The Memorials of Acadia National Park

 The Kurt Diederich Memorial Plaque

On October 15, 2020 Acadia National Park completed installation of the Kurt Diederich memorial plaque on the Kurt Diederich's Climb, a path built in his honor from 1913 to 1915. 

Installation photos:

Although the park has had the plaque for years, there is no record as to when it actually received it. Back in the early days of the park’s existence and at its encouragement to help develop the path system, people funded the construction of paths as memorials to loved ones and friends. The Kurt Diederich's Climb was one of them. Bronze memorial plaques, installed soon after a path’s completion, were the usual method of acknowledgement. This suggests the Diederich memorial plaque has been in existence for more than 100 years. No evidence of previous installation, e.g. granite drill holes, along the path’s 0.5-mile length has been found. Moreover, the plaque shows no physical signs of prior installation.

Below is a circa 1920 photograph of Diederich’s daughter, Elsa, sitting on a ledge along the path a few feet away from where the plaque is now installed. Maybe that was the year the plaque was presented to the park and Elsa was there for that ceremony.

The red arrow in the photo above shows where Elsa was sitting in relation to the now installed plaque.

The following paragraphs about Kurt Diederich are from my book, The Memorials of Acadia National Park (https://books.apple.com/us/book/id1434077472):

Kurt Siegesmund Diederich (circa 1885-1913) was born in Hungary and immigrated to the United States in 1885 and later settled in Cecil County, Maryland. He attended the University of Maryland, Baltimore (1911-1913) where he studied for his law degree. He was the son of Kurt Diederich and Elinor Hunt, daughter of William Morris Hunt of Boston, and a nephew of Enid Hunt Slater of Washington, D.C. Kurt’s wife was Sybil Hale (1890-1911), the 15-year-old he eloped with and married in 1904 in Providence, Rhode Island. She was the daughter of Arthur Hale, superintendent of transportation of the B & O Railroad in Baltimore, Maryland, and great granddaughter of Edward Everett Hale, the noted author and clergyman. They had two children, a daughter Elsa, born in 1908 in Maryland, and a son, Arthur Hale, who died in early childhood. After Sybil had died in London, England in 1911 of typhoid fever, Kurt and Elsa resided with his aunt Enid in Washington, D.C., and at her summer cottage, Bowling Green, in Bar Harbor. Kurt died in 1913 in a Washington, D.C., hospital of heart failure from the administration of ether before a nose operation. Enid provided the funds for a memorial path to be built in his honor. The path was named “Kurt Diederich’s Climb.” Enid died in 1928 in Paris, France. Kurt, Sybil and Enid are buried in the Hunt-Slater lot in the Milton Cemetery, Milton, Massachusetts.

The engraved granite step is the sixth step up the Kurt Diederich’s Climb, which is located at the junction of the Jesup and Kane Paths at the north end of The Tarn.

Notes:

-         Diederich memorial plaque GPS coordinates: 44 21.527   68 12.508

-        The two installation photos of the plaque are courtesy of the NPS: Acadia National Park.

-        The two photos and GPS coordinates of the installed plaque are from my friend and fellow explorer, Jim Linnane.

-        The Elsa Diederich photo is courtesy of the NPS: Acadia National Park.

The Kurt Diederich photo is courtesy of Chuck and Janet Hansen.