Who was Carl Hayden? Mystery solved

Remember Carl W. Hayden?
You’re not alone if you don’t. But his name is on a plaque affixed to the holding vault at the Glencoe City Cemetery.
So who is Carl W. Hayden, how did his name get on that plaque and who put it there?
Since I’m retired and apparently had nothing else to do, I was asked to find out what I could about Mr. Hayden. So I walked to the cemetery.
First of all, I never knew the vault was there let alone the plaque. So I read the plaque.
The plaque is in memory of Carl W. Hayden, born in 1892 in Glencoe. He died in 1964 in London, England. He was an international banker, and the vault was built in his memory by an unnamed friend. It seems, however, no one could remember Mr. Hayden.
So I went to the library and searched through the 1964 volume of the Glencoe Enterprise for Mr. Hayden’s obituary. It was not there, but a short death notice from O.L. Danek, which came through the Fraternal Brothers of Minneapolis, was published. The death notice was placed on the front page of the Oct. 15 issue of the Enterprise.
It noted Mr. Hayden died in London, where he was cremated, but his ashes were to be interred at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Glencoe. It reported he was a foreign representative for First National City Bank of New York and the son of the late Frank Hayden of Glencoe. He grew up in Glencoe. His last visit to Glencoe was in October of 1957, the death notice reported.
The Enterprise also noted that once the full obituary was received, it would be printed. Apparently it was never received.
Despite the notice, it did not solve the mystery of why Hayden’s name was on the plaque and who put it there.
So I went to see Jackee Fountain, the head librarian, for help and she went right to a book on county biographies. Lo and behold, there were two references to Mr. Hayden. One reported he was fined for swimming in the creek as a youth, but the other solved the mystery.
It was noted in the biography of George Laible, who happened to serve on the Glencoe Cemetery Association Board. Laible was active in obtaining funds from Elmer Williams, which were used to construct a holding vault in the cemetery “to be used by all of the churches.”
The plaque was a memorial from Williams to his close friend, Carl Hayden. His father, Frank Hayden, served for many years as custodian of the Glencoe Cemetery. George Laible, among his other contributions to the community, was the caretaker of the vault building.
Mystery solved.
I knew reading all these detective novels in my retirement would come in handy.

Rich Glennie was the editor of The Chronicle for 23 years. He retired Aug. 1, 2014.