Oakland Cemetery
If yesterday was about my dad, today was about my mom. It would have been her 82nd birthday, so this afternoon Beatrix and I went to walk around Oakland Cemetery, where she is buried.
Oakland is fascinating. It was dedicated in 1853, as a non-denominational cemetery meant to address Saint Paul's lack of graveyards. The first president was Henry Sibley, and it was designed by famous landscape designer Horace Cleveland. There are sections for Civil War and Spanish War veterans, and for firemen.
Ethnic areas include Hmong, Chinese, Russian, Romanian, and German (especially on the area that had formerly been the German Lutheran Zion cemetery). One thing I love dearly about it is that there will be an old plot from the 1800s, with a family name like "Ordway" chock-a-block next to a shiny new Hmong headstone. We also saw deer running through:
We wandered around for quite some time and finally found the graves of the Chapin family who built our house:
Beatrix was especially taken by the cradle stones for young children. I of course love the book ones.
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As fascinating as the old graves are, it's equally interesting to see the new ones. Some have flowers, or food, or other shrine-like items left there:
I have a ton of administrivia to take care of at the cemetery, honestly. I have to get a niche for my dad, and for Patrick and me. I would like to get a vase to mount on the upside of my mom's niche. Ideally, I would like to retrieve some of my mom's ashes to get a piece of glassware made with them (that was just not a thing that was done when she died, but she would have loved it), but I think the cost of opening the tomb and retrieving the ash might be too much. But for today it was nice to just wander.
Happy birthday, mom.
Oakland is fascinating. It was dedicated in 1853, as a non-denominational cemetery meant to address Saint Paul's lack of graveyards. The first president was Henry Sibley, and it was designed by famous landscape designer Horace Cleveland. There are sections for Civil War and Spanish War veterans, and for firemen.
Ethnic areas include Hmong, Chinese, Russian, Romanian, and German (especially on the area that had formerly been the German Lutheran Zion cemetery). One thing I love dearly about it is that there will be an old plot from the 1800s, with a family name like "Ordway" chock-a-block next to a shiny new Hmong headstone. We also saw deer running through:
We wandered around for quite some time and finally found the graves of the Chapin family who built our house:
Beatrix was especially taken by the cradle stones for young children. I of course love the book ones.
\As fascinating as the old graves are, it's equally interesting to see the new ones. Some have flowers, or food, or other shrine-like items left there:
I have a ton of administrivia to take care of at the cemetery, honestly. I have to get a niche for my dad, and for Patrick and me. I would like to get a vase to mount on the upside of my mom's niche. Ideally, I would like to retrieve some of my mom's ashes to get a piece of glassware made with them (that was just not a thing that was done when she died, but she would have loved it), but I think the cost of opening the tomb and retrieving the ash might be too much. But for today it was nice to just wander.
Happy birthday, mom.
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