that the bones were old, the Wisconsin Historical Society – which has oversight on Wisconsin cemeteries – sent someone out to collect the remains.
A pest house cemetery was located on the site during the cholera epidemic of 1849-50 and with hundreds dead, bodies were buried in shallow graves.
Bones were also found during the construction of the oldest part of the current Maryland Avenue Montessori complex in 1887. What was found was reinterred at the potter's field.
The same occurred when more bones appeared during excavation for a 1951 gym addition.
Although no bones were found when that gym addition got an expansion in 2016, some remains were discovered during foundation work on the 1887 portion of the building in 2021.
You can read a much deeper history of the epidemic, the cemetery and the remains found on site in this 2016 article and in this one about the 2021 excavation.
For more on pest houses (aka isolation hospitals) in Milwaukee, read this article.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
