ALTON - The 24th annual Vintage Voices tours encourage community members to learn more about Alton residents buried at Alton City Cemetery.
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Planned for Oct. 4, 5, 11 and 12, 2025, these walking tours take attendees through the cemetery to different gravestones, where an actor tells the story of the person buried there. Tours will take off every 15 minutes from 12–2:15 p.m. on those dates. There is also a non-walking performance at 5 p.m. on Oct. 5 at St. Mary’s Middle School.
“We’re actively selling tickets and hoping for big crowds, which we don’t really have to hope for — they just come. It’s amazing,” said Jody Basola. “These actors put their heart and soul into becoming the person they’re portraying…Some people are just amazed at what they’ve heard, and that means so much to us. People come year after year, and every year they walk away with something new that hit them.”
Basola explained that preparations for Vintage Voices take months. Historians Margaret Hopkins and Lacy McDonald go through their list of people buried in the Alton City Cemetery. They make note of any anniversaries coming up, and they narrow it down to around eight to ten people to portray each year.
“We start months in advance talking about who might be good, what would be a balance of different people, men, women, Black Altonians, white Altonians. Sometimes we try to do some kids,” McDonald explained. “We try to have a wide variety of parts available.”
Once the committee finalizes their list of decedents, the Hayner Genealogy and Local History Library compiles as much data about these people as possible. The actors then write their own scripts using this research. McDonald noted the importance of finding out as much as possible about each person and representing them properly.
“One of my things that is most important to me is that we’re telling people’s stories to the best of our abilities and as fully as possible,” she said. “We can’t find everything. We can’t tell you exactly what somebody’s personality was like or exactly what they were doing all the time. But I always want to make sure that we can share as much as possible.”
This year, Diana Inlow and Kerry Miller served as the directors, and they worked with nine actors to create their characters. There will be eight stops on the tour, and Basola promises a variety of people will be represented, from a former music director at Union Baptist Church to a German musician to Dorothy Scott, a member of the Six Triple Eight.
All of these people are buried in the Alton City Cemetery or have a close connection to the cemetery. Basola noted that their list of people to represent is ever-growing as they discover more important stories of Altonians buried in the cemetery. As always, she believes this year’s Vintage Voices tours do these stories justice, and she looks forward to sharing more stories in the future.
“We have so many people,” she said. “Our list right now still has 20–30 people on it that we hope to someday tell their stories. There’s that many great stories to tell.”
While Basola and McDonald encourage people to come to the tours or non-walking performance to get the full experience, McDonald added that the Hayner Public Library District has tapes and scripts from most of the performances over the last 24 years. She pointed out that the Hayner Genealogy and Local History Library works hard to research and represent all the people they encounter, and you can always visit the library for more information about their work.
“We give this sort of dedication to all the research that we do here,” she said. “Vintage Voices is just a really fun way to get out in the community.”
Tickets to Vintage Voices cost $15 for adults or $10 for students ages 6–18. You can purchase tickets online or at the gate, cash only. For more information about Vintage Voices, visit their official Facebook page.
