Tag Archives: Bay Area cemeteries

2018 Bay Area Cemetery Tours

IMG_1788Sunday, September 23 at 1-3 pm
Spirits of St. Helena Cemetery Walk
St. Helena Public Cemetery
2461 Spring St, St Helena, CA 94574
This is the St. Helena Historical Society’s 16th Annual Cemetery Tour, featuring stories of German decedents, including Charles Krug and Jacob Schram. St. Helena High School drama students, under the direction of Patti Coyle, will be acting out scenarios from the lives of the deceased and their families. 1 to 3 pm at the St. Helena Cemetery. 967-5502 or shstory.org.

Saturday, September 29 from 9-1 pm
San Lorenzo Cemetery Clean Up and Open Day
Usher Street and College Street, San Lorenzo, CA 94580
Drop by to help preserve our local historic cemetery! Bring gloves, rakes, and water. The cemetery will also be open during this time for the public to visit the grounds and ask questions.
http://www.haywardareahistory.org/calendar/2018/9/29/san-lorenzo-cemetery-clean-up-and-open-day

Saturday, October 6 from 8:30-10 am
Yountville Veterans Home & Cemetery Photo Walk
100 California Drive, Yountville, CA 94599
Imagine you and your camera being guided on a historical photowalk tour in the heart of Napa Valley by our nation’s veterans. They will be your “imagery guide” to the oldest and largest of eight California homes. The home was established in 1884 by veterans of the Civil and Mexican American Wars. The walking tour will include: The 1918 Armistice Chapel that was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, The home’s cemetery where nearly 6ooo men and women have been laid to rest, including four Medal of Honors, and the Arboretum that includes trees from all over the world. After your tour, you will have the opportunity to re-group in the Tug McGraw Foundation’s Brain Food Garden, enjoy delights provided by the foundation and chat about your images! Bring comfortable shoes and water. The entire campus is wheelchair accessible.
https://worldwidephotowalk.com/walk/the-historical-yountville-veterans-home/

Saturday, October 6 from 1-3 pm
Redwood Memorial Gardens Pioneer Cemetery Tour
Cemetery Road, Guerneville, California
$10 helps to pay for restoration. Make sure you map the drive. I’m having trouble finding an address.
https://www.russianriverhistory.org/event/redwood-memorial-gardens-pioneer-cemetery-tour

Friday & Saturday, October 19-20, beginning at 7 pm
Lantern Tours of Old City Cemetery
1000 Broadway, Sacramento, CA 95818
Tickets are $40 and should be purchased in advance. This will sell out.
Tour the tombstones in “They Had It Coming,” the theme of the 2018 Lantern Tours. There will be five tours per night, beginning at 7 p.m. and every half hour thereafter. The evening will begin with period music, games of chance, and encounters with some characters out of the city’s past. On the tour, meet other eternal residents who will tell their tales of crimes of passion, rash judgment, and just rewards. The experience ends with a stage show of merry cemetery murderesses dancing, singing and telling their own stories. The price includes all this and refreshments. Proceeds support cemetery preservation.
http://events.sacbee.com/performer.aspx?perf_id=2528342

Friday, October 19 from 7–10:30 pm
Ghosts of Dublin Pioneer Cemetery tour
Dublin Heritage Park & Museums, 6600 Donlon Way, Dublin, CA 94568
Tickets are $14 and should be purchased in advance. This will sell out.
Take a flashlight tour through Dublin’s historic Pioneer Cemetery, where Dublin’s buried past comes alive. Hear haunting stories of ghosts thought to be lurking in Dublin, including reports of recent findings by local paranormal researchers. See ghostly images of long dead pioneers in Old St. Raymond Church.
https://patch.com/california/dublin/calendar/event/20181019/394748/ghosts-of-dublin-flashlight-tour-2018-pioneer-cemetery-dublin

Saturday, October 20 from 10:30-noon
Tour of Cypress Hill Cemetery
430 Magnolia Ave, Petaluma, CA 94952
Tickets are $15 + a service fee available online at https://cemeterytour2018.brownpapertickets.com.
We continue our fun and spooky tradition this year with Petalumans of Yesteryear in period attire and personas guiding visitors through the historic Cypress Hill Cemetery.
https://www.petalumamuseum.com/calendar-event/annual-cemetery-tour/

Sunday, October 21 at 1:30 pm
Tour of Mountain View Cemetery
5000 Piedmont Ave, Oakland CA 94611
Tickets are $18.
Every visit to Mountain View Cemetery is like a trip back in time. It is like shaking hands with railroad builder Charles Crocker, admiring the brushwork of Yosemite landscape painter Thomas Hill, and hearing architect Julia Morgan rhapsodize about her designs for Hearst Castle.
https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/events/details?event_id=27734

Wednesday, October 24 at 6:30-7:45 pm
Hunters Tour of Alhambra Cemetery
211 Foster St, Martinez, CA 94553
The Alhambra Pioneer Cemetery, established in 1851, has stunning views of the Carquinez Strait and a rich history. A tour guide will introduce you to families with names you know and some you don’t. You’ll learn more about local war heroes, personalities, politicians and a most creative caretaker. Tours are designed to enlighten, not frighten. Wear sturdy comfortable shoes and dress for the weather. Sorry, no children please! Bring a flashlight.
https://patch.com/california/martinez/calendar/event/20181024/398582/alhambra-cemetery-halloween-full-moon-tour-martinez

Friday, October 26 from 7–10:30 pm
Ghosts of Dublin Pioneer Cemetery tour
Dublin Heritage Park & Museums, 6600 Donlon Way, Dublin, CA 94568
Tickets are $14 and should be purchased in advance. This will sell out.
Take a flashlight tour through Dublin’s historic Pioneer Cemetery, where Dublin’s buried past comes alive. Hear haunting stories of ghosts thought to be lurking in Dublin, including reports of recent findings by local paranormal researchers. See ghostly images of long dead pioneers in Old St. Raymond Church.
https://patch.com/california/dublin/calendar/event/20181019/394748/ghosts-of-dublin-flashlight-tour-2018-pioneer-cemetery-dublin

Saturday, October 27 at 10 am
Tour of Mt. Olivet Cemetery
270 Los Ranchitos Rd, San Rafael, CA 94903
Join us to visit the burial sites of many of the founding pioneer families of Marin County. Some who found their final place here led scandalous lives but now rest peacefully. From James Miller, founding father, to Barbara Graham, criminal, all have a story to tell.
https://marinhistory.org/event-2960661

Saturday, October 27 at 7:30 pm
Nighttime Walking Tour of Cypress Lawn Memorial Park
1363 El Camino Real, Colma, CA 94014
Meet docent Terry Hamburg at the Nobel Chapel for the annual nighttime walking tour.
http://www.cypresslawnheritagefoundation.org/events/walking-tours/

Sunday, October 28 from 10 am–5 pm
Ghost Tour: Shipwrecks of Point Reyes
Starts at the Historic Life-Saving Service Cemetery
18618-19084 Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, Point Reyes Station, CA 94956
For youth, ages 12 and up, with adult supervision.
Tickets are $40.
Do the ghosts of doomed sailors haunt Point Reyes’ treacherous shores? We’ll pay our respects at a historic cemetery and travel out to the sites of myriad maritime tragedies, seeking personal connection to long lost ships and those who wait to tell their stories from the bottom of the sea.
http://www.ptreyes.org/camps-classes-programs/field-institute/classes/ghost-tour-shipwrecks-point-reyes-1

Sunday, October 28 from noon-3 pm
Cycles of History: Haunted Colma
$15-50 sliding scale donation (but we are flexible and you can pay less–or more!–as you see fit), benefiting Shaping San Francisco. Please RSVP to shaping@foundsf.org or 415.881.7579.
Meet at the Colma BART Station at 12 noon and then take a spirited tour of several massive cemeteries where famous San Franciscans are buried. Visit Woodlawn, Home of Peace and Hills of Eternity, Cypress Lawn, and Holy Cross. Return to Colma or South SF BART together at the end of the tour. Bring water and a snack.
https://sfbike.org/event/cycles-of-history-haunting-tour-of-colma-cemeteries/

Wednesday, October 31 at 6:30-7:45pm
Halloween Tour of Alhambra Cemetery
211 Foster St, Martinez, CA 94553
The Alhambra Pioneer Cemetery, established in 1851, has stunning views of the Carquinez Strait and a rich history. A tour guide will introduce you to families with names you know and some you don’t. You’ll learn more about local war heroes, personalities, politicians and a most creative caretaker. Tours are designed to enlighten, not frighten. Wear sturdy comfortable shoes and dress for the weather. Sorry, no children please! Bring a flashlight.
https://patch.com/california/martinez/calendar/event/20181024/398582/alhambra-cemetery-halloween-full-moon-tour-martinez

Saturday, November 3 at 10 am
Tour of Old St. Mary’s Cemetery
Meet at the St. Joseph Family Center, 7950 Church Street, Gilroy, CA 95020
Contact the Gilroy Museum at 408.846.0446 for more details.
https://visitgilroy.com/event/historic-walking-tour-william-weeks-buildings-copy/

Cemetery of the Week #167: Oak Hill Memorial Park

IMG_8984Oak Hill Memorial Park
300 Curtner Avenue, San Jose, California 95125
Phone: (408) 297-2447
Officially Founded: 1847
Size: more than 300 acres
Number of interments: approximately 20,000

Founded on November 29, 1777, San Jose was the first secular settlement in Northern California. Its original purpose was to raise crops for San Francisco’s Presidio. The first settlers in the pueblo of San Jose were Spanish soldiers who came up from Mexico with Juan Bautista de Anza.

As early as 1839, pueblo officials had started burying their dead under oak trees on the northern side of the San Bautista Hills. By the time surveyor Chester Lyman and Captain William Fisher of Rancho Laguna Seca chose a tract nearby for an official graveyard, none of the original markers remained. Lyman measured 25-1/4 acres for the Protestant and Catholic cemetery, along with four acres for a potter’s field.

The first recorded burial in this graveyard took place on November 22, 1849 when one of the children of Captain Julian Hanks was laid to rest. That wooden marker is thought to have been destroyed when a grass fire swept across the graveyard.

The burying ground was simply called the graveyard until December 6, 1858, when it was finally designated Oak Hill Cemetery. The name changed again in 1933, when the city of San Jose sold it to A. J. Hocking. He renamed it Oak Hill Memorial Park. Under the Hocking family management, a crematorium and the Parkview and Azalea Terraces mausoleums were built and the Garden of the Apostles and Chapel of Oaks were added. The cemetery was sold to a private corporation in 1986. Throughout the years, land has been added several times. Currently, the cemetery encompasses more than 300 acres.

Ygnacio Bernal, grandson of Joaquin Bernal, was born on his grandfather’s Rancho Santa Teresa land grant in Santa Clara County in 1841. Ygnacio spoke four languages and fathered nine children with Jesusita Patron, who lies beside him now.

Maggie Caldwell Fox was the first child born to Anglo-American immigrants who came overland to Santa Clara County. She was born in a damp barn at Mission Santa Clara in February 1847 and died in 1885.

Representatives of almost every early emigrant party — Murphy, Townsend, Schallenberger, Reed, Donner, Branham, etc. — rest at Oak Hill, in the oldest secular burial ground in continual use in California. The first overland party brought Josiah Belden, Grove Cook, Peter Springer, and Charles Weber to the Santa Clara Valley in 1841.

Rhoads_Townsend_SanJose.jpgThree years later, Dr. John Townsend led the first party of wagons to come over the Sierra mountains in 1844. He was the first licensed physician in San Francisco, where he also served as the city’s fourth alcalde (mayor during the Mexican era) before he caught Gold Fever. Townsend was also a founding member of the San Jose Lodge 10 of the Free and Accepted Masons. While nursing victims of a cholera epidemic in San Jose in 1850, he and his wife Elizabeth perished.

Several survivors of the Reed-Donner Party wagon train are buried at Oak Hill. James Frazier Reed was one of the party’s leaders, until he killed a teamster on the Humboldt River. The group banished him, so he went on alone to Sutter’s Fort in Sacramento, California. Once he heard the Donner Party was trapped in the Sierras by an early snowfall, Reed attempted to return to the party to resupply them, but was unable to reach them. He returned to the mountains the following February to help with the rescue. His wife and stepchildren survived the winter. After they settled in San Jose, Reed donated $34,000 in 1849 to provide a capitol building for the first State Legislature when the state capitol was San Jose. Reed’s daughter Patty, who was 8 at the time of the Donner Party rescue, took part in the 1918 dedication of the Pioneer Monument at Donner Lake.

IMG_8986George Donner Jr. was ten when his parents died in the Sierras during the winter of 1846-7. San Franciscans bought a lot for the boy, who grew up to be a grain dealer and joined San Jose’s volunteer fire department. He died in 1874 and is buried with his four-year-old son Albert. For many years, George’s grave was unmarked, but a large granite monument to the Donners stands there now.

Also formerly buried in an unmarked grave is Anna Maria Bascom, who came to San Jose with her husband (another physician) via wagon train in 1849. She sewed together sheets of denim to make walls for a school and a church. Later, she ran a boarding house where all the politicians stayed while San Jose served as the state capitol. The Bascoms brought the first piano to San Jose. Several sources describe how Native Americans and those of Spanish heritage stood around outside the house to listen to the piano being played. Bascom Road was named for them.

Joseph E. Rucker and his brother drove 200 cows from Missouri to California in 1852. The cattle, which they’d bought for $10 a head, sold for $150-200 each in California. Joseph invested his earnings in real estate. His son Samuel, also buried here, served in the California legislature and was elected mayor of San Jose in 1889.

IMG_9002Mountain Charlie, whose real name was Charles H. McKiernan, built most of the early roads into the Santa Cruz Mountains and ran a stagecoach line between Los Gatos and Santa Cruz. He controlled lumber mills, orchards, vineyards, and raised sheep and cattle. On May 8, 1854, Charlie got between a mama grizzly bear and her two cubs. Although she crushed the front of his skull in her jaws, he survived the attack. For the rest of his life, he wore his hat pulled low to disguise this disfigurement. He died of stomach cancer 38 years after the attack. Charlie’s grave is a California Registered Point of Historical Interest. The plaque remembers him as the “most colorful of all characters in the Santa Cruz Mountains.”

Belle Butler, who staked the claim for the Mizpah Mine — the richest silver mine in Nevada — sold her stake for $338,000. She is buried under a large heavy granite pillar with her daughter Lotty. During her life, Belle was known as the Angel of Charity.

In 1852, Frenchman Charles Lefranc planted grapes along the Guadalupe River on land that became New Almaden Vineyard. His vineyard combined cuttings he’d brought from France with cuttings from General Vallejo’s vineyards north of San Francisco. By 1862, Lefranc was producing wine commercially. In 1887, he came out of his cellar to find a team of horses running amok. While trying to stop them, he was trampled. His injuries led to his death several days later.

Paul Masson emigrated to the US in 1878. He worked in Lefranc’s vineyards and married Lefranc’s daughter Louise. Masson and his brother-in-law Henry experimented with bubbling wines. By the end of the 19th century, Masson was America’s premier champagne producer. The Paul Masson winery in Saratoga is now known as the Mountain Winery, which offers an annual summer concert series.

Jacob Rich, native of Poland, came to San Jose in 1853 and opened a tailor shop. In 1877, he established a public horsecar line. Sixteen years later, he controlled 17 miles of electric streetcar lines. He helped to organize Temple Bickur Cholin, San Jose’s original Jewish synagogue.

Judge David Belden moved to San Jose in 1871, in time to be appointed to the new Twentieth Judicial District. He presided over the trial of bandit Tiburcio Vasquez in January 1875. Afterward, Belden served on the State Supreme Court until his death in 1888.

German immigrant Henry Rengstorff owned six farms and orchards around Santa Clara County. He raised grain, hay, and fruit. The thoroughfare in Mountain View that bears his name used to run to Rengstorff’s Landing, one of many landings along the bay. His monument combines a gothic aedicule over a shrouded urn.

Charles H. Harmon came west at the age of 15 and soon began to paint. His panorama of the Santa Clara Valley orchards in bloom was displayed at the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. Some of his paintings have been collected by the San Jose Historical Museum.

Internationally known painter Astley D. M. Cooper painted Native Americans and Western scenes. His huge canvases adorned saloons during the 31 years he lived in San Jose. Several paintings are in the collection of the San Jose Historical Museum. His painting “Trilby” sold for $62,000.

Frank H. Holmes and his brother Arthur were the first to drive an automobile in — and back out — of Yosemite. They made the trip in 1901 in Frank’s Stanley Steamer. Frank built automobiles in San Jose until the 1906 quake destroyed his factory. After that, he concentrated on growing and packing prunes.

Mary Ward became California’s first registered female embalmer in 1890. She and her husband William established their mortuary in 1888. She died in 1937.

Mrs. Catherine Smith advocated suffrage for all adult citizens, regardless of gender. She founded the San Jose Woman’s Club in 1894 and served as its president for ten years. She died in 1904. Her family monument is a square monument topped with a shrouded urn.

Buried in an unmarked grave is Carrie Stevens Walter, who wrote and edited the Santa Clara, a monthly magazine of short stories and essays. In 1900, she was the only woman on the Save the Redwoods Committee of the newly formed Sempervirens Club, which established Big Basin State Park and saved redwoods throughout the state. She lies beside her 19-year-old son in the Walter family plot.

In 1909, Charles David Herrold opened the world’s first broadcasting station in San Jose. His station took the call letters KWQ in 1921, before becoming KCBS. He died in 1948.

Much of this information was inspired by from A Walk Through the Past: San Jose’s Oak Hill Memorial Park. My review is here. You can buy your own copy on Amazon here.

IMG_8947

Just a pretty view in Oak Hill, with the hills south of San Jose in the distance.

Cemetery of the Week #166: Tulocay Cemetery

Tulocay Cemetery
411 Coombsville Road
Napa, California 94559
Telephone: 707-252-4727
GPS: 38.297821°N 122.271808°W
Established: 1859
Size: 49 acres (only 30 of which are developed)
Number of interments: More than 30,000

In 1841, California-born Don Cayetano Juarez received the 88,000-acre Tulucay Rancho from General Mariano Vallejo, the last governor of Mexican Alta California. Juarez used the land grant along the east side of the Napa River to ranch cattle. His 1845 adobe home still stands in the city of Napa and, after serving as a restaurant for many years, is currently being restored.

IMG_1862In December 1858, at the first meeting the new cemetery committee, Don Cayetano donated almost 50 acres of his land to the people of Napa for Tulocay Cemetery. (Apparently, the spelling was changed in the process.) In return, Juarez received a token payment of five dollars. Upon his sudden death in 1883, he was buried not far from the cemetery’s gate. His wife Maria Higuera Juarez joined him in 1890.

A little more than a mile away from the Juarez adobe, the cemetery stands east of downtown Napa on Coombsville Road. Called “one of Northern California’s most beautiful final resting places,” the cemetery spans Napa Valley history from the Mexican government through the Gold Rush and into the modern wine-making era.

Salvador Vallejo, sometimes called the Last Conquistador, was the brother of General Mariano Vallejo. The General gave his brother two land grants in Napa Valley, on which Salvador built three homes. As the head of the militia in Sonoma, Salvador served as his brother’s assistant. They were both captured during the Bear Flag Rebellion in Sonoma in June 1846 and imprisoned for two months at Sutter’s Fort in Sacramento. Salvador died in 1876 and was buried in Tulocay with his wife Maria Luz.

IMG_1897

The Coombs mausoleum stands in the shadow of the Tulocay Memorial Mausoleum.

Nathan Coombs, who came to Napa Valley in 1845, purchased some land from Salvador Vallejo. Coombs went on to found the city of Napa in 1847. He was the first of four generations to serve in the state legislature. He owned a stagecoach line with Sam Brannan and also raised racehorses. When Coombs died of consumption in 1877, 150 carriages rode in his cortege and 50 local pioneers marched. He was buried in the Coombs family mausoleum, beneath the statue of an angel called Resurrection. The angel had been imported from Italy for $1000.

Tulocay’s most important permanent resident is Mary Ellen Pleasant. Despite having been born enslaved, she went on to become a millionaire known as the Mother of Civil Rights in California. After she came to San Francisco in 1852, Pleasant owned several successful boarding houses and laundries and served as the terminus of the Underground Railroad, providing jobs and housing to people escaping the South. Pleasant was one of the financiers of John Brown’s attack on the Armory at Harper’s Ferry in 1859.

In addition, Pleasant supported the 1863 Right of Testimony bill that gave blacks the right to testify in California courts. In 1868, she sued the Northbeach and Mission Railroad in the California State Supreme Court for the right of blacks to have equal access to public transit. Her house at Octavia and Bush was known as the Black City Hall. Toward the end of her life, she lost her fortune after testifying in the divorce proceedings against millionaire senator William Sharon. He called her “Mammy” Pleasant in the press. That disparaging nickname stuck, despite Pleasant’s protests.

Although she died in poverty in San Francisco in 1904, Pleasant was buried in a friend’s grave plot near Tulocay’s front fence. A group now called the San Franciscan African American Historical and Cultural Society placed an impressive marker by R. Alan Williams there in 1965. The metal sculpture depicts “a forceful stand, holding a body of purpose,” according to the artist. The white Sierra granite slab was added in June 2011.

IMG_1892.JPG

Other historic figures at Tulocay:

In 1846, scout and mountain man James Clyman warned the Donner Party not to take the Hastings cut-off over the Sierra Nevadas. Clyman noted that the route was barely passable on foot and the wagons would never be able to make it. Unfortunately, he was right. Clyman kept a diary, which has survived.

Lilburn William Boggs, former Governor of Missouri, came to California in a wagon trail in 1846. He served as alcalde of Sonoma, then went to the California state constitutional convention as a delegate in 1850. Panthea, his second wife, was a granddaughter of Daniel Boone’s. Boggs died in Napa in 1860.

IMG_1883John Patchett came to Napa in 1850. He planted grapes and became the first commercial winemaker in the Valley in 1858. That first year, Patchett used a cider press to extract the grape juice. Somehow, the title of first winemaker was given to Charles Krug (who had apprenticed in Patchett’s winery). Patchett’s last vintage was 1865.

IMG_1884

The Sloopers monument

A tall monument marked with a sailing ship marks the graves of Jacob and Serena Anderson. Jacob Anderson Slogvik served on the sloop Restauration, which brought the first group of Norwegian immigrants to the US in October 1825. (Norwegian Americans consider it the Norwegian Mayflower.) Traveling on the Restauration was 11-year-old Serine Tormodsdatter, who married Jacob six years later. They came to California in 1854 by wagon train. The monument was placed on their graves in May 2004 by their descendants. The Norwegian stone honors them as the “Sloopers” who came the farthest west.

Emanuel Manasse, a German immigrant, joined Napa’s B.F. Sawyer Company in 1871. At the time, the company only used the sheep’s wool and wasted the sheepskins. Manasse pioneered a process for tanning sheepskins which made them waterproof. Later he developed a process to waterproof cowhide. Manasse’s so-called Napa Tan process revolutionized the tannery business.

John Greenwood was a retired sea captain who had a ranch in Napa. In February 1891, robbers attacked Greenwood and his wife Lucina, killing her. When the thieves were eventually captured, Billy Rowe, the murderer, was hanged in Napa’s Courthouse Square in 1897. Supposedly, Rowe haunts the Old Napa Courthouse at night. Lucina’s ghost has been blamed for computer glitches at Doctors Insurance Company, which stands on the site of her former home.

Tulocay_reenactors_Rhoads1874

Re-enactors stand beside the Grand Army of the Republic monument in Tulocay Cemetery, June 2015.

The Grand Army of the Republic (Union veterans of the civil war) purchased a lot in Tulocay Cemetery in 1914. The Ladies Relief Corps, the women’s auxiliary group, paid for the monument, which was dedicated on Memorial Day 1915, the 50th anniversary of the end of the war.

Another Civil War veteran is buried beneath a marker labeled “Here Sleeps the Brave.” Lt. John Tuthill served in the Ram Fleet on the Mississippi River, using a heavily armed steamboat to ram Confederate ships to clear the Mississippi for shipping. Tuthill developed tuberculosis (called consumption in those days) and came to California for his health after the war. He died in 1868.

William Franklin Brandt was the last Civil War veteran buried in Tulocay. He died in Napa on April 9, 1937. After he was born in 1842 in Bedford County, Pennsylvania, his family moved to Iowa, where he enlisted at the age of 20. He served in Company F, 12th US Infantry for three years, fighting at Gettysburg. He met President Lincoln on a battlefield at one point and was lavish in his praise of the president afterward. Brandt was discharged in Richmond, Virginia in 1865 and brought his family to California in 1884, farming first in Sebastopol, then in Napa.

A historic plaque was placed in June 2012 to remember Eino Lindquist, a Finn who survived the sinking of the Titanic. After working in the Pennsylvania steel mills, Lindquist came to California, where he suffered from schizophrenia. He lived at the Napa State Hospital, where he succumbed to a stroke on Halloween 1958 at the age of 66. The exact site of his grave isn’t known, but he’s buried alongside other patients from the psychiatric hospital in the potter’s field section of the cemetery.

The cemetery contains casualties of both World Wars, victims of the Spanish flu pandemic, and Chinese laborers. In fact, Tulocay has a large Chinese immigrant section. If the graves were ever marked, their temporary wooden monuments have either deteriorated or burned in one of several fires to sweep the cemetery.

Tours of Tulocay were hosted formerly by Napa Valley Landmarks. These often drew between 150-200 attendees, but were discontinued when historian Nancy Berman retired. Her work continues in the series of self-guided walking tours at http://www.tulocaycemetery.org/cemetery-tours.

Useful links:

Tulocay’s homepage: tulocaycemetery.org

Napa County Landmarks: https://napacountylandmarks.org/

Mysterious monument in Tulocay Cemetery: https://napavalleyregister.com/news/local/the-mystery-of-a-child-s-grave-stone-at-napa/article_60d75e1d-8201-50c6-b981-5bf6f993100b.html

The restoration of the Juarez adobe: https://napavalleyregister.com/news/local/napa-s-old-adobe-a-relic-of-the-th-century/

One of Juarez’s descendants visits the Juarez adobe: https://napavalleyregister.com/news/local/a-napa-forefather-s-descendant-comes-home-to-say-goodbye/article_de5286c6-dd72-5b60-ba06-48a5e683c3c3.html

 

Cemetery Travel in San Francisco

The time has come to gather all the San Francisco cemetery pieces spread across Cemetery Travel into one place. These posts served as research for the Laurel Hill Cemetery speech I gave at the Swedish American Hall last night. If you’re visiting Cemetery Travel from last night’s Memento Mori event, welcome.

This list of links does not yet tell the complete story of San Francisco’s eviction of its dead. I’m very close to finishing a new book with the working title of The Pioneer Cemeteries of the San Francisco Bay Area, which will go into much more detail — and have more pictures. My search for a publisher will begin shortly. Stay tuned!

A selection of the graveyards of San Francisco:

BroderickLone Mountain001

Image from a stereoview card of Senator David Broderick’s obelisk in Lone Mountain Cemetery, San Francisco, 1866

Former Laurel Hill Cemetery site:
https://cemeterytravel.com/2014/09/03/cemetery-of-the-week-145-the-ghost-of-san-franciscos-laurel-hill/

Former Russian Hill cemetery site:
https://cemeterytravel.com/2014/01/08/cemetery-of-the-week-119-san-franciscos-russian-hill/

Former Marine Hospital Cemetery memorial:
https://cemeterytravel.com/2012/11/14/cemetery-of-the-week-83-united-states-marine-hospital-cemetery/

Mission Dolores:
https://cemeterytravel.com/2011/04/27/cemetery-of-the-week-13-mission-dolores-cemetery/

Neptune Society Columbarium at the former Odd Fellows Cemetery:
https://cemeterytravel.com/2011/08/31/cemetery-of-the-week-30-the-san-francisco-columbarium/

Thomas Starr King’s grave:
https://cemeterytravel.com/2012/09/25/weekly-photo-challenge-solitary/

San Francisco National Cemetery:
https://cemeterytravel.com/2013/02/20/cemetery-of-the-week-91-san-francisco-national-cemetery/

Where San Franciscans were moved to in Colma:

Cypress Lawn obelisk001

An obelisk marks the Pioneer Mound at Cypress Lawn

Cypress Lawn Memorial Park:
https://cemeterytravel.com/2012/04/11/cemetery-of-the-week-55-cypress-lawn-memorial-park/

Home of Peace:
https://cemeterytravel.com/2014/05/07/cemetery-of-the-week-135-temple-emanu-els-home-of-peace/

Hills of Eternity:
https://cemeterytravel.com/2013/11/13/cemetery-of-the-week-116-wyatt-earps-gravesite/

Woodlawn Memorial Park:
https://cemeterytravel.com/2013/01/02/cemetery-of-the-week-85-the-gravesite-of-emperor-norton/

Olivet Memorial Park:
https://cemeterytravel.com/2018/04/04/cemetery-of-the-week-165-olivet-memorial-park/

Memento Mori evening

Screen Shot 2018-04-10 at 12.01.38 PMTuesday, April 17, I’ll be participating in the citywide Reimagine End of Life festival across San Francisco from April 16-22. The evening I’m part of is called Memento Mori.

Memento Mori is an ancient Roman phrase meaning “Remember Your Mortality.” Come experience a night of amazing creators sharing their work and unique backstories on the topic of mortality, loss, memory, and love.

The lineup for Memento Mori is:

  • investigation of the history of the lost cemeteries of SF – Loren Rhoads
  • Emotions and the end of life ( Fear and Panic) from the Western Psychological Point of view, how secular Buddhism can help (Separate-Selflessness and Impermanence) – Dr. Paul Ekman and Dr. Eve Ekman
  • death of neighborhoods and the effect on the people that live there – Liz Ogbu
  • the art of shadow puppetry and the stories within -Daniel Barash
  • a poignant visual symphony covering a recent police shooting of a young man, from a healing mother’s perspective – Angelica Ekeke
  • tracing the roots of the themes of dying, death and mourning at the end of life, and how we can deal with it – Dr. September Williams
  • and a thought provoking look at the sound in hospitals and how it effects our ability to heal and to die in peace….Yoko Sen

You can get tickets here: https://letsreimagine.org/event-share/5/event/487

You can find the whole Reimagine End of Life schedule here: https://letsreimagine.org/san-francisco/schedule/all.