Working some seventy feet above the Palmer Cemetery grants me a view in all directions of the surrounding neighborhood of Fishtown on Philadelphia’s east side.

There are large, leggy maples in the grounds’ north corner, and two massive Sycamores. We are climbing and pruning out hazardous deadwood over the gravestones and old brick pathways. The sound of chainsaws and stump grinders and the occasional beep of a frustrated driver fills the gray, modern city air. It is overcast and gloomy as you would imagine a cemetery to be. But fortunately it is not dismal.

At the time, I didn’t really think about the deep cultural ties of the cemetery to the neighborhood in which it sits, but my curiosity got the best of me as it always does and on returning home, I did a little research and came across the cemetery’s website on which they have a lovely bit of history.

According to the Palmer Cemetery’s website, “The different major ethnicities-English, German, Irish, and Polish-that resided in the neighborhood over the past 250 years are clustered into different sections of the grounds, as burial patterns at the cemetery have reflected the changing ethnic makeup of the neighborhood. From the beginning, Palmer desired a school to be built at the cemetery, where both German and English would be taught-evidence of the high numbers of German Palatines living in Kensington at the time. These German immigrants eventually commingled with the British fisherman also living in the neighborhood. More recently, though space is scarce (bodies must be cremated before being buried there and lots thought to be vacant have to be double-checked), neighborhood residents are still buried at Palmer cemetery. The one requirement is still that one must live or own property in the neighborhood to have a free plot. Famous Fishtowners like John Hewson, revolutionary war hero and the first calico printer in the colonies and Emmanuel Eyre, shipbuilder for the Continental Army, as well as soldiers of the past two and a half centuries of war, members of the famous Cramp family, and ordinary people who have resided in Fishtown over that time span are buried together at Palmer Cemetery,” (http://palmercemeteryfishtown.com/history.html).

To think two and a half centuries of life is buried beneath the tree roots you’re working on is some fancy, but grounding nonetheless. One of the large Sycamores from the pair in the north corner had an absolutely enormous diameter, and I imagined how many people that tree has seen come to their final resting place here, in the deep shade of its great crown. How that tree has grown just the same as the neighborhood around it, a growing mural of its environment and of its people. Fishermen, shipbuilders, soldiers, mill workers and wealthy merchants have all lived and died and rest right here in and around this city block. This neighorhood filled with such massive life. From high above the sidewalk I lanyard in out on the end of a scaffold limb and a father and his little boy look up from far below and point and wave, and I wave back smiling, knowing now I have become a small part of that story too.

In one dead piece of stem we took out of the grand sycamore, we found loads of honeycombs still viscous with cold, early winter honey. I discovered them while blocking down wood off the stem, and sliding out the combs I tasted a little dab and thought of how special those honey bees were to the surrounding trees and plants they pollenated. That honey was made from the flowers of Fishtown. A sweet, rich flavor.

As arborists we find ourselves like the bees a bit, working from town to town and flying across neighborhoods, buzzing around the trees that have either been there for a few years or maybe if we are lucky a few hundred. We are granted little glimpses into the lives of the trees we work on and also into the lives of the people we work for and who we work with.

We become a part of the story that ties trees and people together. And with that we can make honey.