The Rogers-Kennedy Mausoleum

The permanent residents of this forever home in Worcester’s Rural Cemetery are perhaps the most colorful people I have written about.

Ellen “Nellie” Frances Rogers Kennedy was born in Worcester, MA on July 8, 1844 to Thomas Moore and Mary S. (Rice) Rogers. She had sibling, a younger brother named Walter Thomas Rogers who was born in 1847. He died in 1866. Nellie’s father was the vice president of a bank, and the president of an electric light company, and was one of the leading men of Worcester. After the death of her parents, she became one of the wealthiest women in Worcester.

Nellie married twice. First to a Civil War veteran named Luther M. Captain Jr. The couple divorced in 1876 after 11 years of marriage. Luther disappeared, and nothing is known of him after 1886. Her second husband, the other resident of this mausoleum, was Walter Guyllan Scott Kennedy.

Walter Kennedy was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1850. He immigrated to the US, and became a beloved music teacher in Worcester. He left the US for Italy in the early 1900s. It was there that he met Nellie. Both of them were in their 60s. They married in Paris in 1911. Shortly after their marriage they adopted a 45-year old piano salesman named Charles A. Williams, and the trio travelled the world together.

Nellie died in 1918, and Walter in 1924. In their will they left money to build a memorial chapel at Rural Cemetery, and to the City of Worcester to build a monument to the early settlers of Worcester. Both are still standing today. The Rogers-Kennedy Memorial is located at Elm Park, and was recently restored.