I knew it would start happening and last week the reality of my prediction about life started to take shape.  I knew that in time, if I lived long enough, that my friends, my contemporaries would start to die away, and last week this started in my life in a glaring manner.

Two of my long time buddies died within days of each other.  One was Jack Hogan and the other was Bruce Overton.  It is not necessary to eulogize these two marvelous human beings in this writing, for everything that could be said about their stellar human qualities have already been put to ink and page and also spoken in public.  I have nothing to add save for the fact that the three of us, over time made our own history.

History is for me a way of life.  It is part of what makes me tick and I constantly process, filter and evaluate most every aspect of my life and the meaning of my life and my experiences through the eyes of history.  It has saved me many heartaches and headaches, but it is not 100% foolproof.

History is a tough and impersonal teacher most times.  History is what it is (of course depending on who is writing the history), for good or for bad.  Most interesting is that one’s own personal history is absolutely free.  Every human being on the face of the earth has a history and also possesses the freedom to close or open their own personal door to their own personal history anytime they wish.  That is a rare thing in life.  Most life issues are not this black and white when it comes to absolute total freedom.

Closing the door on one’s history has with it a great risk great danger, for as the great Harvard philosopher George Santayana said “A person who forgets their history is condemned to repeat it.”  

Because of Jack and Bruce’s deaths I have been opening the door of my history, reflecting, reviewing, exploring and coming to renewed conclusions of why I did this or that or why I did not do this or that. 

The passing of these two men caused me to stop and look hard and long at my history, and honestly there are a couple of things, well actually a ton of things I would have done differently.  

I have never been an optimist, far from it.  However this week when I examined my life, stimulated by the deaths of Jack and Bruce, I concluded that here and there, now and then, just once in a while I have done good things and contributed something to life and to my profession.  That gives me comfort, and yes, there are people that I would like to track down and simply say “I am sorry” so my history as all histories also possesses regrets and utter failures.

Over the veil of history our lives evolve and continue till the last breath is taken, eyes are closed and thinking ends as it did last week for my two buddies, and as it will in time for me.  History and death are companions on the inner way.  They go hand in hand. 

Socrates said that “the unexamined life is not worth living.”  How true those words ring in my ears given the recent loss events in my life.  So I examined my life again this week in depth and was required for psychological health and balance to assimilate the dual realities that I have done good, and that I have done harm, they also seem to do hand in hand.

I suspect that if I live long enough more of my buddies will die and that once again I will honestly be compelled to explore, reflect, discern and make renewed conclusions about the experience of the meaning in my one solitary life, and I am prepared to do that, and to take once again that inward journey.

One interesting conclusion that I have arrived at in thinking about my history with Jack and Bruce and all the other people in my life is that my awareness that my history will also end one day is a great motivator for me to press ahead, to try to do good, and if I make mistakes make them on the side of kindness and generosity, and in the end to feel a God given-energy to live life, not perfectly, but to live life, for to be sure my Calvary will arrive soon enough.   TVB

Resources Available At The Library Of Congress Web Site (updated periodically)

Would You Await The Judgment Day In Urn Or In Coffin?
[New-York Tribune (New York [N.Y.]) September 04, 1910]

Prejudice Against Cremation Is On The Decline
[The Washington times (Washington [D.C.]): November 13, 1904]

Cremation's Odd Phase
[The Suburban Citizen (Washington, D.C) April 20, 1901]

Joaquin Miller Has Built His Own Funeral Pyre
[The San Francisco Call (San Francisco [Calif.]), October 9, 1898]

Cremating The Dead: It is warmly advocated
[The Salt Lake Herald (Salt Lake City [Utah) May 20, 1894]

Cremation For The South
[The Daily Herald (Brownsville, Tex) March 11, 1893]

Desiccation and Cremation
[Manufacturer and builder / Volume 21, Issue 8, August 1889]
Text version (uncorrected)

The New York Cremation Society
[Manufacturer and builder / Volume 19, Issue 6, June 1887]
Text version (uncorrected)

Cremation and Christianity
[The North American review. / Volume 143, Issue 359, October 1886]
Text version (uncorrected)

Cremation in Boston
[Manufacturer and builder / Volume 16, Issue 8, August 1884]
Text version (uncorrected)

Cremation
[Manufacturer and builder / Volume 16, Issue 7, July 1884]
Text version (uncorrected)

The Advantages of Cremation
[Manufacturer and builder / Volume 15, Issue 5, May 1883]
Text version (uncorrected)

Earth-burial and Cremation
[The North American review. / Volume 135, Issue 310, September 1882]
Text version (uncorrected)

Progress of Cremation
[Manufacturer and builder / Volume 13, Issue 11, November 1881]
Text version (uncorrected)

Cremation
[Manufacturer and builder / Volume 12, Issue 9, September 1880]
Text version (uncorrected)

Objections against Cremation>
[Manufacturer and builder / Volume 6, Issue 6, June 1874]
Text version (uncorrected)

Comparing the past, present and future

Historically, women have been the caretakers of the sick, but they also played a large part in the care of the dead. For example, women were responsible for preparing the remains of the ancient Greeks, included washing, dressing and anointing the body Christian families saw it as their duty to take care of their own dead, and it was usually the women who handled this.

In Hebrew tradition, women did the washing and dressing because it was considered unclean and distasteful work for the priestly class. Likewise, colonial American women prepared their dead, unless the family was well-to-do, in which case a nurse could be hired to wash and lay out the body. Either way, it was still most likely a woman doing the job. All of these customs heavily influenced modern American funeral practices.

During the 19th century, when carpenters and cabinet-makers began practicing undertaking, nurses and midwives were acting as layers-out of the dead. This carried on through the late 1800s and into the early 20th century, when most deaths still occurred at home.

It was during this period that undertaking was first emerging as a distinct occupational specialty. Newspapers advertisements refer to both male and female tradesmen. Although they were ''tradesmen" and belonged to ''brotherhoods'' such as Steward of the Guild, the funeral service industry was one of the few trades that welcomed women in the days when the business world was dominated by educated, land-owning, white men.

Of course the 19th-century Victorian notions of decency were strict, and by this time women were only allowed to handle the remains of other women or children. (It was considered inappropriate for a man to embalm an unclothed woman he did not know.) Still, women were not prohibited from entering the trade, even though they were not commonly seen in the ranks of undertakers in the early years.

This brings us to the 20th century and one of the pioneer women of embalming, Lina D. Odou. Odou was born in Spain, but ended up in London at the age of 15. She acquired her passion for nursing when she met Florence Nightingale, who took Odou as her protégé and sponsored her training as a nurse.

Odou worked as a Red Cross nurse in the French Army and then became a private nurse to several royal families. Around this time she began advocating the use of female embalmers to handle the remains of women and children. She was once quoted as saying, "Over and over again have I heard mothers ask undertakers if they could not furnish women embalmers for their dead daughters, and many others to whom the dead are sacred have asked the same question, and I have invariably heard such men say there are no women to be had for such a purpose."

This is what motivated her to become an expert in the practice herself. She studied in Switzerland and then in 1899 moved to the United States, where she opened a school for women at the undertaking establishment of the Rev. Stephen Merritt. Her first class graduated 10 students. After two years, she went on to establish the Lina D. Odou Embalming Institute in early 1901 at Frank E. Campbell's establishment.

Due to Odou's work, writings and example, training of women embalmers gained increased support. She submitted editorials to trade journals advocating the use of female embalmers in undertaking firms and even the giants in the field supported the concept. Still, many establishments would not allow women to handle the remains of men.

As the "Superintendent of the Women's Department" at her own mortuary, Odou also organized the Women's Licensed Embalmer Association to furnish female embalmers to families and undertakers. She blazed a trail for other women to follow and they did, opening other institutions
that trained a pioneer corps of female embalmers that would practice at firms throughout the country.

Not everyone was receptive to the idea of women joining the trade. I'm sure the trend in the '50s of women typically holding "womanly" jobs such as nurse, teacher and stay-at-home mom put a wrench in the works. Women were second-class citizens and were thought to have no place in the business field.

The further the funeral industry headed toward becoming a profession, the further women were left behind. If you weren't family in a family-owned business, it was most likely unheard of for a woman to be in the prep room unless she was on the table. This mentality is still held by some of the older generation of embalmers today.

Whatever setbacks women might have seen, women's liberation sure changed all that, in this industry as well as many others. Now women are allowed to work on men as well as women and children. As the inclusion of women has increased, so has women's interest. In my class alone, the women outnumber the men at least two-to-one.

I think it is part of that innate desire in women to help others, carrying on the tradition of women being the primary caretakers in our society. Stereotypes don't come about without a reason, and whether it is true or not, people believe women are better at consolation.

I believe women have a very solid future in the funeral industry because of these notions. Some families will open up more and generally feel better with their loved one in the caring hands of a woman. I believe people today, as in Odou's time, want women to handle their sacred dead.

Women are also generally considered to be honest and innocent, even though we know that is not always the case. Families feel like they can trust a woman and won't be taken advantage of, as could easily happen during the arrangement process.

Bottom line, women have the talent and the care to be at the top in this field. Though only an estimated 10 percent of our class will stay in the field, I for one can attest that we women will make our mark on the future, following the legacy of pioneering female embalmers.

The public wants a funeral director who is competent in meeting their physical, psychological and sociological needs, and we will not let them down. There will be a whole new face to the funeral industry, and it is going to have a lot less facial hair.
By: Ellen Broaddus

Historically, women have been the caretakers of the sick, but they also played a large part in the care of the dead. For example, women were responsible for preparing the remains of the ancient Greeks, included washing, dressing and anointing the body Christian families saw it as their duty to take care of their own dead, and it was usually the women who handled this.

In Hebrew tradition, women did the washing and dressing because it was considered unclean and distasteful work for the priestly class. Likewise, colonial American women prepared their dead, unless the family was well-to-do, in which case a nurse could be hired to wash and lay out the body. Either way, it was still most likely a woman doing the job. All of these customs heavily influenced modern American funeral practices.

During the 19th century, when carpenters and cabinet-makers began practicing undertaking, nurses and midwives were acting as layers-out of the dead. This carried on through the late 1800s and into the early 20th century, when most deaths still occurred at home.

It was during this period that undertaking was first emerging as a distinct occupational specialty. Newspapers advertisements refer to both male and female tradesmen. Although they were ''tradesmen" and belonged to ''brotherhoods'' such as Steward of the Guild, the funeral service industry was one of the few trades that welcomed women in the days when the business world was dominated by educated, land-owning, white men.

Of course the 19th-century Victorian notions of decency were strict, and by this time women were only allowed to handle the remains of other women or children. (It was considered inappropriate for a man to embalm an unclothed woman he did not know.) Still, women were not prohibited from entering the trade, even though they were not commonly seen in the ranks of undertakers in the early years.

This brings us to the 20th century and one of the pioneer women of embalming, Lina D. Odou. Odou was born in Spain, but ended up in London at the age of 15. She acquired her passion for nursing when she met Florence Nightingale, who took Odou as her protégé and sponsored her training as a nurse.

Odou worked as a Red Cross nurse in the French Army and then became a private nurse to several royal families. Around this time she began advocating the use of female embalmers to handle the remains of women and children. She was once quoted as saying, "Over and over again have I heard mothers ask undertakers if they could not furnish women embalmers for their dead daughters, and many others to whom the dead are sacred have asked the same question, and I have invariably heard such men say there are no women to be had for such a purpose."

This is what motivated her to become an expert in the practice herself. She studied in Switzerland and then in 1899 moved to the United States, where she opened a school for women at the undertaking establishment of the Rev. Stephen Merritt. Her first class graduated 10 students. After two years, she went on to establish the Lina D. Odou Embalming Institute in early 1901 at Frank E. Campbell's establishment.

Due to Odou's work, writings and example, training of women embalmers gained increased support. She submitted editorials to trade journals advocating the use of female embalmers in undertaking firms and even the giants in the field supported the concept. Still, many establishments would not allow women to handle the remains of men.

As the "Superintendent of the Women's Department" at her own mortuary, Odou also organized the Women's Licensed Embalmer Association to furnish female embalmers to families and undertakers. She blazed a trail for other women to follow and they did, opening other institutions
that trained a pioneer corps of female embalmers that would practice at firms throughout the country.

Not everyone was receptive to the idea of women joining the trade. I'm sure the trend in the '50s of women typically holding "womanly" jobs such as nurse, teacher and stay-at-home mom put a wrench in the works. Women were second-class citizens and were thought to have no place in the business field.

The further the funeral industry headed toward becoming a profession, the further women were left behind. If you weren't family in a family-owned business, it was most likely unheard of for a woman to be in the prep room unless she was on the table. This mentality is still held by some of the older generation of embalmers today.

Whatever setbacks women might have seen, women's liberation sure changed all that, in this industry as well as many others. Now women are allowed to work on men as well as women and children. As the inclusion of women has increased, so has women's interest. In my class alone, the women outnumber the men at least two-to-one.

I think it is part of that innate desire in women to help others, carrying on the tradition of women being the primary caretakers in our society. Stereotypes don't come about without a reason, and whether it is true or not, people believe women are better at consolation.

I believe women have a very solid future in the funeral industry because of these notions. Some families will open up more and generally feel better with their loved one in the caring hands of a woman. I believe people today, as in Odou's time, want women to handle their sacred dead.

Women are also generally considered to be honest and innocent, even though we know that is not always the case. Families feel like they can trust a woman and won't be taken advantage of, as could easily happen during the arrangement process.

Bottom line, women have the talent and the care to be at the top in this field. Though only an estimated 10 percent of our class will stay in the field, I for one can attest that we women will make our mark on the future, following the legacy of pioneering female embalmers.

The public wants a funeral director who is competent in meeting their physical, psychological and sociological needs, and we will not let them down. There will be a whole new face to the funeral industry, and it is going to have a lot less facial hair.

Having a crematory gives you a chance to talk to cremation families about services and memorialization, which is what funeral directors and cemeterians are really interested in.  But first thing first: Make sure you do it right.

WHAT: Whether you operate a cemetery or a funeral home, whether you've been in business for a year, 50 years or 150 years, whether the cremation rate in your area is 5 percent or 55 percent, you should be thinking about how to serve cremation families.

WHY: For years, the Cremation Association of North America has been compiling statistics and making projections showing that the cremation rates across North America will continue to climb. They still vary a lot from one area to another, but no matter where you are, you can count on serving more cremation families every year-if you want to stay in business.

The most recent Wirthlin Report found that 46 percent of Americans surveyed plan to choose cremation, and CANA predicts the cremation rate will be 43 percent by 2025.

In Ohio, the cremation rate in 2002 was 22 percent; by 2010, the Ohio rate is supposed to be 31 percent. There's no stopping this.

HOW: If you don't already have a crematorium, think about adding one. If you do, make sure you operate it with due diligence. If you're a cemeterian, you need to be constantly thinking of what to offer cremation families.

Spring Grove added a crematory in 1967, placing it in the Memorial Mausoleum, built in 1963 with plans for adding the retorts. We have two retorts. The cremation rate was still very low all across the United States—the national average was 3.5 percent in 1959, but Spring Grove was thinking ahead.

Fife wasn't here yet, but Smitty was working as a student: "I remember being called over by the operators to look at it, and I remember thinking 'This place is full service all the way around."

The sales manager for the mausoleum, Leo Mistak, who served as CANA president in the late '60s, was certainly aware of the need to plan for a rising cremation rate.

He was undoubtedly one of the people making sure Spring Grove added the planned-for retorts sooner rather than later. (Spring Grove has continued its affiliation with CANA; Spring Grove Chief Financial Officer Chris Krabbe is currently second vice president of the association.)

There was one other crematory in the area when Spring Grove added its retorts; today there are many more in Cincinnati and in nearby Dayton, as well. Most are affiliated with a funeral home or cemetery; one is affiliated with a burial vault company.

By the early '70s, we were handling 300 or more cremations a year, though only about 7 percent of our cemetery business involved cremation. Today, with all the competition out there, we're doing more like 200, but 21 percent of our cemetery business involves cremation.

We also sold thousands of cremation certificates years ago. These preneed certificates were a great deal for people, because when they're redeemed, people are getting a cremation performed for a 30- or 40-year-old price!

Even so, it's good for Spring Grove, too. Several people come in every week to redeem these certificates, or funeral directors send along an order that includes contact information.

We make sure we call people and ask if they can come to the cemetery so we can share with them the wonderful cremation memorialization opportunities we have here—a lot more than we had in 1967! (And which we'll describe in detail in the next issue.)

Training and maintenance
We keep four or five staff members trained as cremation technicians; they take turns working on Saturdays. All have gone through CANA training and been CANA certified.

All the cremation technicians spend time learning from James King, our main cremation tech, who also takes care of the building. We then send them through the training program CANA runs down in Orlando, Florida.

Because we're only doing about 200 cremations annually, our cremation technicians are doing other things most of the time. They probably only spend 20 percent of their time on processing and doing cremations. They are also responsible for handling inurnments and shipping cremated remains.

Even though we're not a high-volume operation as far as our crematory, we make sure the crematory is run according to the same high standards people expect from anything associated with Spring Grove.

Periodically a crematory operation somewhere receives a "black eye" that gets in the press. You want to make sure your facility is above reproach. If your operation is not CANA certified, you probably need to be.

Most of the training revolves around paperwork, making sure everything is documented correctly and proper signatures are gathered. Every "i" has to be dotted and every "t" has to be crossed.

In addition to that initial training, we routinely schedule training meetings for the cremation technicians, usually each quarter.

Someone different from the staff runs through the entire procedure of processing a cremation, from start to finish. We just want to make sure every technician is handling cremations the same way.

Even though we're training four people to handle about 200 cremations, because of the repercussions that would be involved if we didn't do everything exactly right, we believe proper training is very cost effective.

You simply cannot run a crematory and take the attitude that it costs too much to send people to CANA for training or to have periodic procedure review sessions.

You also have to budget for maintenance. When you're talking about something where the temperature is 1,800 degrees every time you do a cremation, there are going to be maintenance and repair costs. Periodically you have to rebuild and reline the inside of the retort, and occasionally the stack will require repair.

Of course, Spring Grove's crematory is old. If you install a new unit, you'll be getting something much more efficient. The people who sell and install your crematory should be able to give you guidance on maintenance schedules.

When you have a cemetery, one of the ways you hope to balance out the cost of running and maintaining a crematory is by providing memorialization options that are so exciting and compelling that people are choosing inurnment or interment at your property.

The fact is, when you look at the charge for simply performing a cremation, it's a wonderful service for the customer, but for the cemetery the dollars are pretty low when you consider the training and professionalism involved in providing the service.

Capturing a big percentage of your cremation customers on the memorialization side is how you generate income that makes cremation a win-win situation for families and for the cemetery.

Next month we'll talk about how cremation memorialization has evolved at the Grove and how we make sure we leave options for future generations.

Next: Cremation memorialization, past, present and future.

How star Ann Sheridan's cremated remains were rescued from storage and laid to rest 38 years after her death

 
When Karen McHale began research on a biography of Ann Sheridan last fall, she quickly found herself in the unusual position of literally writing the last chapter of the actress' life story before typing one word of the manuscript.

Thirty-eight years after the classic film star's death, McHale helped bring about the inurnment Sheridan had requested but that had been forgotten.

McHale, who is also a Hollywood cemetery history buff, knew that Sheridan's cremated remains had been kept at Los Angeles' oldest crematorium, Pierce Brothers Chapel of the Pines, since her 1967 death from esophageal cancer at age 51.

What she wasn't aware of until she obtained a copy of Sheridan's last will and testament was that the screen beauty had never intended to spend eternity in a private drawer.

According to the public document, which was probated in Los Angeles under her married name, Clara Lou McKay, the Texas native stated that she wanted her executor to place her cremated remains in a niche at a Los Angeles columbarium of his choice.

"As her biographer, I needed to find out why Ann's cremains were left in storage against her wishes, but I also felt an equal responsibility toward her as a human being to correct the situation if I could," said McHale, a first-time author who lives in Whittier, California.

McHale's sense of duty resulted in several months of legwork that led to Sheridan being laid to rest in proper fashion at Hollywood Forever Cemetery's Chapel Columbarium during a celebratory memorial service on the day that would have been her 90th birthday, February 21, 2005.

Step 1: Locate a survivor
First, McHale first needed to locate a Sheridan survivor, no small task considering she had already established that Sheridan's husband, actor Scott McKay, died in 1987; she never had children; and her immediate family, including five siblings, were also all deceased.

McHale got the break she needed after following leads on a genealogy Web site. In short order she was in contact with the Rev. Sallie Watson of Beaumont, Texas, whose late mother was Sheridan's first cousin.
Watson was surprised and delighted to learn of McHale's book proposal, as well as her interest in the unresolved state of her famous relative's cremated remains.

The Presbyterian minister explained to McHale that somewhere along the line Sheridan had become estranged from her family for reasons unknown to the current generation. Watson was only 10 when Sheridan died and never had the opportunity to know cousin Clara Lou ("Loudie," she was called), but agreed with McHale that claiming her cremated remains and interring them as directed in the will was the right thing to do.

Step 2: Find a columbarium
By comparison with finding a relative, locating an appropriate columbarium niche was "a no-brainer," according to McHale. Now acting as an authorized family representative, she brought Sheridan's case to Tyler Cassity, owner and president of Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles.

The historic 60-acre site is not only the burial place of hundreds of movie industry workers, including notables such as Rudolph Valentino, Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Jr. and Cecil B. DeMille, it's also located next door to Paramount Studios in Hollywood, where Sheridan began her film career in 1933.

"We're deeply honored that Ann Sheridan's family chose our cemetery as her final resting place," said Cassity, who knows a lot about rescuing human remains from obscurity. He saved the former Hollywood Memorial Cemetery when it was in danger of permanent closure by purchasing it for $375,000 at a bankruptcy court auction in 1998.

Since then, his family's company has restored the once-neglected property, revitalized it with added mausoleum space and started offering families video biography memorial production services.

Meanwhile, McHale discovered that Sheridan's executor, her business manager Bart Hackly, lived near Los Angeles. She spoke with him by phone and he recalled that Sheridan's husband (her third, to whom she was married less than a year) handled all the mortuary details, and he chose not to interfere.

Once Sheridan's debts were settled, there wasn't a lot of money left over, Hackly said, so he didn't pursue the matter of interment. In retrospect, he expressed regret for not having done so and gave McHale his blessing for the relocation.

Step 3: Handle the paperwork
Verbal permission from Sheridan's family and estate executor notwithstanding, a three-step county and cemetery documentation process also was required:

First, McHale, again serving as family representative, signed a Los Angeles County Department of Health application for disposition of human remains that authorized a permit for the disinterment and removal of Sheridan's cremated remains from Chapel of the Pines.

Next, a Chapel of the Pines form was signed by both Watson and her aunt, Sheridan's last remaining first cousin, notarized and returned along with a certified copy of McKay's death certificate. These documents served to legally verify the two women as Sheridan's closet living survivors and to grant Chapel of the Pines permission to release her cremated remains to Hollywood Forever.

Third, McHale signed a Los Angeles County burial permit and a Hollywood Forever interment order that authorized placement of Sheridan's remains in a specific niche.

"It was a very uncomplicated process that was made all the more efficient by the friendly and cooperative efforts of the staff at Chapel of the Pines," McHale said.

With the paperwork in order, McHale accompanied Hollywood Forever's celebrity funeral care liaison Michael Roman, who had been assigned to the case he calls "a labor of love," on a weekday afternoon drive to nearby Chapel of the Pines. There she witnessed the simple copper box holding Sheridan's cremated remains changing hands, an experience she described as being "unceremonious yet historically and emotionally momentous for everyone involved."

Step 4: Create a personalized niche
Once the remains were secured in a vault on Hollywood Forever premises, McHale put on her "niche stylist" hat to spearhead the design of Sheridan's new memorial.

With Roman's assistance, she had already chosen a 35-by-30-by-12-inch glass-fronted, brass-toned metal niche specifically for its location on the airy, windowed second floor of the cemetery's Chapel Columbarium. She had learned that Sheridan was claustrophobic. "I couldn't bear to think of her in a dark enclosure knowing that she hated that when she was alive," said McHale.

McHale's friend Mike Steen, "Funeral Director to the Stars" and author of "Celebrity Death Certificates" of Woodlawn Cemetery in Santa Monica, California, donated an elegant l0-inch white marble urn featuring deep green and caramel brown art deco inlays finely outlined in brass.

Drawing inspiration from the urn colors and Sheridan's earthy femininity, McHale found coordinating brass-toned and green satins and a shimmering copper-colored sheer for the overall backdrop, deftly styled by a cemetery employee who has a background in movie set decorating.

Her father, a woodworking hobbyist, custom cut boards to fit the back wall and used them to anchor the fabrics and support a hanging framed portrait.

Opting to decorate the niche in a less-is-more fashion that would still represent Sheridan's life and 35-year career, McHale found it a challenge to select a single headshot for the back wall—there were dozens of possibilities to choose from. "Ann was extremely photogenic, and from what I've seen she never took a bad picture," McHale said.

McHale decided on a 1939 portrait by famed Hollywood photographer George Hurrell because it matched the niche's overall theme and encapsulated Sheridan's smoldering sensuality. Hurrell's former student and Hollywood historian Mark Vieira donated the print, which he struck from the original negative using Hurrell's darkroom techniques.

Sheridan was one of the first movie stars to appear on the cover of Life magazine. Roman, a knowledgeable classic film enthusiast, tracked down an original copy that he framed to match the Hurrell portrait. It was placed on the shelf to the right of the urn.

To the left is a smaller candid pose, from McHale's research collection, which she put in a pearled frame. It shows Sheridan standing with Air Force personnel in front a World War II fighter plane that bears her face and name on the nose art in tribute to her tireless patriotic volunteer efforts cheering the troops and selling war bonds.

By far the most personal items in the display are Sheridan's wedding band, inscribed "Ann Scott 66," and a pair of gold hoop earrings. Both were discovered in an envelope inside the original storage box when her cremated remains were transferred to the urn, indicating that most likely she was wearing them when she died.

"Michael called me as soon as they found the jewelry, which is not expensive but highly sentimental. It was an overwhelmingly exciting moment for us both, because until that point we were concerned about not having anything that had belonged to Ann to leave with her inside the niche," McHale said.

The display was completed with an engraved plaque placed in front of the urn which reads "Clara Lou Sheridan McKay Ann Sheridan - February 21, 1915 January 21, 1967 - Star of Stage and Screen."  

Step 5: Hold a memorial service
Atypical stormy weather on the day of the memorial did not keep the Sheridan faithful away from the service orchestrated by McHale and Roman. Approximately 100 family, friends and fans gathered in the chapel amid torrential rains, thunder, lightning and a few moments of hail.

Referring to Sheridan's fondness for pulling pranks, Hollywood's Honorary Mayor Johnny Grant quipped during the ceremony that he had no doubt his friend was "right now looking down from heaven and smiling because she's got her hand on the water faucet."

Roman hosted the service on behalf of Cassity, who was out of town on business. He noted that it had been only four months earlier that he had begun working with an enthusiastic McHale on "springing Ann Sheridan from storage," and that she could now be crossed off the list of silent and Golden Age film actors whose remains are unclaimed.

On a personal note, he expressed his belief that the entire process, one of the most non-problematic and joyful in his experience, was due in large part to the presence of Sheridan's spirit, an energy that undoubtedly had been the source of her reputation for being easy to work with in life.
The Rev. Watson, who flew in from Texas with four friends, spoke on behalf of the family and gave the opening and closing prayers. She thanked Cassity and the Hollywood Forever staff for their sensitivity and their hospitality in providing her cousin a "beautiful resting place," and to McHale for her hard work, good humor and sleuthing skills.

Watson told the gathering that despite past family differences that she does not understand, "being here today we have come full circle," and added, ''To paraphrase a saying we have in Texas, Ann may not have been originally buried here but she got here as fast as she could."

Grant, a longtime friend of Sheridan's, regaled the attendees with humorous stories from their halcyon days. He said that back then it was not politically incorrect to define Sheridan as "the greatest broad I ever knew," and that she loved being known as "a gorgeous babe and one of the guys."

Sheridan's language could be colorful, Grand said. "More than once she told me where to go and made it sound eloquent." But more important, he remembered the kindness and generosity she showed him and everyone she met, especially her fans.

In line with the cemetery's offering of video memorials to their clients, Hollywood Forever's celebrity biographer, Annette Lloyd, introduced the tribute she produced around Sheridan singing the song ''Love is Born, Not Made" from the film ''Thank Your Lucky Stars." It also included various photos, magazine covers, print ads and other movie clips. After its premiere at the service, the video was uploaded to Sheridan's archive on the cemetery's interactive "Library of Lives" Web site at www.ForeverNetwork.com.

Following the video, veteran Paramount producer A.C. Lyles spoke of Sheridan's early days at his studio as a contract player after she won its "Search For Beauty" talent contest at age 18 and her subsequent rise to stardom with Warner Bros.

He echoed Grant's recollections of her, saying, "She could take a four-letter word and make it sound like a phrase from a church hymnal."

The four words he used to describe her that he believed she would agree with were sassy, saucy, sexy and sensuous, he said, adding, "she could be your best friend,"

Actress Carole Wells, who portrayed Sheridan's daughter on the CBS primetime series "Pistols 'N' Petticoats," the project she worked on until three days before her death, came from New York to speak about Sheridan's positive spirit and her courage in the face of death.
 
"I saw the suffering in her eyes, but she never complained," said Wells, who also said that knowing Sheridan changed her life for the better.

Quoting an anonymous poet who wrote that one never dies as long as one's memory is not forgotten, Wells expressed gratitude that now Sheridan would not be forgotten, thanks to her new permanent resting place.

Before Watson's dosing prayer, McHale read a letter from Vincent Sherman, unable to attend due to health concerns. He directed Sheridan in the films "Nora Prentiss" and "The Unfaithful," and paid tribute to her as a talented actress and fun-loving woman, writing, "I can hear her hearty laugh as I write these lines."

Following the ceremony, guests were invited up to the second floor columbarium above the chapel to see Sheridan's new niche and pay respects that were long overdue.

Because the event was also a birthday celebration, the viewing was followed by a coffee and cake reception in the chapel foyer.
 
With Sheridan now interred as she had originally requested, McHale has turned her attention back to researching the movie star's short but very full life.

"The past few months have been a uniquely rewarding and educational experience that has helped to make me a better biographer than I would have become otherwise. But more important, Annie's story is finally complete," McHale said.

Communities evolve. Their economies experience boom and bust.
Immigration alters their demographics. Cemeteries must find ways to adapt while staying true to their mission to honor those who have gone before.

Evergreen Cemetery Association was founded in 1848, when New Haven, Connecticut, was on an upward spiral. Governors, industry magnates and Yale graduates were buried within its walls.

Evergreen Cemetery, like New Haven, was new and growing and pulsing with the vibrancy of business and industry and the escalating fortunes of the city's moguls. New Haven, like similar cities around the country, rose and fell with the tides of historic events.

Fallen soldiers of the Civil War—black and white, Northern and Southern—were brought to Evergreen to rest in peace. Over the years, the cemetery welcomed soldiers and sailors from 20th century wars and erected memorials to fallen firemen and policemen.

New Haven was changing, reflecting the new Middle America. Men and women who were important within the spheres of their own families, neighborhoods, churches and communities were remembered.

Evergreen continued to grow, filled with memorials placed in loving memory of fathers, husbands, sons, brothers, mothers, wives, daughters and sisters. Memorials to loved ones were smaller than in New Haven's heyday but no less important. Edward Bouché, the first black man to graduate from Yale, is buried in Evergreen Cemetery.

In 1956, a crematory was built, adding a new dimension to the "cemetery" business. Evergreen now offered two services, both marketed to funeral directors. They were similar in some ways but different in others. Cremation was not the preservation of the body as we had known it.

Cremation meant human remains could be scattered in the wind or over the sea, or preserved in an urn kept on a mantle. But eventually, cremation families returned to memorialization at Evergreen in one form or another. It is easier to bring a grandchild to a place where they can look upon a stone or a memorial tree to discuss the people who have gone before them. Evergreen offers families scattering gardens, urns, niches and vases to decorate niches.

New Haven is more diverse than it used to be and therefore so is Evergreen Cemetery. We advertise in Spanish as well as English. We have memorials written in the languages of China and Japan.

Singing in many languages and flowers of many colors fill the cemetery. Our memorial stones have jazz saxophones, pictures of young men cut down in their prime and letters written in Spanish to a beloved family member.

Evergreen Cemetery is still as beautiful as when it was created in 1848, with flowers and trees that grace its park-like grounds. We have Canada geese and ducks; we have seagulls on some days and blackbirds on others. People walk, run and ride bikes in the cemetery.

We conduct our business with pride and purpose and, above all, dignity and respect for the dead that lie within these walls. We are the keepers of history. We are the voices of time.

Everything has changed and nothing has changed. We are marketing a cemetery and we are preserving the memory of loved ones and a community.

How funeral rituals offer comfort, support and healing to the bereaved

Though cremation is the preferred method of disposition today in England, it got off to a slow—and extremely controversial—start, as recounted in part 1 of this series on cremation in the United Kingdom.

Last year marked a significant anniversary—the 120th anniversary of the first cremation in England. With over two-thirds of deaths in the United Kingdom now followed by cremation, it is a mode of disposal almost taken for granted by funeral directors. In 2004, 424,956 cremations took place at the 245 crematoria in operation.

However, the domination of cremation is comparatively recent; it was 1967 before the number of cremations exceeded the number of burials. In 1885, only three cremations took place; by 1900 a total of 444 cremations took place at the four crematoria in operation—Woking, Manchester, Glasgow and Liverpool.

In 1930, cremation was chosen in only 0.87 percent of all deaths, and by the outbreak of war nine years later, there were 56 crematoria, used in 3.85 percent of all deaths. Today, England's cremation rate of around 72 percent is among the highest in the world.

The development of cremation in this country reveals a fascinating struggle against religious prejudice, legal obstacles and entrenched social attitudes. However, its advocates were a determined group of reformers committed to introducing an alternative to earth burial.

This series of three article traces the events leading up to and immediately following the first cremation at Woking in March 1885. The first focuses on the period 1874-1885 and describes the founding of the Cremation Society and the opening of the first crematorium in England and events which assisted in clarifying the legal position; the second examines the arrangements for the first cremations; and the third discusses the disposal of the cremated remains in the early years.

Sir Henry Thompson and the Cremation Society
Although the history of cremation in this country can be traced back to the Romans, it was not until the 19th century that the idea of an alternative to burial was encouraged. Despite the development of large cemeteries outside cities, such as Kensal Green, Highgate, Nunhead and Norwood, along with others outside London, questions were raised about long term viability, maintenance and costs involved in burial.

In 1873, surgeon and polymath Sir Henry Thompson visited the Great Exhibition in Vienna, Austria, where Professor Brunetti (professor of pathological anatomy at the University of Padua) had exhibited a model of a furnace he had used to perform an incineration.

Thompson was sufficiently impressed that he wrote a seminal article on cremation in the January 1874 Contemporary Review placing the subject before the public. Titled "The treatment of the body after death," the opening phrases of the l0-page article were arrestingly romantic:

"After Death! The last faint breath had been noted, and another watched for so long, but in vain. The body lies there; pale and motionless, except only that the jaw sinks slowly but perceptibly. The pallor increases, becomes more leaden in hue, and the profound tranquil sleep of Death reigns where just now were life and movement. Here, then, begins the eternal rest. Rest! no, not for an instant."

After detailing the somewhat gruesome post-mortem changes occurring to the body and the cycle of returning elements to the earth to contribute to the creation process, Thompson then mentioned "grave-yard pollution of air and water" before discussing methods of disposal of the dead and then focusing on the solution offered by cremation.

Most controversially, Sir Henry suggested the use of bones as fertilizer, and regretted that burial wasted half a million pounds of precious bone and earth each year.  He closed by suggesting that, "no great change can be expected at present in the public opinions current ... on the subject of burial."

On January 13, 1874, a meeting of cremation supporters was held at Sir Henry's home at 35 Wimpole Street, Marylebone. Shirley Brooks proposed, seconded by the Rev. Hugh Haweis, that a declaration be prepared. It read as follows:

"We disapprove of the present custom of burying the dead, and desire to substitute some mode which shall rapidly resolve the body into its component elements by a process which cannot offend the living, and shall render the remains absolutely innocuous. Until some better method is devised, we desire to adopt that (method) usually known as cremation."

It was signed by those present. Four months later, the Cremation Society of England was founded. Among the society's council members were novelist Anthony Trollope; artist John Everett Millais; George du Maurier, novelist and grandfather of Daphne du Maurier; surgeon Thomas Spencer Wells; John Tenniel, political cartoonist of Punch and illustrator of Alice in Wonderland; Charles Voysey, dissenting cleric and founder of the Theistic Church; Shirley Brooks, onetime editor of Punch; Ernest Hart, editor of the British Medical Journal; Rose Mary Crawshay, anti-vivisectionist and women's rights campaigner; and businessman Frederick Lehmann. The annual subscription was set at one guinea; payment of a few guineas brought a life membership in the society. William Eassie became the honorary secretary, and Frederick Lehmann was appointed as honorary treasurer.

At the meeting on January 14, 1875, the council members agreed to investigate suitable cremation furnaces and their adaptability for the needs of the Cremation Society. They also established a fund to build a crematorium and to appoint trustees to take responsibility for the land.

At the same time, they were anxious to ascertain whether cremation was legal. The Transactions of the Cremation Society (1877, pp. 45-47) gives an account of the progress:

"Dr. Tristram and Mr. Meadows White were invited to consider the question ..... They were, moreover, on the whole, favorable to the view of those who advocate cremation, and such as to warrant the council in concluding that the performance of the process was perfectly legal, provided that it involved no consequence which would be construed by anyone as a nuisance."

In 1875, the directors of the Great Northern Cemetery at New Southgate in north London offered land and the use of chapels and other accommodation for a crematorium.  However, the bishop of Rochester, within whose jurisdiction the cemetery was located, forbade the building of a crematorium on consecrated land.

The society, forced to look elsewhere, turned to Woking, the location of the London Necropolis Co.'s vast cemetery at Brookwood. In May 1878, the society members purchased a one-acre piece of land off Hermitage Road, and by December, they had commissioned an Italian professor, Paulo Gorini, to oversee the building of a cremator he designed.

Much controversy followed, as the local residents, led by the vicar of St. John's, Woking, in whose parish the crematorium was located, mounted a campaign to prevent cremations from taking place. Following a deputation by the residents to the Home Secretary, the society was forced to pledge not to cremate any bodies until the legal status of cremation had been clarified.
 
Sir Henry Thompson and the society were disappointed, and six years would elapse before the cremator was finally used. During this time, four events would prove crucial to the society being able to use the cremator.

The wait: 1879-1885
The first event occurred in August 1880, when council member Sir Thomas Spencer Wells gave a paper titled "Remarks on Cremation or Burial" during the section on public health at the annual meeting of the British Medical Association at Cambridge. Spencer Wells concluded his paper by presenting association members with a statement to sign if they supported cremation.

In part a transcript of the Cremation Society Declaration signed in January 1874; the statement included a key addition in calling for a strict system of documentation to ensure that the cause of death would be ascertained before a body could be cremated. Spencer Wells obtained many signatures while at Cambridge and passed them on to Home Secretary Sir William Harcourt.

The second event was the cremations at Manston in Dorset in 1882 and 1883.

Capt. Thomas Hanham's wife, who died in 1876, and his mother, Lady Hanham, who died in 1877, both had expressed the desire to be cremated, and Capt. Hanham was determined to carry out their requests. He had their bodies encased in strong elm coffins with lead linings and then placed in a mausoleum erected at Manston House.

Capt. Hanham had contacted the Cremation Society with a view to having both cremated at Woking, but the society was still awaiting a legal determination. Therefore, Capt. Hanham had his own cremator constructed in a brick building at the rear of Manston House. Lady Hanham was cremated on October 8, 1882, and his wife, the following evening. Following the captain's death in November 1883, a full Masonic funeral ritual was held prior to his cremation at Manston. Significantly, the Home Office took no action in all three cases.

The third event had no connection to the Cremation Society. Its outcome, however, would have great impact as the Cremation Society sought to clarify cremation's legal status.

William Price was a Welsh doctor born in 1800 who embraced Druidic traditions. He wore a white tunic and green trousers, braided his long hair and wore a fox-skin headdress-the emblem of a healer. Price had a reputation for somewhat unorthodox practices. He considered surgery a last resort and believed that doctors should be paid according to the well-being of their patients.

In 1884, Price's 5-month-old son, Jesu Grist, died. Price was against earth burial, so he took the body, wrapped in white linen, to the top of the nearby Caerlan Fields (Llantrisant), placed it in half a barrel of paraffin oil and set it alight.

L.M. Martin takes up the story in "A Welsh Heretic" (Historical Bulletin 12, 1947, p. 12): "People returning from chapel were astonished to see the fire and rushed to the spot. The partly consumed body was snatched from the burning pile and the crowd threatened to mob Price. The arrival of the police prevented this, and Price was placed under arrest. In due course an inquest was held and the jury found that the death had been due to natural causes, not foul play as rumored. The police applied to the coroner for permission to bury the child, but Price strongly objected."

Price was tried at the Cardiff assizes on February 12, 1884, before Sir James Fitzjames Stephen. Martin writes that Price was indicted "for attempting to burn the body of his child, instead of burying it; and a second indictment charged him with attempting to burn the body with intent to prevent the holding of an inquest upon it." Mr. Justice Stephen concluded:

"After full consideration, I am of opinion that a person who burns instead of burying a dead body does not commit a criminal act, unless he does it in such a manner as to amount to a public nuisance at common law. ... A common nuisance is an act which obstructs or causes inconvenience or damages to the public in the exercise of rights common to all Her Majesty's subjects.

''To burn a dead body in such a place and such a manner as to annoy persons passing along public roads or other places where they have a right to go is beyond all doubt a nuisance, as nothing more offensive both to sight and to smell can be imagined.

''The depositions in this case do not state very distinctly the nature and situation of the place where this act was done, but if you think upon inquiry that there is evidence of its having been done in such a situation and manner as to be offensive to any considerable number of persons, you should find a true bill."

In March, Price finally succeeded in cremating his son's body. Though the cremation took place at 7 a.m., a vast crowd at Llantrisant witnessed the act. After his death in 1893, William Price was cremated at Caerlan Fields on January 31.

The final important event occurred in April 1884, when Dr. Charles Cameron, the member of Parliament for Glasgow City, introduced a bill in parliament to legalize the cremation. The debate was made before Home Secretary Sir William Harcourt, who was known to oppose cremation.

On the afternoon of April 30, Charles Cameron rose in the House of Commons to read for the second time the Disposal of the Dead (Regulations) Bill. He outlined the need for an alternative mode of disposal, discussed the decision in the Price case and addressed the issue of the concealment of crime via cremation. Dr. Farquharson and Sir Lyon Playfair supported the motion. During the proceedings, a unique event occurred in the House, as the April 1884 Hansard reported: "Here the hon. Member [Dr. Farquharson] produced, and held up for the inspection of the House, a small bottle filled with a white powder, which, he explained, were the ashes ... of a cow cremated some time before." The reaction of the House is not recorded.

The Home Secretary's opinion was clearly influential; the vote was 149-79 against the bill.

Undeterred by the lack of a law addressing the cremation issue and encouraged by the decision in the Price case, the Cremation Society decided to go ahead and offer cremation. In January 1885, The Times carried the following announcement:

"CREMATION.-Arrangements are now completed for the use of the CREMATORIUM of the CREMATION SOCIETY of ENGLAND. Particulars can be obtained from Wm. Eassie, Esq., C.E. the Hon. Secretary, 11, Argyle -Street, London. W."

By the end of March 1885, the Cremation Society had conducted its first cremation at Woking.

When cremation began in England, no one scattered the remains.
Columbaria were available for urns, and cemeteries accepted burials, many marked by miniature gravestones.

The first cremations in this country presented the families of those cremated with the issue of final disposition of the remains. There were two alternatives: retention in a columbarium and earth burial. Though the former was offered by the Cremation Society of England at Woking crematorium, burial was the option most favored. Based on research from cremation and burial registers, funeral directors' records and published accounts of funerals in the years 1885-1900, this article explores some of the issues apparent from this challenge to a culture more familiar with burial of a body in a coffin.

Retention in the columbarium
Both before and after the first cremation in 1885, cremation literature had given much consideration to both the earth burial and columbarium options for the remains.

The cremationists noted that the Romans practiced cremation-though they stressed that the modem process was more scientific and technically sophisticated-and stored remains in a columbarium.  The word columbarium is from the Latin word meaning dove, and refers to the compartments in a dovecote that resemble the niches of a columbarium.

The contents of columbaria also inspired the design of urns, though such receptacles had long been a feature of classical architecture; many examples can be found on London buildings. It was not long before the funeral business, which was providing wooden caskets, also began to supply urns.

At Woking, Edward Clarke's design for the crematorium hall included 27 niches below the east window (see illustration above) for either temporary or permanent placement of remains. If the latter, the niche could be enclosed with an inscribed stone tablet. In subsequent years, a new columbarium was built which was twice enlarged. For placement in perpetuity in a niche, the society charged £12 for the top two rows of niches and £10 for lower ones.

With cremation increasing, albeit slowly, columbaria appeared in London cemeteries. In 1891-1892, one was opened as part of the monumental chambers in the General Cemetery at Kensal Green, and in 1893 The London Cemetery Co. opened a columbarium within the New Catacombs at Highgate Cemetery and also at its sister location, Nunhead. At Brookwood, it was 1910 before an unused mausoleum was converted into a columbarium. Following his death in April 1904, the ashes of Sir Henry Thompson were placed in Golders Green's West Columbarium, which had opened in 1902.

Earth burial
Remains from some cremations were buried, sometimes in a cemetery attached to the crematorium. The Duke of Bedford's crematory at Woking had a small cemetery adjacent to the entrance. The burial of remains in the ground (or urn sepulture) had been advanced by William Robinson, gardener and member of Council of the Society, writing in 1880 in "God's Acre Beautiful, or the Cemeteries of the Future." Robinson had clearly been impressed by the tombs of the Romans and Greeks.

James Stephens Curl, in "The Historical Problems of Designing Crematoria," wrote: "Money otherwise wasted on elaborate funerals could be spent on beautiful urns and tombs set in an Arcadian landscape. While trees and shrubs would create glades within the cemetery, the perimeter of the grounds could have arcaded columbaria to resemble the cloistered cemeteries of Italy."

The society's engineer and first honorary secretary, William Eassie, rather wildly estimated that the "acre of land on which the Woking Crematory stands should accommodate, with proper management, 1,000,000 urns, or more than a year's mortality of the whole of the United Kingdom."

In 1888, the society recorded the first burial of cremated remains on its land, but it is unclear exactly where. The Cremation Society Council minutes in March 1890 recorded that the decision "that a piece of ground belonging to the society at St. John's be set aside for the interment of ashes and that the sum of £1 be charged for each interment."

The first burial in the Cremation Society's cemetery was for Robert Faulkner, cremated on June 10, 1890. This is noted in the registers as Plot 1. The site was initially popular, and over the next 20 years, hundreds of interments took place.

In the cemetery, there are many traditional monuments—all in miniature. Included are the broken column, the cross, the Celtic cross, the obelisk; tablets raised above the ground, an enclosed chest and two memorials with a swastika emblem.

However, by the early part of the 20th century, the society appeared to consider the burial of cremated remains in the cemetery inappropriate. "The Transactions of the Cremation Society" for 1924 states that: 'In the last two decades of the 19th century, the early cremationists could not entirely break away from the idea of burial. Plots of land were therefore set aside for interment of urns, each one being marked by a miniature gravestone and thus perpetuating the effect of a small cemetery. That fortunately has now practically ceased, but St. John's Crematorium, Woking ... has such a ground, curiously unsightly, but still an interesting relic of a transitional period."

Burials also took place away from the crematorium. By the end of 1886, 13 cremations had taken place at Woking, and all remains were removed from the area. Where earth burials took place, they did so either in a proprietary cemetery or Anglican churchyard.

After the fourth cremation, "the ashes were gathered up and placed in an urn, which was taken away in charge of a relative or friend." After the eighth, the remains "were handed to the sons of the deceased, who were present at the ceremony," and later interred at Nunhead Cemetery. Clearly, the Cremation Society wanted the next of kin or executor—termed the "Applicant for Cremation" according to the 1902 Cremation Act—to be responsible for the decision.

Probably the first division of the cremated remains occurred after the cremation of Madame Blavarsky, founder of the Theosophical movement, whose remains were divided in three and sent to Europe, America and India.

The remains of Osmond De Beauvior Priaulx, cremated in January 1891, were transported back to Guernsey and placed in an urn behind a grille in the Priaulx Library in St. Peter Port. Those of Charles Wyndham Rodolph Kerr, cremated in February 1894, were buried in the floor at St. Saviour's Church Pimlico, following a ruling from the chancellor of the Diocese of London.

Analyzing the burials
Several interesting observations can be made about the disposition of cremated remains in these early years:

1. There appeared to be no problem with burying the remains in consecrated ground, including churchyards, despite the Church of England's uneasy attitude toward cremation.

It seems ironic that the formerly anti-cremation vicar of St. John's Church Woking, in whose parish the crematorium is situated, permitted cremated remains to be buried in his churchyard. The church burial registers show that 22 caskets of such remains were buried in the churchyard between January 1890 and January 1896, when 730 cremations were carried out, and that none of those interred were St. John's parishioners.

The rights of burial are for those living and dying in the parish, but can also be extended to others at the discretion of the incumbent vicar. Unlike in some churchyards, the fact of cremation was noted in the burial register; the notation "after cremation" appears with each entry before the full name.

2. In some cases, the fact that the deceased had been cremated was noted on the memorial. At Brookwood Cemetery, this fact was not recorded on the memorials for the first three caskets of cremated remains interred. But the memorial for Isabella Knight, who was cremated and buried on February 14, 1891, did include that information. At least one memorial (for Sir William John Moore, who died on September 9, 1896) includes the phrase, "cremated at Woking."

3. It appears that cremated remains were buried without delay. In 1886, the remains of the 11th and 13th persons cremated were buried the same day at Hastings and Highgate, respectively. Following the cremation of Alfred Allason at 1 p.m., April 25, 1890, his remains were buried at Brookwood the next morning. The cremation of Percy William Thomas on September 22, 1894, at 2 p.m. must have been carried out with astonishing rapidity, as the remains were buried at Brookwood at 4 p.m.

It seems that the deceased's relatives often waited for the remains while the cremation was taking place. According to the February 1898 "Undertaker's Journal," "With the actual process of cremation the undertaker has nothing whatever to do, but whilst it is in progress, his hands are fairly full. At St. John's it is customary for the mourners to adjourn for lunch, arrangements for which may be made with Mr. Wood at the Albion Hotel." The rationale behind following the cremation with lunch and then burial is easy to see: It saved the family the expense of a second trip to Woking.

4. Being an undertaker who owned a cemetery made handling cremation more profitable. The proprietors of the London Necropolis Co., which had a cemetery at Brookwood, were also undertakers who in the early 1890s formed a relationship with the Cremation Society to carry out cremations. The society offered the company a significant discount on cremation fees in return for providing an all charges-included funeral.

The coffined body was brought to the company's private railway station at Waterloo and transported to the cemetery, where it was then conveyed to the crematorium along with the mourners. The remains could then be buried in private graves in the cemetery, with a memorial specifically designed to accommodate caskets such as the glass-sided chest pictured at left.

Out of the 35 cremations arranged by the London Necropolis Co. in 1892, 14 caskets of remains went to Brookwood; two years later, 21 caskets of remains from 51 cremations went to Brookwood. This was clearly a convenient and profitable arrangement for the company and gave the firm an incentive to promote cremation.

The company could convey the mourners and coffin by train to the cemetery, where the family could walk around the cemetery while the cremation took place. The family could then attend the burial before getting back on the train to go home.
 
The winds of change
By the end of the 19th century, four crematoria had opened. However, neither Manchester, Liverpool nor Glasgow had followed Woking's example of providing a burial ground for the remains, although a columbarium was included in the overall scheme for each facility.

As additional crematoria opened in the 20th century, particularly during the interwar years, and then as cremation increased, the problem of limited columbaria capacity became apparent.

Furthermore, the cremationists had shifted from promoting cremation as a hygiene issue to a cost issue, and following cremation with burial in a grave or inurnment in a columbarium would only add to expenditures. A newfound place and mode of disposition emerged: The scattering of ashes in gardens of remembrance.

The author thanks Woking Crematorium General Manager Kathy Reynolds, the Cremation Society Archive at Durham University and John Clarke for help in preparation of the original paper on which this is based.

As cremation slowly made the transition from novelty to reasonable disposition option, questions arose about the best container for cremation (woollen envelopes anyone?) and the most cost-effective way to transport bodies to the crematorium.

The first cremations posed a number of challenges to an undertaking industry only familiar with the burial of the dead. How were bodies to be transported to the cremator at Woking? What coffins could be used? How should the cremated remains be treated? These were all areas which had to be addressed. The support of the undertaking industry was essential to the progress of cremation and it was the Marylebone firm of William Garstin that was initially involved in the early cremations.

A coffin being loaded into a hearse van at the London Necropolis private station at 121 Westminster Bridge Road.

William Garstin & Sons
Born in 1812, William Octavius Garstin established his undertaking business in January 1834 at 4 Welbeck St., Marylebone. In 1907, Garstin's relocated to 49 Wigmore St., where it remained until amalgamation with the equally historic Marylebone firm of William Tookey in 1966 at 51 Marylebone High St. In 1973, J.H. Kenyon acquired the goodwill of both companies.

Following the closure of Tookey's business in the 1970s, Garstin was incorporated into the premises of Kenyon Air Transportation. When this closed in the mid 1990s, the Garstin name was finally consigned to history.

Funeral directors' work largely reflects the social position and aspirations of the area in which they are located. This was certainly the case with Garstin's, who were responsible for the funeral arrangements of Cardinal Wiseman (February 1865) and Napoleon Louis, Prince Imperial of France (February 1879).

William Garstin also had a subsidiary company at 28 New Bridge St., Blackfriars, called The Funeral Co., and it was this organization that was responsible for the first cremation.

March 26, 1885:
The first cremation at Woking
The first person to be cremated at Woking was Jeanette Caroline Pickersgill of St. John's Wood, who died on March 20, 1885; she was cremated six days later. The Times reported:

"Yesterday morning the crematory erected at St. John's Woking Surrey was made use of for the first time, the body reduced to ashes being that of Mrs. Pickersgill of Clarence Gate, London. It had been previously subjected to an autopsy. The deceased was well known in literary and scientific circles, and expressly stipulated in the will that her body should be cremated. With a view to this she had previously become a subscriber to the Cremation Society of England. The cremation, which lasted one hour, is said to have been eminently successful from every point of view." A more detailed account appeared in "The Surrey Advertiser," while ''The Transactions of the Cremation Society of England" stated:

"The form of declaration drawn up by the society had been signed by her [Mrs. Pickersgill], and after the medical certificates had been duly filled up by the registered medical men, and an application from a representative of the deceased, on another form ... the cremation was allowed to proceed. An autopsy had been previously carried out by the medical attendants of the deceased.

"The body was conveyed to the crematory from London in a suitable hearse, and the cremation, which lasted one hour, was attended by two friends of the deceased, who expressed themselves perfectly satisfied with the system employed .... During the time of the cremation no smoke escaped from the chimney-shaft, whilst the ashes were of the purest white and small in volume."

William Garstin was responsible for the arrangements of the second person to be cremated, Charles William Carpenter, who died on October 14, 1885. The firm's register states that he was taken from "30 St. Mary's Road Willesden [in northwest London] to Woking Crematorium on 19th."

The entry also gives other details about the coffin, transport and costs: "A shell covered in cambric with an internal sheet and mattress" was delivered to the house where the deceased was encoffined. On October 19, bearers placed the coffin in the hearse, and drawn by a pair of horses with a "man in charge," the cortège made its way to Woking.

The cremation register indicates that two doctors examined the deceased (without conducting a post-mortem examination) and signed certificates I & II, which became forms B, C and F under the 1902 Cremation Act and are still in use today.

Form B is signed by the medical practitioner in attendance during the last illness; Form C is signed by a medical practitioner independent from the practitioner signing Form B; and Form F is signed by a practitioner employed by the cremation authority to examine all forms and permit cremation.
The cremation took 1.25 hours and the notes in the cremation register also record that the remains were later taken to Golders Green Crematorium East Columbarium following its opening in 1902.

The third and final cremation of the year was of Sarah Gratten of Sunnyside 72 Union Grove Clapham in south London, who died on December 4 and was cremated on December 11. Garstin's did not handle this one, but over the next four years was responsible for a large percentage of cremations, and examination of the firm's registers reveals much about the arrangements.

Coffins for the first cremations
The cremation registers reveal that Jeanette Pickersgill was cremated in a shell, and Garstin provided for Charles Carpenter a "shell covered in cambric with a cashmere sheet mattress and pillow."
 
(Editor's note: A shell is an inner wooden coffin in which the deceased would have been placed prior to the shell and its contents being placed into an outer, elaborate coffin, i.e. polished, with handles and an engraved nameplate.) Sources reported that Sarah Gratten was cremated in an elm coffin.

In March 1886, the coffin for Inglis Jardine was described in Garstin's records as a "Coffin covered cashmere, lined cambric and mounted with plate handles Brit metal plate (metal work removed)." The time of the removal of the coffin furniture is not indicated, but would probably have been immediately prior to the coffin being inserted into the cremator. Inside the coffin was a "cambric sheet."

An account of this cremation states that, "the remains were placed in an elm coffin with name and age of the deceased upon a silver plate. The process occupied considerably more than the usual time on account of the coffin having been constructed of solid elm, instead of light pine or wickerwork."

Other Garstin cremations in 1886 confirm the use of a coffin. For the cremation of Mrs. Martineau on June 30, a "shell covered grey cashmere, lined cambric, cambric sheet, mattress and pillow" was used, while in October it was an "elm shell covered drab and lined with fine cambric." For George Whiteley in January 1887, a "deal shell covered drab lined cambric; 3 pairs handles, cambric sheet, mattress and pillow" was provided. In April 1888, a "pine shell, lined cambric, covered cashmere, cambric sheet and cover." Some coffins were covered in black cloth.

Writing in 1891 in "Modern Cremation: Its History and Practice," Sir Henry Thompson revealed his ideas about a suitable container for cremation:

"It is strongly recommended to all applicants that no large, heavy, or ornamental coffins should be employed for the purpose, but, on the contrary, only a thin, light, pine shell; as in the former case cremation cannot take place without removing the body, and in the latter there is no necessity to do so, and accordingly the practice is to burn the whole together. But, after a considerable experience of cremation both here and abroad, I do not hesitate to say that I greatly prefer the plan of completely enveloping the body (already habited in the ordinary shroud) in a long narrow sheet, say 10 feet by 5, previously placed lengthways over a simply empty shell.“

''The last act before finally closing the shell should be that of folding the sides of the sheet across the body one overlapping the other, so as to cover it entirely. Thus the folded ends of the sheet will extend some two feet or so, above and below the head and feet of the body respectively. Above each of these points, a piece of stout white tape or white web should be firmly tied round the folded sheet, and in two places round the covered body also, so as to maintain the sheet in its place.”

"These ends are then turned over towards each other into the shell before the lid is adjusted and fastened. Immediately before the act of cremation commences, the shell should be opened, the body be carefully and reverently lifted out of the shell by a bearer at each end of the sheet, a third supporting the centre, and be placed on the frame which enters the crematorium. By this means the ashes of the body are not mixed with those of the shell, which must necessarily be the case if both are burned together, requiring a tedious and somewhat imperfect procedure to separate them. Moreover, the wood hinders and prolongs the work of cremation proper.”

''The sheet may be made of cotton linen, or wool, but the latter is preferable because its constituents are largely dissipated in combustion, whereas the vegetable fibre yields and leaves a large quantity of carbon in the form of ash. In the draught of a powerful furnace, some of this fine matter is no doubt carried away."
 
The use of wool is practical, but also curious as it has the property of being absorbent but also being capable of not sustaining fire. It would, however, have been relatively inexpensive.

Sir Henry also says in his text "It cannot be too clearly understood that it is most undesirable to encase the body in a heavy or costly coffin; A LIGHT PINE SHELL IS THE BEST RECEPTACLE FOR THE PURPOSE OF CREMATION. There is no reason why, for the funeral service, a simple shell should not suffice, and it may be covered with cloth at very small expense, if preferred. When, however, it is intended to hold a funeral service in public, and with some degree of ceremony, before cremation, a more ornate coffin may be used if desired, but it should contain the shell described, which can be afterwards removed."

Sir Henry's preference for a woollen envelope was supported by the London undertaker and cremation advocate Halford Lupton Mills, who said, "It should be noted that no wood coffin ought to be burned in the same chamber with the body. Experience has proved that no wood is sufficiently consumed by fire to leave the human ashes as clean and pure as desirable, and such wrapping as cotton-wool has a considerable amount of substance which is indestructible by such a heat as entirely consumes animal tissue. So far it has appeared the best way to envelope the body in a woollen wrapper which entirely enshrouds it. Asbestos cloth has been suggested, and might be useful to ensure a pure human ash, or if zinc would be worked so as just to enclose the body, that would be well, because of the low temperature at which it vaporizes."

The cremation register indicates that in 1886 three cremations took place without using a coffin; in 1887 a further seven took place using a shroud only. In 1888, the last year when they were noted, there were 11 "shroud" cremations recorded in the cremation register. Mills continued to advertise his ''woollen envelopes" in the Undertakers' Journal until the late 1890s. Perhaps this could be the source of the folklore that perpetuates today requiring funeral directors to reassure clients that the body is not removed from the coffin prior to cremation.

Transport
At approximately 24 miles from central London, Woking was clearly an inconvenient location compared to the newly established places of burial available around the metropolis. A rail link from Waterloo extending to the south coast had been established in the 1840s, and in 1854 the London Necropolis Co. commenced running its exclusive funeral train from the London terminus in York Street and into Brookwood Cemetery. While this service was usually used for burials, accounts of the early cremations indicate that the railway, in addition to horse-drawn transport, was used to reach the crematorium.

Garstin's registers note that for the cremation of Charles Carpenter in October 1885, "A hearse and pair [of horses] to Woking, a driver and a man in charge" were provided. In March 1886, the hearse conveying Inglis Jardine traveled down after a service in church in Kensington with the staff staying overnight as the cremation took place at 10 a.m. the next day. The other cremations arranged by Garstin in June and October 1886 also record use of a horse hearse.

The records of J.H. Kenyon indicate that the first cremation funeral arranged by the firm was of Alfred Allason on April 25, 1890. The hearse left central London at 6:45 a.m. and cremation took place at 1 p.m.

Horse-drawn conveyance to Woking was clearly expensive and time-consuming. It was not long before the most appropriate alternative—the railway—was adopted for funerals starting in London.

Garstin's first cremation using the London and South Western Railway for transport was for William Crellin Pickersgill in October 1887. The hearse travelled to Waterloo in time for the 10:15 train to Woking. The records do not state what happened at Woking; though it is likely a member of the Garstin staff supervised the locally supplied horse-hearse to the crematorium.
The Woking undertaking firm of John woods, working from the stables of The Albion Hotel, could supply hearses and carriages for the 2.5-mile journey from Woking Junction.

Around 1890, the Cremation Society forged a link with the London Necropolis Co. to use its train service from Waterloo; it was a clear attempt to help to minimize the overall cost of cremation while also reducing the time taken to reach the crematorium. Writing in "Modern Cremation," Sir Henry advocated use of the "rail, direct from Waterloo Station to Woking." However, he goes on, "In the event of a body having to be brought from a distance, any of the companies will provide a special carriage on the usual notice being given, and convey direct to Woking, where use of a hearse can be obtained for conveyance to the crematorium." Sir Henry also gave the times of trains and of cremation in 1891:

 Train leaves Waterloo  Hour of cremation
  9:30 a.m.                 11:00 a.m.
11:45 a.m.                  1:30 a.m.
  2:45 p.m.                  4:15 p.m.

The funeral service of Miss Haynes Walton on September 4, 1888, took place at St. George's Hanover Square at 10:30 a.m. The hearse then went to York Street station at Waterloo for the 11:45 train. The same times were recorded for Alexander Kinglake. The hour of cremation is recorded in the cremation registers and examination shows that early afternoon was by far the most preferred time of cremation. From January to July 1891, 37 of the 61 cremations took place at 1 p.m., 1:30 p.m. or 2 p.m. and all but seven were cremated after 1 p.m.

The convenience of the Cremation Society being able to link with an organization that could provide an undertaking service and the railway conveyance to Waking gradually ended William Garstin's domination of the market.

Eventually, the society recommended that all London-based clients contact the London Necropolis Co. to arrange a cremation funeral. This significantly increased the company's profitability, not only from funeral income but through burial of cremated remains within Brookwood Cemetery.

A December 1890 article in ''Trade, Finance and Recreation" titled "Common Sense Burial" summed up the situation:

"Persons going down in the usual way to the crematorium at Woking must travel by ordinary trains, and then drive some two or three miles to the crematory, there to wait the incinerating ceremony, and afterward drive to the cemetery at Brookwood.

"It is obviously more convenient that funeral parties should go by special or funeral train from the Necropolis Co.'s private station direct to the cemetery, and spend an hour or two among its delightful surroundings, while the body is sent over to the crematorium, to be subjected to the fire, when on its return the funeral service may be held, and the burial conducted in the usual way. Or, if time is of importance, the process of cremation may be carried out before the arrival of the funeral party."

As the number of cremations increased in the early years, albeit modestly, more undertakers visited Woking crematorium and became familiar with the procedures and documentation. However, it would be many years before every firm in this country could claim to have arranged a cremation funeral.

Previous to 1830 the Cemeteries of note in the Three Kingdoms were few and interments were generally made in the burial grounds attached to Churches--save where interments took place in vaults beneath sacred edifices or places of Divine worship.

A considerable number of the larger Cemeteries of Great Britain are founded and worked on joint stock principles and in some districts much divergence of opinion seems to exist regarding the system. The highest rate of dividend stated to have been paid by anyone of them was 6 percent and in many cases the rate of dividend or interest paid was as low as 2 percent.

It is stated with respect to those founded and worked on joint stock principles, that there is not, that earnest desire and inclination for embellishment and improvement as there must be in the case of cemeteries established, not for the purpose of earning money for dividend paying, but with the object of supplying a public want and requirement.

There are some fairly large cemeteries, such as the Anfield Park, Liverpool, which have been established by Parishes. They originated in this way: A limited number of rate-payers of a fixed area, termed a parish, convene a meeting, pursuant to the provisions of an Act of Parliament (it may be under the Public Burial Grounds Acts, or the Public Health Act) and they resolve that it is expedient and necessary to provide a Cemetery for the parish or district. There are then certain formulae to be gone through and complied with such as an application to the Secretary of State for his sanction, etc. This having been obtained, the promoters next apply, subject to the sanction of the Treasury, to the Board of Public Works, Loan Commissioners, or other Public Department, for a loan on the security of the rates repayable by annual installments over a number of years, until the total is extinguished, of the amount estimated that will be required to purchase land for the Cemetery, including the enclosing and laying out of the grounds, drainage, and constructing one, two, or three churches, as the case may be, for the persons of different religious denominations who may be expected and are intended to make use of the Burial Grounds.

In the case of cemeteries established under these circumstances, any surplus revenue accruing, after providing a sinking fund for the purpose of extinguishing the sum borrowed, is applied towards the reduction of the rates of the parish or district and for the extension, if required, of the grounds. The governing body is composed of about nine gentlemen elected periodically by the rate-payers and the persons elected must also be rate-payers. They meet about once a week and their meetings, as a rule, are open to the public, at which reporters for the press attend.

It is required by law in England that a new burial ground, under the Burial Act, shall be divided into consecrated and unconsecrated parts. The object of this law being enacted was manifestly to prevent, if possible, the recurrence of what serious friction and religious party feeling which had on many occasions taken place in Great Britain at the burial of Dissenters and Nonconformists in cemeteries over which the dignitaries of the Church of England had control, by reason of the conditions to be observed and complied with, in the event of the religious service of the Church not being accepted or required at the interment. From time to time, with the approval of the Secretary of State, there are issued in England by the inspector under the Burial Acts, suggestions or instructions for Burial Boards providing and managing burial grounds and making arrangements for interments. These suggestions embody much that is useful regarding the site for a cemetery, the drainage and laying out of the grounds, the construction of paths and roadways, fencing and planting, size of the graves to be allotted, depth of graves, the reopening of graves, burials in vaults, the type of the intended memorials or tombs, conveyance of the dead to the burial ground, the construction of reception houses for the dead and the erection of mortuary churches in which to hold religious service.

While much may be advanced in commendation of cemeteries provided under the provisions of the different Public Burial Grounds Acts, and due acknowledgment rendered for the interesting and useful suggestions issued from the office of the Secretary of State, still the action of the governing body and executive officers of institutions so founded is in some respects much hampered. They are obliged to have every by-law, rule and regulation submitted to the Secretary of State for his sanction and his approval thereto obtained, before they can be put in force. For example, the governing body cannot fix or settle a scale of charges or fees and payments, nor make any alteration therein, without having first obtained the approval of the Secretary of State, who requires evidence to he furnished to him that the proposed by-laws, rules and regulations and the proposed scale of fees, etc., had been published in the prescribed manner, to afford an opportunity for objections being made thereto. Further, copies of same have to be affixed to the doors of all churches and chapels in the district for not less than three weeks before application is made for approval.

There are also in England, under Public Acts of Parliament, fees payable (apart from the Burial Board fees) to the incumbent, the clerk and the sexton of the parish in which the person deceased died, but singularly these fees may not be and as a fact are not, included in the scale of fees required to be published.

It is of much importance in the control and management of Burial Grounds for the Governing Body to have their own Special Act of Parliament, conferring special powers and privileges and affording them freedom of action to draw up a code of rules and regulations in pursuance of the provisions embodied in the Act and empowering them to inaugurate from time to time, as circumstances may demand and necessitate, a system of improvements, for the benefit of the institution, without hindrance or interference from any department.

With regard to Cemeteries established in England and Ireland, in the former by parishes and in the latter by poor law guardians, the practice has been that when the revenue derived from the Cemetery is not sufficient to defray the expenses, the deficiency is made good by striking or imposing a special rate on the parish or district for which the burial ground was founded.

The powers heretofore exercised in England under various Public Burial Grounds Acts by what are termed Vestries and Parish Councils and Urban Councils, in founding Cemeteries, have become partly merged and embodied in the Local Government Act of 1894; and similarly the powers exercised heretofore under Public Burial Grounds Acts by Urban Councils and Boards of Poor Law Guardians in Ireland have become merged in the Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898.

A considerable divergence of opinion seems to exist in England and elsewhere regarding the size of grave space. In regulations prepared, printed and circulated by the Home Office for burial grounds provided under certain specified acts of Parliament, it is laid down that each grave space for the burial of a person above 12 years shall be at least 9 feet by 4 feet (that is to say 36 square feet) and those for burial of children under 12 years of age shall be 6 feet by 3 feet, or, if preferred, half the measurement of the adult space, namely 4½ feet by 2 feet; but in a large number of Cemeteries in Great Britain the space allotted for graves is just half of those specified. It is stated that in some Austrian Cemeteries the grave space for adults is equal to 90 square feet; at Wurtemburg it is stated that it is above 54 square feet; at Munich and Stuttgart it is said to be 32 square feet, though in many cases they are much less.

In some Cemeteries, particularly near London, graves for common interment are excavated to 25 feet. The practice has been necessitated by the scarcity and high price of land and the desire to economize space.

It can be inferred from this that owing to the limited area of Cemeteries in the Three Kingdoms, there is not much room left for embellishment or display in the way of planting and giving a park like appearance to the grounds, a feature so well calculated to please and call for the grateful appreciation of the public.

The number of Interments made annually in the Cemeteries of note of Great Britain range from about 400 to close on 6,000. Some cemeteries have a practice of contracting with a person for supplying workmen to excavate new graves; re-open graves; and execute other work in the grounds. There is a fixed charge or payment determined for each kind of work and those who have adopted the system speak of is as satisfactory. On the other hand a large number of Cemeteries decline to adopt the system, they holding that it is far more advantageous for the satisfactory working of the Cemetery and care of the grounds, to have the employees directly under the control and management of the Cemetery Authorities in Ireland, where the staff are employed by and under the absolute control and disposal of the Superintendent.

From a return made to the order of the London County Council and circulated under date 30th July 1895 and prepared by Mrs. Holmes, it appears that the burial grounds which exist in the County and City of London are 362 in number. Of these it is stated 41 are Church Yards and Cemeteries still in use; a few being burial grounds in which Interments only occasionally take place either in graves already dug or under the regulation of the Home Secretary. The other 312 are described as disused Burial Grounds, which were closed by order in Council many years previous, and 90 of which are laid out for Public Recreation Grounds, under the disused Burial Grounds Acts. The area or extent of those burial grounds varies from 1-3 acre to 69 acres.

The other Cemeteries in Ireland, besides Glasnevin, of any considerable extent and note are "Mount Jerome" and "Dean's Grange" all in the vicinity of Dublin. Belfast: The one established there by the Corporation, and the other "The Milltown Roman Catholic." Cork: "St. Finbar's", under the corporation and the one established there by the late Father Matthew, of Temperance Fame, which is under the Fathers of the Capuchin Order. Limerick: "St. Laurence Cemetery."
 
There is no Cemetery in the Three Kingdoms in which such a large number of Interments take place as Glasnevin--the number of burials in the year there being, on an average, 7,000.
 
From the publication:
AACS - Proceedings of the 19th Annual Convention
Held at Washington, DC
September 19, 20, 21 and 22, 1905

What is the burning question? Many years ago a certain long suffering pedagogue managed to instill into the minds of his pupils that a burning question might be one of a number of important questions, but the burning question is the question which above all others demands our close attention.

What is, then, the burning question? With one class of people the burning question is how to live; with another class of people the burning question is how to die; but with the cemetery superintendent the burning question is the proper disposition of the dead, having always in view, in addition to other conditions which have been discussed from time to time, the safety of the remains and the sanitary conditions, both as regards the present and the future.

Science has been for many years successfully combating disease. The dreadful scourges which periodically visited our forefathers have ceased to recur, or are practically under control. This is doubtless due more to sanitary measures than to medicines. The evils of unsanitary conditions have been overcome and scientists are looking for new fields to conquer.

Regarding post-mortem matters, there is a decided sentiment of reform working slowly but effectually in. the community. The time has arrived when the ability of the time-honored method of earth burial to meet the requirements may be questioned and the idea of quick dissolution of the body by fire as the only practical way of solving a difficult problem is fast finding favor.

There has been enough said and written at different times upon this subject to excuse me from giving you a sketch of the history of cremation from its inception to the present time. Of what import is it to us what were the sentiments or the customs of the ancients only inasmuch as such sentiments or the customs may be of service to us in forming our own opinion or on guiding public opinion? Consumption of the body by fire seems to have early found a place in the religious rites of man. When a man sacrifices to the deity, his sense of the fitness of things would not allow him to leave the sacrifice to putrify upon the ground, neither would it allow him to submit it to the process of corruption by burying it in the ground. The consumption of the sacrifice by fire, the ascending of the smoke into the mysterious from whence came the thunder, the lightning, the wind and rain, would appeal to him as being an appropriate manner of disposing of his tribute to the giver of all good.

It may be that the sacrificial altar gave birth to the funeral pile. The slow and horrid process of corruption was obviated; the body could not be subjected to defilement nor indignity, by friend, by foe, nor by future generations. "The duty was performed by loving hands and the end was counted an honorable one."

The advent of Christianity gave the death-blow to cremation throughout that part of the world known as Christendom. It was the belief of the early Christians that the second coming of the Lord would be in the immediate future; during some of their lives. As taught by St. Paul, "We shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed." Therefore they buried their dead in the hope that they might live to see the resurrection of the body. Cremation need cause no anxiety upon this score, for to quote the words of a learned preacher: "It will be just as easy for the Almighty to recreate the body from a pile of ashes as it will from a pile of dust: Either case will require a miracle."

The preservation of the bodies of the departed, from corruption or from possible defilement, seems to have been an ever-present source of anxiety with the human family. It was this horror of the ill-treatment of the dead that caused Joseph to instruct the children of Israel to carry away his bones when they should leave Egypt. This, which caused the valiant sons of Israel to brave a desperate foe and recover the bodies of Saul and Jonathan and burn them with fire. This, which caused the Egyptians to embalm and entomb their dead.

In preparing our dead for burial we are today doubtless actuated by the same motive. While we do not turn the body inside out, stuff it with spices and sweet-smelling herbs, bind it with unlimited length of starched linen and pile mountains of rock over it, yet we array our dead, with extreme care, in their best clothes, encase them in coffins or caskets of pine, cedar or copper and cover them with broadcloth to the tune of from fifteen to one thousand dollars, lay them away in the earth, in vaults under the ground, or in mausoleums above the ground and to what end ? The tombs held as sacred and built at enormous cost of treasure and human life by the Egyptians are being rifled by a people who at the time of their erection were clothed in the skins of animals, if clothed at all; and their precious contents are placed in glass cases to be gazed upon by a curious public. After all our expense and care we layaway our dead with the sure and certain knowledge that in a few months, and for years after that time we would not care to look upon them nor even to contemplate their condition.

Why is it that we cling so tenaciously to earth burial with its present arid future horrors? Which is most shocking to a sensitive mind, seeing the casket gently lowered beneath the floor of the chapel or wheeled away into an adjoining room to undergo the quick process of disintegration by fire, or seeing it lowered into the earth, sometimes dry and sometimes wet, to meet the same end by the slow and repulsive process of corruption? In spite of all our care, our embalments, our coffins or our vaults, the end is the same; and the quicker it is accomplished the better it is for all concerned.

When we have overcome the prejudice of two thousand years the benefits of cremation are obvious. When we have seen the flower covered casket lowered from our sight and have been assured by the presence of one or two friends that cremation is an accomplished fact, we have performed for our dead the last office. No dreams of desecrated graves will disturb our sleep, no cutting up of cemeteries by railroad extensions or by the requirements of city growth will cause us anxiety. As we often hear the expression, "We have seen the last of them," we have prevented for every one of those scenes we occasionally witness, the undignified removal of the remains, more often prompted by caprice than by necessity, by future generations. Often when presiding over this work the words of an epitaph said to be inscribed upon a tombstone in Stratford-on-Avon came to my mind:

“Good friend, for Jesus' sake forebear
 To dig the dust enclosed here;
Blest be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones."

And yet I well remember that a number of years ago but for the strenuous opposition of a number of influential people, some antiquarian society or other would have unearthed the remains of the poet because they wanted to see if the old fellow's skull was a true copy of some models they had.

According to the opinion of some superintendents with whom I have corresponded, one important feature of cremation will be a reform in the way of economy; as one superintendent says, he thinks that the cost of the incineration might well be taken off the cost of the casket. Not the least important will be the economy in the use of land, not only in regard to the expense incurred by the necessary purchase of a larger lot, but as regards the area of land required and occupied for cemetery purposes. The population of this country is increasing by leaps and bounds; but the area of ground available for cemetery purposes increases not at all. Once occupied for burial purposes it is locked up forever from future use. Those of you who preside over cemeteries with an unlimited area of available land should remember that at one time the same conditions prevailed in those cities where at the present time one grave is allotted for the use of a whole family and in some cases for the promiscuous burial of a number of people. I will leave you to draw your own pictures of what the conditions must be in the cemeteries of Southern Europe and the Azores, where people are buried without coffins and the ground is reused after a period of from one to ten years. In many Old Country cemeteries graves are opened to the depth of fifteen feet, more or less, the grave is reopened as often as required, twelve inches of earth being left between the bodies as the grave is filled. In one particular cemetery they find ooze at that depth and bury the first body in it.

But we need not go so far from home to meet with circumstances sufficiently revolting. What must be the state of the earth in the potter's field in some of our own cemeteries, where bodies are buried five or six feet deep and nearly if not quite touching one another? Seventy-five thousand bodies lie in one potter's field. What a healthy neighborhood this must be for a city of nearly four million inhabitants. In and around New York there are 84 cemeteries. Newtown, in the Borough of Queens, NY, has a cemetery area of 1,800 acres which contains two million bodies. Calvary Cemetery, New York, a cemetery of 214 acres in extent contains 600,000 bodies, 2,800 to the acre. The population of New York has increased 260 percent during the past forty years and it would not be difficult to find several cities whose population has doubled and trebled during that time. When we consider that the greater part of the present population along with a considerable portion of the increase we may reasonably expect during the next fifty years, must be provided with sepulcher within that time, it is reasonable to conclude that the time for a decided change is not far distant, as time is measured. And I think it safe to prophesy that when scientific men have vanquished the germ-carrying mosquito they will probably turn their attention to cremation.

Some years ago there was a general effort made to introduce and encourage cremation; but it seems to have been spasmodic only. In the opinion of cemetery superintendents and promoters of cremation, the idea seems to have taken a new lease of life and is surely gaining in strength; especially among the medical fraternity.

From the time of the erection of the first crematory in the United States in 1876, there have been over 24,000 incinerations and in the leading countries of Europe, during that same time, there have been 18,000. Of 25 crematories in the United States of which we have reports, 19 report a steady increase in the number of incinerations; 2 just hold their own; and 4 appear to be progressing backwards. The total yearly number of incinerations in the United States has gradually increased from 813 in 1894 to 3,020 in 1904.

The fees for incineration are generally twenty-five and thirty dollars, and this charge, I am informed, pays. The Massachusetts Cremation Society reports a profit of nearly four percent on its capital stock.

It is the opinion of some managers of crematories that as cremation gains favor municipal authorities will take up the matter, that cremation will shortly become more general and that these prices will be reduced.

The cost of crematories varies according to taste and resources. Generally the retorts have been built in connection with a chapel or other building already in existence and cost so far as I have been able to learn from $1,250 to $3,600. The crematory buildings of Massachusetts Crematory Company, which we were privileged to inspect three years ago, cost in the neighborhood of $30,000 and the two retorts $5,000.

The office of incineration is performed as it should be, in a private manner. The last rites concern the family and the immediate friends only. The unseemly conduct of curious crowds sometimes witnessed at funerals is avoided. The family and friends accompany the body to the chapel and one or two are permitted to see the casket placed in the retort. The casket after being divested of its metallic handles is raised or lowered to the level of the floor of the retort, a heavy soapstone door is raised and the casket is pushed into a chamber made of fire clay, the door dosed and the flames turned on. There are neither flames, smoke nor odor to cause sensation; anything at all gruesome about the process exists only in the imagination.

To the progressive superintendent I would say: do not be afraid that the adoption of cremation will lessen the value of your profession or immediately upset the present order of things and mar the beauty of your creations; cremation will not come into exclusive force in a day, any more than did the lawn plan and the banishment of fences and curbing. Do not think that you will live to see the family lot erased from your plans, or the monuments disappear from the landscape. The work of the rider of the pale horse will not be retarded and the spades of the sexton will not be allowed to grow rusty as "One by one he gathers them in." The columbarium will doubtless cause a change in the size of lots sold and in the construction of monuments, but many generations will have passed after cremation has become general and compulsory before people will have abandoned the idea of a family lot in which to bury their ashes.

I do not read this paper with a view to make converts, but rather with a view to submitting for your consideration the necessity of the situation. The duties of Superintendents and Trustees are obvious. Take time by the forelock. Give this matter your serious consideration; read up on the matter so that when this reform reaches you, you may be prepared to meet the requirements and not have to stand by and see stock companies organize and cheat you out of your birthright.

 
From the publication:
AACS - Proceedings of the 19th Annual Convention
Held at Washington, DC
September 19, 20, 21 and 22, 1905

This being the eighteenth annual convention of the Association of American Cemetery Superintendents, I feel prompted by your kind indulgence to take up a few minutes of your time though I am not a cemetery superintendent, nor a member of the Association.

You have seen proper to extend invitations to cemetery officials to be with you and become members, so be not surprised should you hear a knock at your door from "eaves-droppers" wanting to come in. I may be considered somewhat of an old pioneer in cemetery affairs and relate what I have seen of burial places in the past, comparing the same with today. You know that "Big oaks from little acorns grow."

Less than twenty years ago a few men banded together for a noble purpose, men of instinctive ideas, inducive and in keeping with the progress of civilization, who felt the need and great want of the betterment and improvement of graveyards--as they used to be called throughout our country. These men met in consultation, a good number of them are here with you today, whilst others have gone to their reward in the world beyond. Since this organization was formed, it has increased in membership and with results the most flattering--the little "acorn" then planted has grown up to be a mighty and majestic “oak”, its branches reaching out and overshadowing in many and far off directions, giving shelter where the nightingale warbles sweet requiem and the soft lullabies of the night, where the cardinal and other birds of the choir flit and sing praises with the rising of the sun in the far off eastern horizon to God on high. The mighty oak that adorns so many of the cities of our bereaved dead is a wonder to behold when we visit the cemeteries where lie buried our loved ones.

The difference is most striking--where we used to see neglect, disorder, gloom and awe, tombstones covered with moss, blackened and broken, graves sunken, lots surrounded with wooden fences, iron chains, hedges and every imaginable thing, overgrown with weeds and brush, nothing inviting—nothing soul inspiring and consequently soon forgotten. What do we see now?  What a contrast! How different and all brought about in the last half century. When I made my first visit to Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati, Ohio and there met and formed the acquaintance of Adolph Strauch, who was the superintendent, a man of culture, of broad ideas, a philanthropic man, I found him with high boots, in his working clothes, toiling with laborers employed to change the appearance of things--removing chains and hedges, remodeling everything--a professional landscape gardener. During his lifetime, I made frequent visits to Cincinnati. I never failed to see him; he was one whom none could help but love and respect and his memory is held in high esteem. His worthy successor, Mr. Salway, will bear me out in my statement. I consider Mr. Strauch the father and promulgator of rural cemeteries--as such--most of them are conducted in America today.

It has been my good fortune in my travels throughout a good portion of this country--from the far East to the distant West, from the frigid North to the sunny South and it has always afforded me great pleasure to visit the cemeteries wherever I have been and I can assure you it is pleasing and most gratifying to see the wonderful improvement, the well regulated and beautiful burial places throughout this broad land, wherever civilization has gone, man can judge its people by the place of burial provided for their dead. On mountain range, in the valley among the forest trees, on the plains of the far off West and distant shores of the sea, inviting spots are found for the final resting place of mortal man. Some of the most noted cemeteries I have visited, with every pleasant recollection, I may mention Spring Grove, to which I have already alluded.

Greenwood, Brooklyn, New York, is well worth seeing, for it is the most important in our country. To attempt a description of its grandeur in every particular would be too much of an undertaking; suffice to say it is truly a sacred resting place for the dead. Buffalo, NY, boasts of a very fine cemetery. Utica, NY, New Bedford, NY and other places of that State all imposing and harmonious with cemeteries of today. Laurel Hill, near Philadelphia, the improvements of late years, since I first saw it, are truly wonderful, resurrected as it has been from its former antiquated garb of hedges, wooden fences, bars and iron chains, running wild with all sorts of brush and under-wood. All of this has been done away with at the suggestion of Adolph Strauch in the year 1855 and other superintendents of landscape gardening since that time. Consequently, today it will equal and most favorably compare with any other. So, too, does this apply to other cemeteries of that city and state.

I must also make mention of the cemeteries near the city of Boston.

I was most favorably impressed with all their loveliness, the beautiful adornments adding to their solemnity and sacred keeping with the guardianship of their dead.

Cave Hill, Louisville, KY, is well known for its beauty and grandeur, the display of wealth in monumental and statue work. Lake View, Cleveland, Ohio, with its many acres of improvements and mementos erected to its dead, is praiseworthy. Crown Hill, Indianapolis, IN, a very beautiful and attractive spot well cared for in every particular. Cemeteries at Milwaukee and Detroit are very commendable for their many grand improvements. Great Lakewood, Minneapolis, MN; the grounds selected are wooded surrounded by beautiful lakes combining cheerfulness with that of solitude and repose. Its praiseworthy management in capable hands it may well be called a "model cemetery." At Spokane, WA, I found a cemetery yet young in years, situated in a valley of hills and towering pines, rural by nature, very appropriate for burial purposes, well kept; a large number of beautiful monuments and memorials adorn the grounds. At Portland, OR exists a like improvement of rural cemeteries throughout the land. Among the hills and the valleys in the forest where the towering oaks and pines stand out as sentinels over the dead, the management is in keeping with other cemeteries of the present day. I left it with best impressions not soon to be forgotten. Traveling through California, I visited The Ever Green and Rose Lawn at Los Angeles, magnificent grounds naturally well adapted for the silent city of the dead; whilst art and skill have done much, the growth of stately palms, pine trees, shrubs, plants and flowers of varied shades and color, rich in monumental decorations of costly designs. Its administration is admirable, in line with every other well regulated cemetery throughout the country. The same is true and it was with much satisfaction that I visited Mountain View Cemetery, Oakland, CA located in a plateau of mountainous hills, with superb palms and flowers that bloom the year round, massive trees proudly standing within its silent keeping until the day of awakening shall come.

I must not fail to mention the cemeteries in the South. One most noted, owing to its difference in mode of burial, in New Orleans, Metairie, is certainly worthy of a visit. It may well be called a "City of the Dead" with its beauteous white and well kept driveways and avenues built up like a city with rows of tombs, vaults, mausoleums and burial structures, many elegant monuments and reminders of costly designs erected in memory of its dead, giving every evidence of care and attention and all of its trust well guarded. There are a number of other burial places and cemeteries, mostly above the soil, catacombs and crypts maintained for that purpose on account of the ground lying near or about on a level with the sea. Memphis, TN, boasts of a pretty little cemetery--Elmwood--with many modern improvements, all first class. And so I found cemeteries in Savannah and Atlanta, Georgia, Jacksonville, St. Augustine and other places in Florida, Charleston, South Carolina, Richmond, Virginia. The National Cemetery at Chattanooga, TN, with its 13,000 Federal soldiers that fell in battle during our country's memorable war. So we do homage visiting the National Cemetery in Washington, DC and wind our way to Antietam National Cemetery where lay buried 12,000 or more of our country's heroes. I visited a beautiful and well kept cemetery at Hagerstown, Maryland; a large number of Confederate soldiers are buried here. Memorable Gettysburg where, in close proximity; two hundred thousand men met in battle and decided the words spoken by the lamented Lincoln; "That this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and that the government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth."

All I have said of other cemeteries is equally true of the beautiful and admirable cemeteries of Chicago. The most noted I must not fail to make mention of Graceland, Rose Hill and Oakwoods which are modern in every respect, inviting admiration for their many beauties and symbolic adornments, not only commendable to the eye but also far-reaching in every respect in the way of management.

I might go on and make mention of quite a number of cemeteries I have had the pleasure of visiting long years ago, in their old antiquated garment and with the comparison of today, I can but exclaim: How wonderful a change and then ask the question: What has brought all of this about? You will hear the echo resound again and again--your superintendents and officials of cemeteries--and I would fall short of doing justice did I not say much credit is due to the able manner in which Mr. R. J. Haight publishes the Monumental News and Park and Cemetery journals. It has been a help meet for the much valuable information obtained and in bringing about a concerted action and spreading a knowledge among the people who most appreciate.

In conclusion allow me to call your attention to the city where I live and which I have made my place of residence for fifty-eight years past. We have a cemetery called Oak Ridge, covering 116 acres, with which I have been connected for two score years. As president of the board of managers during most of that time, I have seen and helped grow out of the woods about as pretty and beautiful a cemetery as there is in existence. Our work having been gratuitous, we extend to you gentlemen and ladies of the National Cemetery Association an invitation to come and see for yourselves should your inclination and time permit. Many pilgrims come from all lands, it being the mecca to look upon the National monument and tomb that holds the remains of our most illustrious and lamented Abraham Lincoln. We would like to have your names recorded and placed for keeping amongst others that have come hither. You will find on the register inscribed during the month of July, 1904, people hailing from all but seven states of the United States of America and many others from foreign lands.

On motion, duly carried, the Question Box was left over until the next session and the meeting adjourned.
 
From the publication:
AACS - Proceedings of the 18th Annual Convention
Held at Chicago, IL
August 23, 24 and 25, 1904

It seems to be somewhat inappropriate, if not actually out of place, for anyone to come into a convention of boss gravediggers and say anything that will add to the solemnity and the gloom of its melancholy proceedings.

The very nature of the gravedigger's occupation would seem to forbid him to indulge in anything like a cheerful thought or a pleasing reflec­tion. Yet this view may not be altogether accurate, for according to statistics a very large part of the human race believe that every man has lived many times on earth, and thus to him, one more surrender of his mortal remains to the bosom of mother earth is thought of merely as a necessary step toward the next and a higher life.

Thus the work of the gravedigger need not necessarily be associated with all that is gruesome and forbidding. We have him with us and we need him constantly and hence no apology is offered for his existence.

To supplement his labors comes the builder of the monument and the tomb, a tribute of love to the beloved departed.

It is a natural human desire to perpetuate the memory of the dead, and this desire has from remote historic times found expression in monu­mental inscriptions or epitaphs.

Among the oldest may be mentioned those of the ancient Egyptians, many of which, we are told, bear a remarkable resemblance to those of modern days, showing the identity of human nature in all ages of the world.

Epitaphs are usually or often supposed to suggest some idea of the virtues of the departed one; but Byron seems to think that it is some­times otherwise, when he says:

"The Sculptor's art exhausts the pomp of woe,

And storied urns record who rests below;

When all is done, upon the tomb is seen,

Not what he was, but what he should have been."

Notwithstanding the sarcasm of Byron, there are many inscriptions beautifully expressive of departed worth, as is shown by Wm. Martin John­son's lines to the memory of a young lady over a century ago:

"Here sleep in dust and await the Almighty's will,

Then rise unchanged and be an angel still."

Another beautiful one will be remembered:

"He needs no epitaph,

The memory of the good is ever fresh

Their works live after them."

And this one to a noble life. A sermon for all time:

"Tho’ dead he speaketh yet; holy living

Hath a tongue which none can silence, and death

A language eloquent when he who dies,

Dies as he lived, a witness for the truth."

The following one, representing a conversation with an echo, is full of deep suggestion:

"0, Sacred Essence, lighting me this hour, How may I rightly style thy great power?

            Echo-Power.

Power of but whence? Under the greenwood spraye

Or liv'st in Heaven? Saye.

Echo-In Heaven's aye.

In Heaven's aye! tell me, may I it obtayne

By alms, by fasting, prayer, by paine?

Echo-By paine.

Show me the paine, it shall be undergone,

I to my end will still go on.

Echo-Go on."

Some epitaphs give warnings and even threats. Perhaps. the best known of this class is that on Shakespeare's tomb:

"Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare

To digg the dust enclosed heare;

Bleste be ye man: yt spares thes bones,

And curst be he yt moves my bones."

Occasionally the monument suggests the profession or the occupation of the deceased. One is to the memory of a sailor buried in Scotland:

"His voyage now finished, he's unrigged,

And laid in dry dock urn.

Preparing for the grand fleet trip,

And Commodore's return."

In a London cemetery is an epitaph over the grave of a dentist:

"View this gravestone with all gravity,

X. is filling his last cavity."

Another in London is to the memory of Sir John Strange:

"Here lies an honest lawyer-that is-Strange."

This one is attributed to Milton:

"God works wonders now and then,

Here lies a lawyer, an honest man."

A tombstone in another old English churchyard tells that:

"Here lies John Shaw,

Attorney at law.

When he died, the devil cried,

Give us your paw-John Shaw,

Attorney-at-law.”

Over the remains of a bookseller, buried in Scotland, is this one:

"For all the books I've bound,

Here now, with valley clods,

In sheets I'm rotting underground,

Death makes a mighty odds."

In many old cemeteries are found inscriptions that explain the manner of death of the deceased. This one, according to the records, is not far away:

"From life to death-a sudden stroke

­His head was by" a saw gate broke,

The purple gore in streams did run,

­He left a widder and one son."

In English churchyards are numerous epitaphs of this kind. One relates that:

"Here lies entombed, old Roger Norton.

Whose sudden death was oddly brought on;

Trying one day his torn to mow off,

The razor slipped and cut his toe off.

The toe or rather what it grew to;

An inflammation quickly flew to;

The part affected took to mortifying,

And poor old Roger took to dying."

At Winchester, England, is a slab, which, as a photograph shows, contains this warning inscription:

"In Memory of

Thomas Thetcher,

A grenadier in the North Regiment of Haut's Militia, who

died of a violent fever contracted by drinking Small Beer

when hot the 12th of May

1764-Aged 26 years.

In grateful remembrance of whose universal good will towards

his Comrades, this stone is placed here at their expense, as a

small testimony of their regard and concern.

Here sleeps in peace a Hampshire Grenadier

Who caught his death by drinking cold small Beer.

Soldiers be wise from his untimely fall,

And when ye're hot drink Strong or none at all."

This memorial being decayed was restored by the officers of the Gar­rison, A. D. 1781.

"An honest Soldier never is forgot,

Whether he die by Musket or by Pot,"

Near Canandaigua may be seen this account of the painful and sudden death, during the maple sugar season of 1817, of Myron, aged 5 years:

"This grave my body doth enclose

To take its long and last repose;

My lot was sealt in Death;

Hot Boiling Sap did stop my breath."

This piece of domestic history comes from Essex, England:

"Here lies the man Richard

And Mary his wife,

Whose surname was Pritchard.

They lived without strife,

And the reason was plain-.

They abounded in riches;

They had no care nor pain,

And his wife wore the breeches."

Now and then, an epitaph expresses doubt as to where the may be found after shuffling off this earthly tenement of clay an example in England:

"Here lies the bones of Robert Lowe

Where he's gone to I don't know,

If to the realms of peace and love,

Farewell to happiness above,

If haply, to some lower level,

We can't congratulate the devil."

From County Louth, Ireland, comes one a little more cheerful:

"Beneath this stone here lieth one

That still his friends did please;

To heaven, I hope, he's surely gone,

To enjoy eternal ease.

He drank, he sang. whilst here on earth,

Lived happy as a lord;

And now he hath resigned his breath,

God rest him, Paddy Ward."

In Wiltshire, England, is one that is even more comforting:

"Here lies the. body of Nancy Gwin,

Who was so very pure within,

She burst her outward sheath of sin,

And hatched herself a cherubim."

On a tombstone in Wales is this piece of philosophy:

"Our life is but a Winter's day;

Some breakfast and away;

Others to dinner stay and are well fed;

The oldest man sups and goes to bed;

Large is the debt who lingers out the day,

Who goes the soonest has the least to pay."

Expense is not often referred to in an epitaph, but Iowa furnishes one:

"Beneath this stone our baby lies;

He neither cries nor hollers;

He lived just one and twenty days

And cost us forty dollars."

One characteristic, at least, of the departed one is suggested by the following:

"Beneath this stone, a lump of clay,

Lies Arabella Young;

Who on the 29th of May,

Began to hold her tongue."

Consolation is breathed in this one:

"Put away those little breeches,

Do not try to mend the hole,

Little Johnny will not want them,

He has climbed the golden pole."

And also in this intended to comfort the widower:

"Weep not for Eliza Jane

But to submit endeavor,

For spos'n she had not a'died so soon,

She could not a’ lived forever."

But it may be asked what and where is the best epitaph; best in many senses of the word? This is partially answered by a little verse in a recent magazine:

"When I am dead, friends, carve no words

On marble as an epitaph;

Nor raise for me a splendid tomb;

At such things time would laugh.

But hold me in your faithful thoughts

While brightly life and thought are lent:

Your tears shall be my" ample praise,

Your love my monument."

Since my arrival here in the effete East, I have been subjected to a good many good natured serio-comic remarks about the subject I have chosen for my paper. In self-defense I have decided to inflict upon you a preliminary chapter.
 
One gentleman said to me: "I suppose when you wanted to organize a cemetery out West, you just killed somebody, or turned loose the James or Younger boys, or a tribe of Apaches, or a Kansas cyclone, or a band of cowboys and the cemetery started itself."

Now this is not true, if it ever was. Everybody who dies out our way now must have a regular certificate, and the causes of death appearing thereon read very much like yours, I presume. The tomahawk, bowie knife and six-shooter no longer appear. Ante-mortem conditions have changed. Instead of the bandit, the cowboy and the Apache, we have the doctor, the lawyer and the preacher and the over-sympathetic old neighbor, whose husband died the very same way. The bacillus finds more victims than the bad man from Bitter Creek; the merry microbe succeeds the mirthful cowboy; the greedy germ and numerous other microorganisms frequently get on the warpath and cause more trouble than Geronimo's braves; many people lose their vermiform appendix, but none their scalp lock. Christian Scientists treat more patients than the Indian medicine man. However, I am without data to enable me to give comparative results.
 
Another gentleman from way down East, gravely informed me that beyond the Mississippi, in that part of the country which, I presume, is still marked on their geographies as the Great American Desert, it is only good form for people to die with their boots on and rely upon the coyotes, jackals and turkey buzzards for final arrangements. This is another mis¬take. Post-mortem names and conditions have also changed. Instead of the aforesaid, we, like you, have the undertaker and the hack-man, the lawyer and the preacher, the florist and the monument man, the sexton and the cemetery superintendent, the administrator and the surrogate or probate judge. And they all get theirs.

About the only advantage there is in dying out West, is that after these are all done and there is anything left of the estate.  New York State does.

The West is surely behind on facilities for cremation. The nearest crematory to the Great American Desert is at St. Louis, making it neces¬sary for the few advocates of that method for the disposal of the dead, to travel long distances sometimes.

Not long since, a disconsolate widow from Topeka was returning from St. Louis with the ashes of her deceased fourth husband in an urn, as a part of her hand baggage. She had for a neighboring passenger a maiden lady from either Boston or Rochester; I do not just remember which. The Eastern lady, noticing the evident distress of the Topeka widow, sought to comfort her, and inquired the cause of her sorrow. Upon being told, she became quite agitated and exclaimed that here she had lived sixty-five years without any husband, while this woman had husbands to burn.

Nature provides wondrous and devious ways to regulate and control the population and depopulation of the earth and the Indian, the cowboy and the bandit were but cogs in the wonderful mechanism of nature's regu¬lator.

Death may be more important to the world than life. Wars may be blessings. Pestilence and famine may make for good. An epidemic of breakfast foods may not be an unmixed evil. The automobile may be doing its deadly work in the interest of humanity. Fire and flood, Fourth of July and football may all be elements in nature's great economy, to provide room for generations yet unborn. Let us prove it by a mathematical demonstration.

Rural New York claims the best high schools and academies and col¬leges in the world. It was in one of these, not far from Rochester, that I learned to figure and almost learned to believe figures will not lie. We shudder at the loss of life during Caesar's wars, which occurred about 2,000 years ago, or sixty generations of 33 ⅓ years each. Let us suppose that two more people had escaped death in these wars, and that the ratio of increase for these two was 1½ per generation of 33 ⅓ years each, which does not seem unreasonable, even in these days when we hear so much strenuous talk about race suicide. A simple mathematical formula, worked out on the basis of these figures, shows that the increase from this pair would have added to the population of the earth at the present time, 73,560,000,000 souls. This would make it somewhat crowded for us, and we may have abundant reason to thank Caesar that no more of them got away.

So the calamities of our generation become the blessings for those yet to come. It is safe to assume that nature's laws will continue to operate to keep the ratio of increase of population within proper limits, and the cemetery may be regarded as a permanent institution, and should be or¬ganized accordingly.

The question of cemetery organization seems to be important, yet we hardly ever hear it discussed in detail among cemetery people, so I have chosen this subject, knowing that I will be expected to say but little about it. In fact I do not dare to say much, for I might give some detail away and some superintendent might be led, in the heat of discussion, to tell something of which his governing board might not approve.

The organizing of a cemetery now is a different proposition from that of 100 or even 50 years ago. One hundred years ago only about 3 percent of our population lived in cities; 97 percent was rural. The burial of the dead had naught to do with business. Sympathizing hands prepared the body for burial; one kindly neighbor made the coffin, another dug the grave, the best vehicle in the community carried the remains to the church yard, where free interment was made. The grave was marked and cared for by kindred people, until finally lost in the blissful oblivion of weeds and forgetfulness. In all this there was no thought of pay or gain. Now 40 percent of our population is urban, most of the rest is suburban.

Under present conditions, when death occurs, friends and acquaint¬ances ride in the carriages, offer advice, sympathy and flowers, but seldom anything else. The disposal of the dead has become a business proposition. Most undertakers make a modest charge for their services. In fact, I believe they are made safe in most states by being made preferred cred¬itors. The minister who officiates wears, at the proper time, an expectant look above his clerical necktie. The liveryman usually renders a good sized bill and his drivers belong to the union. The florist expects more profits from funerals than weddings. There are more of them. It takes two to make a wedding, one only to make a funeral and besides some do escape matrimony. While I am decidedly averse to saying anything about our good friend, the doctor, candor compels me to admit that he looks you up in Bradstreet and makes his charge for what he thinks you or your estate can stand then adds a percentage as a factor of safety. The lawyer who breaks the will is usually satisfied with one-half of the estate, if it is quite large. A lawyer out our way, after lying a long time at the point of death, finally died. His trusting wife placed upon his memorial the inscription: "A lawyer and an honest man." One of our old plantation darkies, noticing this, remarked with evident surprise, "I wonder how they came to bury two people in one grave." The price the monument man names indicates that he never expects to get another opportunity, and wishes to make the most of this one; and so all along the line, until we come to the cemetery, we find everything connected with mortuary affairs organized on a basis of financial profit. But we find cemeteries organized in divers and wonderful ways. We have them on the basis of poverty, politics, patriotism and pri¬vate greed, charity, church, city and corporation, lot owners mutual; some mutually strong, others mutually weak. Nothing seems to be settled; no particular plan seems to be accepted as best. All are subject to more or less criticism.

The ownership and operation of large cemeteries by churches has been practically abandoned, except by the Catholic Church. No other one de¬nomination having the compact membership, the perfect discipline and splendid organization to successfully handle larger cemetery propositions.

Cities can and do own and operate cemetery properties. Municipal ownership offers some advantage. The city's credit can be used to secure the money to purchase the necessary ground and provide for initial im¬provements. The general fund is handy to make up any deficit that may occur. Too often, however, the city cemetery receives either too much or too little attention from the city authorities. Mayors and aldermen are looking for patronage, and some of them do not hesitate to prostitute the highly honorable positions of superintendent or sexton, and others, to po¬litical purposes.

I heard of a case down east somewhere, where a large number of men were needed in the city cemetery just before a close election, but were not needed long after and the dominant party was accused of voting them all, besides a good many names from the memorials.

At best, public sentiment is apt to be fluctuating and spasmodic, and the cemetery suffers in consequence. In any case, while many of the older city burial grounds are very well conducted and cared for, very few, if any, cities are establishing new ones.

Probably one half of the cemeteries in the United States are conducted by an organization or reorganization of lot owners. The governing boards consist of a number of good natured old gentlemen who have no financial interest in the proposition, but who are benevolently inclined enough to be willing to help by having their names printed on the list of trustees, but can seldom be gotten together to attend to the cemetery's business. Not getting anything out of it themselves, they sometimes fail to grasp the mag¬nitude of the financial proposition they are called upon to administer. I have heard some superintendents complain that they expected to have a $1,000,000 proposition handled by a $1,000 superintendent.

The elasticity of the organization of lot owners' cemeteries has in most instances enabled them to reorganize on broader business and financial lines to meet modern requirements.

A large majority of the larger cemeteries started in the last fifteen years have been organized as some form of private corporation. Some of these have been organized, as commercial propositions pure and simple; others, as a matter of public necessity, by public-spirited citizens, who in¬corporate, in order to more properly finance and more perfectly secure and maintain the interests of a large public enterprise. This method of organi¬zation seems to be more a matter of necessity than choice. Large cities are not establishing new burial places.

The modern cemetery requires too large an initial expenditure for a lot owners' organization. The cemetery is, as we have seen, more and more of a business proposition, Hence, modern methods of business and finance must be applied to it. Some people object, for sentimental or superstitious reasons, to cemetery investments. I knew one man who said he was willing to take money won at poker, bet on a horse, race, or gained by speculating in wheat, but he'd be hanged if he wanted any made by a cemetery investment. His trouble was more superstition than an over-heated conscience.

The first cemetery of which we have any account in holy writ was strictly a commercial proposition. Sarah, the wife of Abraham, had died in Hebron. Abraham demanded of the sons of Heth possession of a burying place with them. They offered him a choice of all their sepulchers without charge. But Abraham, with laudable pride, wanted a burial place of his own, and proposed to pay for it. He wanted the cave of Machpelah, which was in a field owned by Ephron, the Hittite, and he said to Ephron, "I will give thee money for the field, take it of me and I will bury my dead there." And after some further parley .about price, "Abraham weighed upon Ephron 400 pieces of silver, current money with the merchant, and the field of Ephron and the cave which was thereon, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in the borders round about, were made sure unto Abraham for a burying place by the sons of Heth."

The modern cemetery for the use of a large or rapidly growing city is a larger business and financial problem than the field of Ephron.

It should have ample grounds, say from 200 to 500 acres, not too near the city, but easily accessible by modern means of transportation. It should be large for several reasons, First, to meet requirements for 100 years; second, to provide plenty of room for park spaces, ornamental planting and like Abraham’s burying place, "to have trees in the borders round about"; third, to protect itself from new competition; fourth, to provide a large and permanent endowment fund for perpetual care, after sales of ground have ceased; fifth, to protect itself from condemnation, in consequence of the rapid increase of urban population.

Small cemeteries are constantly in danger, in or near large cities. And above all, perhaps, it should be large so that a policy to prevent overcrowd¬ing may be adopted and no danger from a sanitary standpoint may ever present itself. The evils and scandals arising from small and overcrowded burial places became so intolerable in the large cities of Great Britain, that in 1855, an act was passed by Parliament closing them all, with but few exceptions.

Burial within the limits of cities and towns is now almost everywhere abolished and at a very, large expenditure of money London and most of the chief provincial towns have outside cemeteries, which are under the supervision of local burial boards and of inspectors appointed by the government.

France has gone through the same experience. In consequence of the cemeteries of Paris being more or less crowded, a great cemetery with an area of over two square miles was laid out in 1874, sixteen miles north of Paris. Every city and town in France is required by law to provide a burial ground outside of its limits, properly laid out and planted, and in which each interment must be made in a separate grave. This last re¬quirement is not always followed in this country, where land is plentiful.

The large grounds being secured, they must have extensive initial im¬provements. While all of the property is not to be improved at once, yet a careful expert study should be made of the property as a whole, and a general plan for systematic and complete development must be outlined. A system of roads must be constructed; a system of drainage must be es¬tablished; a water system must be provided; perfect grading, shaping, sur¬facing, sodding and seeding of grounds enough for twenty-five years must be completed; an intelligent and extensive scheme of planting must be started, and a nursery should be planted for raising hardy ornamental shrubs and trees. Greenhouses-- but better wait awhile until you have to have them. Elaborate entrance or entrances must be provided; chapel and receiving vault must be built; a number of other buildings must be erected, such as suburban railroad station, administration buildings such as office, stables and tool houses, superintendent's residence, sexton's house, gate keepers' lodges, etc. Oftentimes local conditions require the construction of bridges, culverts and artificial lakes and waterways. Modern conditions seem to tend more and more toward forcing the cemetery to enter into competition with itself and establish a cemetery.

These grounds and improvements have to be perpetually maintained and cared for, an expense still greater than and just as important as the cost of initial improvements.

This must be provided for in the original financial organization. Bearing in the mind the idea of perpetual care and the fact that a cem¬etery proposition is a permanent investment, all the work referred to must be of the very best permanent character. The buildings, entrances, bridges and culverts must be of stone; the roadways of the very best macadam; the drainage system, including gutters, intakes and discharge pipes, must be of ample size and of the best material and workmanship and so on with all the improvements.

The purchase of this ground and the making of these improvements require a large initial expenditure, which, in order to secure the per¬manency of the burial place should not rest as a debt upon the ground.

To do all this you must have the help of the almighty dollar. Talk is cheap, but if you do things of this sort, they would tell you out West "You've got to have the stuff."

Three hundred acres of ground located, as I have indicated, would cost in the neighborhood of $250,000 ;$250,000 more would not make very elab¬orate improvements for a complete cemetery proposition when compared with older cemeteries, making a total of half a million dollars. Allowing 20 percent of the ground for roadways, parking, etc., the remaining 240 acres at an average of $1 a square foot would come to over $10,000,000. We have then, at the outset, a financial proposition of considerable magnitude, even in these days. It should be approached as such, and be properly financed along business lines. How shall it be done?

As I said in the beginning, I knew I would not be expected to say very much about cemetery organization, but I may venture to call atten¬tion to several facts in connection with it, which you already know. To summarize:

The nation, with the exception of a few patriotic cemeteries which it owns and splendidly maintains, pays no attention to cemeteries, or their regulation. Under our form of government, the cemetery would be con¬sidered a local matter and be left for the jurisdiction of the several states, but the states as a rule have no cemeteries and in many cases exercise very little control over them. Cities are quitting the business, and by condemnation for sanitary or other reasons, are causing others to quit. One church only, or possibly two still control cemetery affairs.

The lot owners' organization does not seem to be compact and power¬ful enough to project large, new, modern burial places. Private, individ¬ual ownership does not insure perpetuity and seems gruesome and out of place.

With the rapid growth of city population, a great many large burial places will be needed in the future. The present time seems to mark an epoch in cemetery history. Present conditions are forcing a public utility of the first importance into the hands of private corporations or stock companies. And this is being done without any adequate provision for the protection of public interests.

The citizen has as good a right to demand of the state, protection for his cemetery interests, as for his banking interests. We all have business with the cemetery. Just a few of us have much with the banks. If cemeteries must be conducted by private corporations, it seems just that the state should, by proper legislation, see to it that in the organization and operation of cemeteries, the interests of the public are protected. The public has a rightful interest, for instance, in the perpetuity of the ceme¬tery, and general legislation to secure that protection is desirable. Laws might be enacted, fixing the minimum size of burial grounds for cities of different classes, regulating location well without city limits, and pro¬viding that the grounds shall be entirely dedicated free from debt to ceme¬tery uses forever and that no encumbrance can ever be placed upon any portion of the ground. A larger degree of protection from condemnation should be provided. The proceeds from the sale of ground must provide for current maintenance, perpetual care and interest on and payment of original investment. The public then has an interest in this entire fund, and an equitable distribution of it to secure each of those results should be provided for by law. The matter of records is a proper subject for state inspection and control. It is a lamentable fact that in many of our larger and well kept cemeteries, the earliest records are foggy or uncer¬tain, and in some instances, lost entirely. A complete system of surveys, platting, duplicate or triplicate interment records and plat books kept at different places, should be made compulsory.

That the force of public opinion may be allowed to act for the pro¬tection and benefit of the cemetery at all times, the utmost publicity as to financial matters should be provided for. Some of the states have abso¬lutely no legislation upon any of these and other important points which should be outlined in the original organization of cemetery corporations.

It seems to me that this association might be able to accomplish great good by the appointment of a committee on legislation, to investigate present laws, study legislative requirements and make a report showing legislation needed, if any. The association could then throw the weight of its growing influence in the direction of public good. If this can be done, I will gladly refer the whole subject matter to such committee for consideration and shift the burden of any more of this paper from your shoulders to theirs.

From the publication:
AACS - Proceedings of the 17th Annual Convention
Held at Rochester, NY
September 8, 9 and 10, 1903

It seems to me the subject of cremation and modern crematory construction can best be covered by beginning with cremation as it has been practiced since its revival in modern days. We all know that the ancient Romans cremated their dead and that some of the most beautifully designed urns recovered in buried cities were for cremated ashes. In fact, the skill of the finest artists was lavished on these cinerary urns. It is said that the well known Roman and Grecian urn shaped vessels were originally designed for this purpose and that the inverted torch long known as an ancient emblem of mourning was in reality an emblem of cremation in those far-off days. However, with the Dark Ages when the history of so much of that ancient civilization was lost to sight and all the sophisticated arts perished, cremation ceased to exist. For a long time, of course, the Catholic Church ruled the civilized world and its opposition to cremation would have effectually stopped the practice even had there been equipment to handle it, but there was not and it was not until as late as 1866 that papers began to appear on the subject and discussion of method became prevalent.

It was Italy which revived this lost custom. After several years of experiment, Professor Brunetti of Padua in 1873 exhibited at an exposition in Vienna a model of his furnace, as it was then termed, and the ashes of a human body to show the public the procedure and the results of cremation. It was an open furnace operating out of doors.

In 1874 there were two cremations in Dresden, Germany, in which gas was used for fuel. This was the first crematory to employ, a closed retort with the object of carrying off gasses and vapors. In the same year the Cremation Society of Milan, Italy was organized and two retorts were constructed. Cremation became comparatively popular at once in spite of the Catholic Church opposition, so that in the first ten years of existence they cremated 463 bodies. This was regarded as remarkable evidence of public approval, since there had been the weight of adverse sentiment to overcome even in the families of those who favored it. In the same ten years Germany had 473 cremations.

Perhaps the most vigorous effort and certainly the most discouraging one made by cremation adherents anywhere is contained in the history of Cremation Society of England. It was formed in 1874 with the express purpose of disseminating information on the subject of cremation. Great difficulty was encountered in securing a site upon which to erect a crematory. A prominent Bishop condemned the project so harshly that failure confronted it for some time. In 1878, four years after its inception, the Cremation Society finally succeeded in purchasing one acre of ground at Woking and the following year erected a crematory designed by Professor Gorini, of Italy. They cremated the body of a horse to determine the success of their equipment. It worked perfectly and they announced themselves ready for business. But the end of their troubles was still far in the future.

The British Government refused to permit cremation to take place on the grounds that murder might thus be concealed. A long correspondence ensued and the Government could not be induced to reconsider. At last an appeal was made to the British Medical Association who became interested because of the unsanitary conditions of many graveyards. Doctors wrote eloquently of the appalling state of affairs but to no avail. In 1882 a wealthy man who had been awaiting the outcome of the controversy for several years applied for permission to cremate the bodies of two members of his family who had left instructions to this effect. Their bodies had been in a private mausoleum on the estate since death. Permission was refused, whereupon the man built a private crematory and used it for the two cremations. Later he died and by his request his body was also cremated there. The British Government paid no attention to this act of defiance and a year after his death another citizen defied the Government and had the body of a child cremated. Legal proceedings were begun against him which in a decision that cremation was legal providing it was done without nuisance to others, and so the Cremation Society of England at last began to use their equipment eleven years after the founding of the Society.

Even then, the Government regulations were unbelievably severe.  They required for example the signature of two physicians before cremation could take place, and if two physicians could not be obtained an autopsy was required to be performed to make sure that no poison could be found in the body. Other equally stringent rules designed to discourage cremation were also adopted.

The Cremation Society of England, feeling it must show the public its desire to cooperate with the Government in every way then began some propaganda of its own. An announcement was made that it would require a written application for cremation signed by the executor, or written instructions left by the deceased. It also insisted that a physician's certificate must accompany the application.

While this struggle was taking place in England, cremations had gained a foothold in France where the French soon evolved a set of forms designed to overcome objections on the ground that cremation might aid in concealing crime. An elaborate chart of diseases was prepared and everyone which might have contributed to the cause of death was required to be noted by at least two physicians. The English Society adopted this system which helped their cause materially. The price of cremation was at that time six sterling (about $30.00) payable in advance. It must be remembered of course, that all this was in the days before every town had its health office with its official scrutiny of death records.

In 1887 this Society became slightly more aggressive and prepared what is now called an advertising campaign in which they invited people to arrange for cremation in advance by deposit of 10 guineas (about $50.00) which they said would take care of all arrangements and spare all anxiety to relatives. The quaintly worded forms set forth a schedule of details, one of which was that the body would be sent for if the distance was not greater than twenty miles from the Crematory. This advertising angle is interesting to crematories of today, for some of them even yet, look a little askance at the idea of openly advertising such arrangements before they are necessary by reason of death. Needless to say, all the aggressive organizations now believe in such advertising in an effort to spare the bereaved relatives the distress of concluding arrangements when death has occurred in the family.

The first Crematory Chapel in England was built in 1887 from funds solicited from the public. It was mentioned in their literature that those who attended services did not see nor hear the retorts in operation. The building of this chapel was a long step forward, for previously services had been held at churches or residences or even sometimes in the open beside the heated retort.

Even after all this missionary wonk had been done and it seemed the hardest part was over, the public remained rather uninterested. The Cremation Society was then reduced to beseeching the public to adopt cremation on sanitary grounds. They wrote horrifying treatises on burial, contagion, etc. Finally the argument was put forth that if cremation was done, the purified remains could be stored in the churches where the corruptible bodies could not. This was the first modern mention of the Columbarium for in one place they wrote "In ancient crypts or in cloisters newly erected for the purpose the ashes might be deposited each in its cell in countless numbers."

The first crematory built in the United States was at Washington, Pennsylvania in 1876 by Dr. Francis Julian LeMoyne. It was heated by burning coke, preheating the retort 48 hours before the cremation. The first commercial crematory was erected at Buffalo, New York, endowed by a family of doctors, being operated by gases distilled from wood. For years thereafter the principal crematories were operated on the Schneider system, which was used in Germany. The fire was built in a retort of combustion chamber located on the side of the crematory retort. The white hot gases then passed upward under an arch and thus down over the body and casket, and up a flue. This system was used in several crematories in San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles.

In 1892 a book was published by Augustus E. Cobb, President of the U. S. Crematory Company. In this book he stated that at that time there were 17 crematories in the United States and that 2300 bodies had already been cremated. He mentioned the indirect firing system, especially one in use at Fresh Pond, L. I., which was supposed to be an unusually successful retort in which they said a man weighing 275 lbs. had been cremated and reduced to ashes weighing 5 1bs. at a cost of less than $1.00 for fuel.

The first recorded use of oil for cremation was made at a crematory in San Francisco by means of a burner firing crude oil directly upon the body. A high pressure oil and air mixture was used in this burner causing a remarkably hot fire, deafening noise and huge clouds or smoke. The cremation was completed in about 45 minutes. The next development was the substitution of oil for coke in coke burning retorts and about 1910 a direct fire gas burner was devised which fired directly upon the body and which had an auxiliary burner in another combustion chamber for consuming the smoke and dissipating the odor.

Forced by public opinion, crematory engineers are constantly trying to make cremation less offensive; to reduce the noise, control the smoke and fire indirectly upon the body. Experiments are constantly being made with every grade of tile, brick and cement, with every sort of fuel and all mechanical details of cremation. At Forest Lawn Memorial Park, ordinary fire brick has always been used in the construction of our retorts, but recently the floor's have been changed to carborundum brick, which is considerably more expensive, but so far has been most satisfactory.

The present trend of crematory furnaces is towards simplification and at the present time there are three types of retorts. There is the indirect system which has the separate combustion chamber; the semi-indirect in which the flame enters the retort through a slotted floor, and the direct, in which the floor is smooth and the retort and combustion chamber are one and the flame is applied directly on the casket.

There are several advantages of the smooth floor over the slotted type as it permits the easy removal of the ashes, presents a more pleasing appearance to the public and is much easier to keep clean.

At the present time there are two kinds of fuel used by the modern crematory, gas and oil. It is also suggested by crematory engineers that a separate stack should be provided for each retort in place of having one stack for several retorts. In this way a better draft is created, reducing the smoke and heat waves. The appearance of the workroom is another important feature. It should be kept in a tidy condition so that in allowing visitors to pass through it may be without fear of their criticism. Several of the most modern crematories have provided white tiled walls in their workrooms, which is very satisfactory, easy to keep clean and always presents a neat appearance.

Many of the older style retorts it is necessary to preheat from thirty minutes to one hour before the cremation. In the newer and more modern type it is not necessary to preheat and the flame is not started until after the body is placed in the retort. Experiments are being made with the electrical retorts but at present they have not proved satisfactory and are still in the experimental stage.

The ideal cremation is one which cremates noiselessly, smokelessly and gives the appearance to the family of absolute ease or operation with no distressing details. Following this thought to its conclusion means maintaining that the perfect cremation is followed by placing the ashes, uncrushed, in a suitable bronze urn and depositing them in an appropriate final resting place. The ashes of a human body should not be desecrated by crushing them for placement in an urn any more than an un-cremated body would be crushed to place it in a casket, and the modern crematory follows this practice—placing the ashes in the urn in the same condition as when removed from the retort.

On the Pacific coast the percentage of cremations is approximately 15% to 18% of deaths. I have no official records, but I am of the opinion that percentage is much less in the Eastern cities.

By some people cremation has long been considered an inexpensive method of disposing of the remains of one who has passed on. By this I do not mean that there is a lack of respect, but a great many feel that a body may be cremated and no further disposition made. In fact many people are under the impression that the arrangements are complete after the cremation. This is a condition which we must overcome by every means in our power, this tendency destructive to the memorial idea, which is as old as the human race. It is for us to keep before the public the thought that cremation perpetuates the memorial idea just as earth or mausoleum interment perpetuates it. The idea of creating a memorial spot in honor of the family is a noble one. It provides a place upon which to center the thoughts and memories of those who have gone before, and it allows friends to visit the spot and place a tribute of flowers whenever they desire to pay this honor.

The memorial idea is responsible for some of the world's famous structures. The pyramids of Egypt, and such buildings as the Taj Mahal and Westminster Abbey would never have existed if it were not that man had always possessed a strong desire to perpetuate the memory, deeds and identity of his beloved dead and of himself when his span of life is over.

The fact that more and more cremation is looked upon as ideal in no way weakens this instinct of the human race. It has often been said that cremation accomplished in an hour what burial takes months and even years to accomplish. This does not mean however, that so called ashes should be scattered or stored in some closet in the home.

There is the same obligation to the family to provide a fitting memorial resting place when cremation has occurred as when the body itself is to be laid to rest. After the incineration has taken place, the cremation, or urn interment, as it should be called, is only one-third complete, and a family should be urged to select an urn and niche which are representative of and in keeping with that person's station in life.

I recall a case that came to my attention not long ago in which a friend of mine lost a member of his family. He telephoned me stating that he had lost this member and the body was now at the undertaker's. He said it was his intention to cremate the body at our institution and consequently it would not be necessary for him to purchase a good casket. My answer was that a casket and final resting place were selected in accordance with one's station in life, and were indicative of love and respect for one who had passed on; and it made no difference whether the casket was interred in the ground or mausoleum or placed in a crematory retort—it was not seen by anyone thereafter and decomposition of the casket would set in, in either event. I also told him that after he had selected his casket it was his duty to perpetuate the memory of this loved one and select a representative urn and niche which would be in keeping with the surroundings this person had in life. As a result this friend selected a good casket, and after the cremation, purchased a beautiful urn and niche in our Columbarium.

Cremation should not be allowed to stand alone, as it were, without the complete rite or urn interment. A crematory should recognize this and should provide representative urns and proper niches for the permanent disposition of incinerated remains. Attention of families arranging for cremation should be drawn to these things. It need not be done in an offensive manner, but the family should be made to understand that any other idea than urn interment in an appropriate niche is unthinkable. The question that confronts us is how this can best be done. All of us can help to educate the public on the subject if we but give the matter a little thought.

In the first place, when the nearest relative, or the family of the deceased come to make arrangements for cremation, a signed order for the cremation should be required. The signing of this order should take place in a room where urns of different styles and sizes are on display in plain sight. In many cases when the family see such a display they will inquire about final disposition of the ashes. If they do not, it should be mentioned by the sales person handling the arrangements. We must constantly remember that most people are absolutely uninformed about these details, which to us are our every day business. They are usually willing to be guided by the word of those experienced in these matters if they are tactfully and sympathetically handled.

We must gain the confidence of those whom we are serving. The purchase of a suitable urn and niche should be made at the time arrangements are made for the cremation, or within two or three days after the cremation has taken place.

Within the last 60 days the Interment Association of Southern California, which is composed of all cemeteries, crematory and mausoleum companies, took a step which I anticipated and of which I spoke at the convention of the Cremation Association of America last year. In order to educate the public that urn interment includes cremation, niche and urn, and the three are inseparable, it has been decided to quote a price for cremation, which includes the cremation, niche and urn. This price has been set at a minimum of $100.00. When inquiries are received as to the price of cremation this price is given, with the explanation that it includes cremation, niche and urn. In instances of course where people insist upon cremation alone, the price is $50.00, as before, but it is not quoted except on definite request. This, it is believed, will gradually educate the public to the custom of interring the ashes as naturally as they now think of interring the body.

The urns are constructed of sufficient size to accommodate the ashes of one adult person. These niches are small and when people have made up their minds to purchase the urn and niche, they readily see the desirability of buying a better one which represents their family and is suited to their station in life. Their resistance to the interment idea has already been broken down by the preliminary discussion.

The sales people who deal with the public in this way should learn for themselves some of the preeminent facts concerning the memorial idea, its interesting history through all recorded time. If they do familiarize themselves with such facts they will have no difficulty in selling to people who say they do not care what happens to the ashes, or that they do not wish to erect a memorial to the physical remains or a loved one. We must recognize that this work demands people of a high order. The day of the uncouth shirt-sleeved man making cremation arrangements with the family is over. We must have men and women of prepossessing appearance who can handle the distressing details of these arrangements quietly and sympathetically and who can, without offense, convey to the family that the memorial idea is a sacred obligation which they have no right to disregard, that in the years to come the family memorial will be to them a shrine, reminding them always of precious memories and the sacred ties of family affection.

From the publication:
AACS - Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Convention
Indianapolis, IN
September 10, 11, 12 and 13, 1928

I wish to review for a moment a bit of the history of this great institution called a cemetery. Cemeteries are old. The beginning of civilization saw cemeteries. We see individuals and we wonder what is behind them. We wonder what may be their background. We see institutions and we also wonder what is behind them. We wonder what may be their background. As Bryan once said, he was interested to know the background of the human race, but he was more interested in knowing what might be its future. The ancestors might have been monkeys; but he wanted to know whether or not the people who came afterward were going to continue to be monkeys.

The definition of the word "'cemetery" is what? A cemetery is defined as a "sleeping chamber or burial chamber". Its derivation is from a Greek word. They had during the earlier years in Frankfort and in Munich a building at the entrance to each cemetery. In the middle of this building there was one room in which a warden remained on watch. On either side of that room there were four or five "sleeping chambers". As the dead were brought to the cemetery each body was placed in one of these rooms. On one finger of each corpse a small ring was placed and from that ring a string was connected with a bell located in the chamber where the warden sat. For a period of time until that body began to decompose the warden or his assistant sat there listening for the tinkle of that bell in order that there should be no premature interment. This is one phase of the beginning of a cemetery.

Much progress has been made in cemetery development since that period. The Turks had the most interesting type of early cemetery development. They were the first people to inaugurate so called landscape composition into cemetery design. They made it a practice, as has been heretofore pointed out in some of your sessions, to plant a cypress tree beside each grave at the time of each burial.

What was the reason for the development of the churchyard as a cemetery? The churchyard developed because of a desire to provide a place immediately associated with the building of worship where they could hold prayer in connection with their cemetery for those who had departed and whose remains could be kept dose to the place of worship. We know what has happened with the churchyard. We know the reasons why burials have been removed from the catacombs, from the basements of churches, and from the churchyards to the rural cemeteries. We know that more than a century ago Mt. Auburn was one of the first rural cemeteries in this country. We know further that not until the middle of the nineteenth century did the English government pass a law making it compulsory to establish rural cemeteries.

That is a somewhat abridged history of cemetery development. I have often said during my study of cemeteries that we have three kinds of cemeteries today. We have the abandoned cemetery. We have the neglected cemetery and we have the cemetery that is perfectly maintained. 

To which of these kinds of cemeteries are you going to confine your interest? I would much rather see an abandoned cemetery where nature has taken possession, as you sometimes see in the country districts, than to see a neglected cemetery. There is landscape composition in nature's own way in an abandoned cemetery, and an atmosphere which it is very difficult for any modern mind in the act of creating artificial cemetery design to duplicate. If a cemetery is degenerating into the neglected type, then I should much prefer that it be abandoned and nature be given an opportunity to take possession in its own way. 

What is a modern cemetery? It should not be as some believe, a mere "city of the dead". A modern cemetery, in my opinion, has for its primary purpose the establishment of a place of quiet and of worship; a place into which one may go, surrounded by a proper atmosphere to remember the dead. A cemetery should be a tangible and material evidence showing to the community at large and to the world in general, the respect which we have for those who have gone before. The very air we breathe and the pictures of nature there surrounding us should inspire a solemn tribute to the dead.

There are two schools of cemetery design. One school holds that a cemetery may be a field of monuments. The other school holds that the cemetery ought to be practically free from monuments and therefore virtually a park. Neither school in its extreme view will appeal to the majority of us as being correct. I think there are very few of us in this gathering who hold a view very strongly in either of these extreme directions.

A cemetery of the modern type should provide seclusion. That subject has been discussed before you. A cemetery should provide a dignified atmosphere, quite the contrary of the modern idea of living. It should be a very definite expression of a sincerity of religions purpose without being overloaded from that viewpoint. It should be a spot of hallowed ground that is valuable equally for the dead as it is for the living. It should above all, as a material asset in it community, be one of the choke beauty spots of any community with which the cemetery is associated. It should be a place in which you feel that your first desire is to lapse into that so called coma of introspection and retrospection that appeal so strongly in any well designed church.

I have been in cathedrals and I have walked out of the door only to turn around and go back. Why!—because in those cathedrals there was a something in the whole composition which without music or words or any contact with any person had become a part of me. I turned and walked back because I could not feel that I was doing justice to the church or to myself to go away without again endeavoring to absorb more of that atmosphere.

To a certain extent I have tried to describe the feeling that we ought to have when visiting a properly designed cemetery filled with the right kind of landscape composition. A cemetery must be in its last analysis a piece of design. A church is a piece of design. The railroad station is a piece of design. The Public Auditorium is a piece of design. There should, however, be that something in every one of these material things which causes you upon entering it to feel intuitively the purpose for which it exists. You may either have an impulsive desire to pass directly through and to condemn somebody because they did not make the widest and straightest path through it, or you may want to stop, meander around and absorb the atmosphere created by its design. You immediately feel that there is a something in that design that becomes a part of you and to which you must give expression before going away from it. Such an atmosphere and such a reaction must be created by good landscape composition in cemetery design.
I know of no better way to accomplish that purpose than through the agencies of architecture and landscape architecture. I know of no one factor in cemetery design which can do more to create this atmosphere than good landscape composition.

You ask me to define landscape composition. It is a rather intangible thing. You might as well ask what is musical composition. The gentleman who just sang knows musical composition and it radiates from every fiber of his body. He has associated himself with a musical atmosphere. He has studied so far as he could those material things that help him to get a musical point of view and to get in a position where his entire being reacts true to things musical. He has lived in that atmosphere. He has steeped his soul in it with the result that you and I derive great pleasure from music as he now produces it. Landscape composition is similar. It is an art. Anyone who is identified with a cemetery may endeavor to put into that cemetery those things which represent landscape composition and which radiate a worth while message to everybody that comes into that cemetery. The person who assumes that responsibility cannot simply say "I know landscape composition and I am going to produce it as a part of my cemetery design." He must first qualify by asking himself—"what is this intangible thing called landscape composition?" I want to study it. I want to absorb it. I want to be able to create that atmosphere of design resulting from good landscape composition, because it is the thing that I feel so strongly. I want to be certain that after I have done my work someone else is going to feel as I feel. Without these qualifications I should advise no man to try to put into a cemetery the atmosphere of cemetery design, any more than I should expect the layman contractor could put into a church design those elements of architectural composition which convey that message of real church architecture.

There are two phases to landscape composition in cemetery design. One of them is in the plan as laid out on paper. The other is in the thing that we put into that cemetery that gives it those other dimensions.

We have been in cemeteries where the plan appeals strongly to us. We immediately feel that the whole plan is coordinated. We have been in other cemeteries where we feel that someone has taken "a waffle iron" or something akin to it, laid it down on a piece of ground and cut out the streets accordingly and then dropped some monuments around, together with a few trees for good measure. This is one type of design.

We have been in other cemeteries where because or the well designed monuments, proper settings for these monuments, trees of a desired type property located, attractive buildings well located, we feel that the picture is complete and that it is truly a place in which to think of our departed loved ones and friends. We have found no false note anywhere. That kind or a cemetery does not simply grow without man's intelligent assistance. The man who produces such a composition must have trained himself and he must have lived in an atmosphere of that kind of education in landscape composition. Otherwise, he is helpless to create that real type of cemetery. Many mistakes of doctors and others are buried in a cemetery, soon to be forgotten. The mistakes made in landscape composition refuse to be buried. Each time that we make a mistake in landscape composition that mistake continues as the years go by to magnify and to grow until some day it comes out and stares us in the face and we in turn wish we might be buried. It is a great responsibility to assume when one attempts to put landscape composition into cemetery design.

When I endeavor to define landscape composition I am often reminded of the definition of the word "power" as applied to mental activity. "Power is the width or the margin between the exactions of a task that a man is performing and his character reserve." The captain of a great ship may stand on the bridge when the sun is shining and the ocean is smooth. You may think that he has the easiest job in the world. He has a fine uniform, he only walks up and down on the bridge and he has the one "spotlight" table in the dining room and nothing else to worry him. Some night when you go out on the deck with a hurricane blowing, the ship rolling around and you cannot see ahead in fog and you know that there are thousands of lives on that vessel being carried safely to their destination, you then begin to realize the power of that man. It is character reserve that is called into being to enable film under such conditions to perform the great tasks in this emergency.

Landscape composition in cemetery design may be defined as the width of the margin between that kind of a cemetery which will provide a specified number of lots per acre, which will allow one to get from one lot to another over adequate roads and paths, and which will provide for future expansion and the kind of a cemetery which, when you go into it, brings into your being a something which, you cannot analyze and which you cannot define. You only feel that you and God and those gone before you are in close communion. That gentlemen, is landscape composition in cemetery design.

The elements which make for successful landscape composition in a cemetery have been discussed at various meetings. I shall enumerate a few of them. They are as follows: the natural site, one's ability to solve the artificial grading problems in a perfectly natural and efficient way, the proper location and width of roads and walks which first of all must serve as arteries of traffic to give access from one point to another and to serve as important elements of design, the location and type of buildings, the kinds of monuments and headstones and their location, the development of adequate and attractive lawn areas, and the selection and proper placing of plant materials. These are elements which stand out as a part of the design and which may affect the composition or the pictorial, aspects of a cemetery design.

You have had through the papers of Mr. Tupper, Mr. Hare, Mr. Grubb, Mr. Simonds and others some most excellent discussions upon the use to be made of these different elements in order to create a landscape picture. I have no desire to impose upon your time to review these discussions. Their completeness is such that I could hope to do little else.

There are two schools, as I have said, with reference to cemetery design. It is dangerous for one to hold any strong arguments for either extreme. I am reminded of two things in connection with these extreme schools. One is that a conclusion not reached through a process of reasoning can never be changed by a process of reasoning. If a woman likes a black hat, please do not try to tell her that she ought to wear a red hat. The other is the pull-man porter who came to the conductor and said he had two irritable passengers. One passenger insisted that the window be open because he was suffocating with heat. The other passenger insisted that the window be closed because he was freezing. The conductor said to the porter, "You may go back and shut the window until you suffocate one and then open the window until you freeze the other and then proceed in your usual manner."
We must therefore recognize and respect the middle ground of design. Landscape composition properly brought into a cemetery design should endeavor to do those things upon which I have laid stress. It should create a series of interesting pictures. Those pictures should have some dignity. They should have character and above all they should have a great degree of permanence. They should have in them those notes which are not false (such as horticultural varieties with variegated foliage seldom seen in any planting of nature). Those pictures should be in an orderly sort of arrangement. They should create a variety of interest. We should study our cemetery if it be an old cemetery which we are endeavoring to improve, with these thoughts in mind. One of our most difficult and most interesting problems is the renovation and improvement of old cemeteries.

If you go to Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland you will find two of the best examples that I have yet seen in cemetery design. The first example is that of excluding from the cemetery picture those disturbing elements coming from bordering areas of commercial and residential development. The second example is that of a set of pictures interesting and varied in character created by the proper use of plantings of various types in most interesting groups to make the background for different types of monuments.

After all the man who really makes the cemetery, in the last analysis, is the man who lives with that problem day after day and who tries to take either the ideas that he has brought into it as a result of his experience and observation, or the ideas of some professional adviser brought in and left with him, to expand upon and to carry into execution in an effort to produce worth while landscape composition.

We often find in an old cemetery little opportunity to make great improvements. There is small space allowed for planting. Roads and walks are in rectangular lines. Monuments are of average design and too close to each other. Such cemeteries may often be taken, especially those in the rural districts, and with adequate expenditure of money and time, made into most interesting examples of cemetery restoration for the inspiration of the entire countryside. The addition of a well designed entrance, the development of interesting walls and fences, the proper location of planting in spots where planting may be placed, the creation of a frame of foliage for the cemetery, perhaps through the acquisition of a bordering strip of property, the carrying of a theme of foliage or flower effect throughout the cemetery at different periods in the year may work wonders in the improvement of such an area. These elements properly used may tie the entire cemetery into one harmonious unit which causes you to forget entirely an unsightly monument here, or a piece of poor grading there.

I think in a great cemetery such as Lake View or Mt. Auburn or a dozen others, each extending over a large area of property, there is only one thing to do and that is to establish masses of plantings that create a proper and interesting background for monumental work. Such an arrangement, especially of the planting, removes the competitive elements of design so detrimental to one another when one monument is seen with another monument as its background. How many of you live in the fully developed suburbs and have ever looked back at, your own home to determine the landscape composition of its setting, and how often have you realized that a single tree here or a group of planting there to shut out a neighboring house may produce an entirely different looking and more attractive picture of your own home? The same principle applies in the planting with relation to monuments.

The layout of roads in cemeteries is most important. The designer must always keep in mind that he is dealing with cemetery roads and not roads in a subdivision or in a park. Roads in a cemetery should have a texture of surface that presents at all times that quiet rustic simplicity of atmosphere that should pervade the entire area. The cemetery road should lead you aimlessly through the cemetery and this principle should apply to road design except, for one or two of the more important roads which may be used in passing through a cemetery.

A word with reference to the layout of lots in cemetery planning.  I have seen cemetery plans of an important character undertaken by men who assumed to know cemetery design and who in reality had no qualifications to entitle them to render professional service in this field. Their work has imposed upon the community in many instances cemeteries without landscape composition. Apparently their sole purpose has been to get into that cemetery plan a maximum number of lots with little regard to future problems of planting. In my opinion, there is no field of design which is more specialized than cemetery design. If any landscape architect is accepting the obligation to lay out a cemetery and to get into the cemetery design a proper landscape composition, he should have by his side at the very beginning the most competent cemetery expert who has proved by his experience and the work that he has done that he knows those phases of cemetery design which must be recognized for the efficient operations of a cemetery. The design must be a happy solution of the problems of efficiency and operation and maintenance and of real landscape composition.

It is one problem to develop landscape compositions. It is another and an equally important problem to preserve those compositions. There is only one way to properly preserve a landscape composition and that is through continual and perpetual care. There is nothing that changes so rapidly. There is nothing that is so temporary. There is nothing to which so much damage can be done through ignorance or neglect in so short a time as landscape composition.

As cemetery superintendents and executives you have a great mission in life. There is no mission more important. It is not the most profitable from a financial standpoint. Your greatest satisfaction comes from the opportunity to render a worth-while service. You have an obligation to create and to properly preserve these landscape compositions in cemetery design and to make them real assets to the community. It is not the easiest thing to accomplish. The maintenance of one shrub, the maintenance of a group of shrubs, the maintenance of a lawn, roadway, or trees may be an easy thing in and of itself so far as keeping that tree or shrub growing properly, that lawn green, or that road passable. It is quite a different and more difficult thing to perform these maintenance operations so that all of these features heretofore mentioned may assume their proper and permanent relationship in the atmosphere of a proper and desirable landscape composition. Only those men successful in accomplishing these results can tell the great satisfaction or the difficulties.

A cemetery should be so preserved that it continues to express that sentiment and type of design which is symbolic of a cemetery. I do not know of any field of activity which is more worth while or one which requires more study than the proper development and maintenance of cemeteries. I do not know of any field of work where a man may do more good or make a greater impression on humanity in general. After all the greatest permanent satisfaction which we procure from our work is the opportunity to render a real service in a worth while way. A man may continue to be a teacher in one department or he may seek the presidency of a great university. In the first instance, he may do his teaching and have available time within which to accomplish certain ideals and results of a most permanent character, or he may be a president of an institution overburdened with executive and administrative functions to the extent that he can do little of none of the permanent work which will enable his children and their children to find a path "to the place where once he lived." Money is not always the greatest return. It is soon forgotten and dissipated. Work such as you are performing adds something of permanent value to life and it helps to define the "roadway" that permanently marks your efforts and your contributions to humanity.

For my part, I should prefer to be the man who is able and has the opportunity to perform these permanent things which leave tangible and lasting evidence of my work behind me as a monument to me and a monument to my ability, vision and energies which after all far outweigh the temporary qualities of a few dollars.

Your work is such that you are able to leave through the elements of good landscape composition a most desirable impression upon the minds of so many people at a time in their lives when their minds are open and receptive to outside influences. You are developing that kind of composition which comes nearer than anything else to making an indelible impression upon the souls of those persons who as mourners have entered the cemetery and have conveyed their message. That person will find as his mind relaxes another point of view and a new inspiration in life through the elements or landscape composition properly injected into the cemetery design. He will suddenly realize that deep as his sorrow may be, someone has done something for him which conveys a message that is so comforting under such conditions.

From the publication:
AACS - Proceedings of the 41st Annual Convention
Cleveland, OH
August 22, 23, 24 and 25, 1927

What is the significance of the following design's found on memorials? I. H. S.? Oak leaves? Ivy? Lily? Passion Flower?

When this question was assigned to me at our Omaha meeting, with the request that all the designs found on memorials be included in a paper on Symbols at our next meeting, I thought that it would be a comparatively easy subject to handle.

But I have found as I studied the subject that there are emblems of secret societies used on memorials that express the secrets of lodges and orders to which I had no access, not being a member of any such societies.

However, these emblems of lodges and secret orders are made up from various ancient symbols.

Clement of Alexandria, the father of modern Egyptian Science says that "touching mysterious things the symbols of the Egyptian are like unto the Hebrew".

In a little book published in 1866, being a translation of a French work by Frederick Portal entitled "A Comparison of Egyptian Symbols with those of the Hebrews"; we find therein that Mr. Portal has taken the ground that the ancient Hebrew names of the ancient forms expressed the symbolic meaning of these forms. I fully believe that forms are purposes, not things and that when we have learned their purpose, we will cease to think of them as just merely things of three dimensions, for we will see only the purpose.

The origin of the Science of Symbols is lost in the distance of time and seems to be connected with the cradle of humanity. The oldest religions were governed by it; the Arts of design, architecture, statuary and painting were born under its influence and primitive writing was one of its applications. Hence the early writings and records left by the earliest inhabitants of our earth were picture writings.

These are combinations of various figures, that in time past, even before language was written, were used on ancient Egyptian and other monuments and known as hieroglyphic writings.

The Rosetta Stone shows the use of those characters, mingled with alphabetic writing.

In his book, Frederic Portal has traced many Egyptian hieroglyphs back to early Hebrew words, and has shown that names of forms used originally had a close similarity to Hebrew words, meaning the same as that given by the Egyptian to the form.

In our English language we have many synonymous words all expressing a similar idea. May we not search out a word that will bear a phonetic sound and a meaning expressing the ancient symbolic meaning given to ancient forms and thus show why certain forms symbolize certain ideas?

Most of the symbols stand for ideas or principles that were always true are now and ever will be true.

The Egyptian expressed the sublime in form and in scale, which leads us at once, beyond a nation or a people, to see the Omnipotent, All Power, Presence and understanding they had of God and that they symbolized in all their architectural forms. So deep and so broad is the subject of symbols that it would require a volume of the size of the Standard Dictionary to give you an exhaustive description of all forms and names and what they symbolize.

Portal says, "We must choose between two interpretations of words, one the trivial, the other the sublime; the first presenting a pun; the second affording a key to Bible symbols.

The Egyptian symbolized the thought and ways of mankind by picturing them as mule-headed, fox-headed, hawk-headed, snake-headed, thus expressing the natural propensities of the individual portrayed.

“Changes in pronunciation of names and words, at first, scarcely perceptible, degenerated from tongue to tongue and finally destroyed every trace of symbolism and rhetoric took the place of symbols."

Paul said in II Corinthians, 4-18, "While we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal". I am convinced that the things we see are just symbols of the things not seen.

"Not only all the names of men in Hebrew, but those of quadrupeds, birds, fish, insects, trees, flowers and stones are significant," says Portal. So we find the very purposes of the Creator hidden in the early names and symbolized in the forms of things. After searching out the symbolic meaning of the things we see, one comes to know that the form seen is not nearly so important as the purpose for which it was made. Forms may disappear, be destroyed, but their purpose endureth forever.

If we try to comprehend Infinity or Eternity or Space, we find ourselves trying to comprehend each as having a beginning and an ending, and then we try to reason out what is beyond the end we have fixed.

As the shadow is the evidence of a form, so a form is the evidence of an idea and an idea is evidence of the Mind that created it. So a symbol is the evidence of an idea and expresses the purpose of that idea.

The following symbols with their meanings were selected from some fifteen hundred or more that were used either on ancient or modern monuments.

The circle or sphere is perhaps the oldest of all symbolic forms. The first forms no doubt, were the suns and planetary systems.

Animals:
Hare: Contemplation of Divinity
Horse: Understanding
Horse (without rider):
Death Horse (with right root lifted):
    Rider killed in battle.
Horse (with left foot lifted):
    Rider wounded
Lamb: Modesty. Innocence
Shell: Resurrection
Sphinx: To guard and conceal hidden things
And: Wisdom

Birds:
Dove: Spiritual Peace
Eagle: Perfect vision and eternal vigilance
Hawk: Soul aspiring to Heaven
Ostrich Feather: Justice and truth

Plants:
Bamboo: Longevity
Clematis: Gladness
Fig: Fruitfulness
Fleur-de-lis: Purity
Flower Festoon: Memory

Forget-me-not: True love
Gingko: Eternal Life
Iris: Protection
Ivy: Memory of Friendship
Laurel: Glory
Lily: The resurrection
Lotus: Celestial light
Oak: Majesty. Endurance
Olive: Victory. Peace
Palm Tree: Truth, Justice
Papyrus-Reed: Love
Poppy: Death as Sleep
Rose: Human love
Violet: Modesty
Wheat: Staff of life
Ears of Wheat: Prosperity, Constancy
Stock of Wheat: Body of Christ
Bundle of Wheat: Harvest
Wi low: Desperation, Grief
Passion flower: Crucifixion

Fruit:
Apple-Indian: Temptation
Apple-Scandinavian: Procreation
Apple-Grecian: Liberality
Peach: Immortality
Pear: Felicity
 
 
The pictures thrown on the screen will carry out these designs.  Now, there is no question in my mind but that many of you will disagree on these points, but if you will go back to the original Hebrew and follow out most of these, as I have followed them out, back to the Hebrews, they express just what I have said in their meaning.
 

From the publication:
AACS - Proceedings of the 39th Annual Convention
Chicago, Illinois
August 24, 25, 26 and 27, 1925

It is a privilege, which I esteem highly, to appear before you and address this Convention of the Association of American Cemetery Superintendents. During the past ten years in the course of official duties, I have been brought into contact with cemetery authorities at over fifteen hundred points in Canada and some hundreds in the United States where British soldiers of the Great War are buried. The most interesting of these contacts have naturally been in the larger cities and towns, where cemetery organization and development have been raised to a high point of excellence; and I have had full opportunity to appreciate the admirable standards and ideals which modern cemetery superintendents hold before them. To members of your Association from the United States, as to your colleagues in Canada, I owe a debt of gratitude for helpful cooperation in, and sympathetic understanding of the great task of commemorating in a fitting manner the gallant Dead of the Great War; and it is a pleasure to have this opportunity of publicly acknowledging it.

Most of you gentlemen are welcome visitors to Canada from the United States, and it is not to be expected that you will have much knowledge of the subject of my address, which is naturally more familiar to citizens of the British Empire. You have, however, your own great problem of commemoration arising from the World War, and we in Canada know something of the American Battle Monument Commission, the ranking member of which is General John J. Pershing. Under its direction beautiful military cemeteries have been created at Brookwood, England, and at seven points in Belgium and France, containing the graves of over 30,000 of your soldiers who are buried in Europe, more than 46,000 bodies having been returned to their native soil. Chateau-Thierry, Cantigny, St. Michiel, Meuse-Argonne—these are great names in American history, names which will remind future generations of mighty occasions on which valorous American troops upheld the highest national traditions. At these points splendid memorials are being raised by the American Battle Monuments Commission.

But you have asked me today to speak about the scheme of commemoration of the British Empire, which, by reason of its scale, is unique in history. It is a terrible commentary on the Great War to point out that losses aggregating more than 122,000 human lives, such as were suffered by the United States Forces were comparatively small. The American troops were not engaged in battle until July 1918 and their losses were sustained in fighting between then and the Armistice in the following November. The other nations had been engaged since 1914 and during those four years their losses had grown to almost unbelievable figures.
 
May I at this point recall to your minds the magnitude of the Great War.? Telegraph, telephone and wireless had in 1914 made possible the effective use of troops over a very wide front and the coordination of effort on several widely separated fronts. In as recent an instance as the Russo-Japanese War in 1914, the Japanese had 270,000 men, first line troops and 200,000 older troops in reserve. 270,000 is a formidable figure but compare it for a moment with the Great War. I have never seen an official compilation of troops actually engaged at any given time, but Nelson's Encyclopedia in 1919 had a carefully prepared table giving in detail the number of troops mobilized for and during the Great War by all belligerents. And what do you gentlemen think the figure was?—59,176,864!  The number of fatal casualties, or to put it bluntly, men killed in the Great War was 7,781,000. When it comes to casualties in the broader sense of the word, that is men reported killed, wounded or missing, the total runs in excess of 33,000,000. Now I shall not stop to point a moral but it should be apparent to those who talk lightly of war in the future that, with the knowledge obtained in the Great War and the advances of science since, it is possible to envisage the wholesale, organized destruction not only of soldiers, but of men, women and children, and indeed the whole populations. It will not be like the last, plague in the Book of Exodus, when a great cry went up in Egypt and it was decreed that the firstborn of every family should die. It will be complete obliteration of whole families and whole communities. In such circumstances one can easily conceive such a breakdown of human government that civilized society as we know it would come to an end.

A traveler in France, who should be in the old city of Rouen, would naturally go into the cathedral, and there he would enter the Joan of Arc Chapel. Having done so, he would observe, close to the statue of the Maid, a beautiful tablet, colored and gilded and bearing the arms of Great Britain surrounded by the arms of all the self-governing dominions of the British Empire and the words:

"To the Glory of God and to the Memory of One Million Dead of the British Empire Who Fell in the Great War 1914-1918."

The presence of such a tablet in that particular chapel is not only a testimony to the healing hand of time, but also to the generosity of the French, when one remembers that five hundred years ago St. Joan herself was burned to death by the British—in that same town. Similar tablets have been erected in other cathedrals in Belgium and France, and they will serve as perpetual and significant reminders, to all who read, of the part taken by our Empire in the greatest war in history. The British contribution in men was six million from the British Isles, 1,500,000 from India, 600,000 from Canada, about the same from Australia and proportionate quotas from other parts of the Empire. The number of fatal casualties, among the British forces was 1,089,919. The number of recorded and registered graves is about 600,000; so you will see that there remain over 400,000 who are in the tragic company of the "Missing", that is to say, those known to be dead, but the site of whose grave is unknown. The 600,000 graves are in 15,593 cemeteries in all parts of the world.

The task of commemorating this vast body of splendid men was entrusted to the Imperial War Graves Commission. This is an Imperial body on which all the countries of the British Empire are represented. The money required is provided by the different countries in proportion to their respective graves, Great Britain contributing 80 percent and the remaining 20 percent being divided among the Dominions, Colonies and Dependencies.

Under the Commission's control there have been created in Belgium and France alone one thousand new British war cemeteries, containing 300 to 10,000 graves each and about 1500 plots in parish or communal cemeteries. This is only the beginning. These cemeteries are to be found all the way from Antwerp to Jerusalem and from the Baltic to the Bosphorus. They stretch across Switzerland and Italy, across the Greek Islands, down the Gallipoli Peninsula, through Syria and Palestine, then southward to Egypt and East Africa. At Iraq, the ancient Chaldea, between the lower waters of the Euphrates and the Tigris there are seven. In all these parts of the world it is as if a giant had strode about from the English Channel to the Sea of Galilee, leaving great white footmarks as he passed. The line extends across the north of India to China to Australia and New Zealand, across Canada, where there are 7000 war graves in 1500 places and so back to the British Isles, where there are 89,000 graves in 9,500 churchyards and cemeteries. In addition, these war graves and war plots are to be found in fifty other countries not mentioned and in the track I have indicated.

May I attempt to describe these cemeteries to you? As far as the countries of our allies are concerned, the land has been given in perpetuity. In other places it has been acquired. The cemeteries are artistically and permanently enclosed in stone or stone and brick walls. The headstones are of uniform pattern; indeed uniformity is the keynote of the whole scheme of commemoration. The field officer and the private soldier lie side by side, their graves marked in exactly the same way. The headstones are meant to typify the union of all "in motive, inaction and in death." By their very uniformity they speak in one voice of one death, one sacrifice for a cause that was common to all. A feature of all the cemeteries is the Cross of Sacrifice. This memorial, a beautiful cross, to the face of which is fixed a great bronze sword, stands sentinel over the graves of British soldiers. Those who have seen them will have unfading pictures of these crosses; on the ramparts of Ypres, in sheltered nooks beneath the high ground along the western front, in the plains of Italy, amid the sands of Palestine or Mesopotamia, in the clear air of East Africa or crowning the “brown-streaked cliffs of Gallipoli." Wherever found, they carry the same suggestion, namely, one sacrifice for a common cause. In the larger cemeteries there is another monument, the Stone of Rembrance, "a great fair stone of fine proportions", bearing the words, "THEIR NAME LIVETH FOR EVERMORE." And in the largest one, such as Etaples, where there are 11,000 graves, eminent architects have designed other structures, which add dignity and grandeur to the cemeteries, in the form of wide terraces and vaulted buildings, which serve as record-houses or rest-houses where visitors go apart to meditate or pray. At Tyne Cot, Passchendaele, three German concrete blockhouses have been introduced into the scheme very effectively, and at the far side is a great screen wall, 500 feet long, on which are inscribed the names of 35,000 missing men. A feature which is common to all the cemeteries is the beautiful horticultural treatment. One walks on turf like that of old England while the eye is charmed by a profusion of color. Flowers are everywhere, in beds and borders and climbing over the headstones.

Curiously enough one does not have a feeling of sadness on entering these cemeteries. The headstones are spread out in perfect order, as it were in platoons and regiments and I have sometimes a feeling that if the bugle sounded, all these soldiers would rise and march again. One is affected by the thought of the high courage and chivalry of the men who lie there amid so much beauty and in a silence broken only by the song of the birds. The feeling is not so much one of sadness as a curious exaltation a sort of lifting up of the spirit.

To this particular audience it may not be uninteresting to hear a word or two concerning the manner in which it has been sought to make these British War Cemeteries permanent in character. One is familiar with the old-fashioned graveyard where headstones are to be seen, some displaced by time and others almost falling down. In the War Cemeteries of which I am speaking a trench is dug at the back of each row of graves and a continuous concrete beam is constructed in it. On the upper side of this beam there are sockets into which the headstones are fitted and fixed with cement. The headstones themselves are all of the same shape, 3 feet 3 inches high, 2 feet 6 inches above ground and 9 inches below ground. They are 1 foot 3 inches broad and 3 inches thick, the top forming a segment of a circle 2 ft. 6 inches in radius. It may be pointed out that although the land for these cemeteries has been given in perpetuity in each former allied country by the people of that country at their own cost, following the generous example first set by France, the method of construction which I have above described removes any fear that the land might ever be used for another purpose. The labor and expense which would be involved in the removal of these headstones and their foundations would be economically prohibitive.

I would like to tell you now what is being done about maintaining these cemeteries. On May 4th, 1930, Mr. Winston Churchill, speaking in the House of Commons said,

"The cemeteries which are going to he erected to the British dead on all the battlefields in all the theatres of war will be entirely different from the ordinary cemeteries which mark the resting places of those who pass out in the common flow of human fate from year to year. They will be supported and sustained by the wealth of this great nation and Empire, as long as we remain a great nation and Empire; and there is no reason at all why in periods as remote from our own as we ourselves are from the Tudors, the graveyards in France of this great War shall not remain an abiding and supreme memorial to the efforts and the glory of the British Army and the Sacrifices made in that great cause."

In fulfillment of that pledge, the governments of the empire, have for some years been getting together by annual contributions a fund which is to reach the total of five million pounds. These contributions are vested in Trustees and the income from that fund will be used to maintain the cemeteries and memorials in order and beauty forever.

Gentlemen, we sometimes speak of ancient remains; those of Assyria and Babylon and Greece and Rome, and undoubtedly from them we learn much of the character of the people who lived in those days. When many centuries have passed these war cemeteries—these silent cities—will be found; and they will speak for us, to tell future generations the story of the men who lived in our day. And what an epic it will be! As far as Canada is concerned, when the story is all pieced together, it will speak of 600,000 of the flower of our manhood who at the call of king and country rallied to the colors and cast their all upon the hazard; and over 60,000 of whom gave up their lives.

I told you a few moments ago that there were over 400,000 men who came in the category of the missing. It was and is the purpose and intention of the governments concerned that every one of these men shall be commemorated by name; and in order to carry out that idea the erection of great structures was necessary. On the high ground, forming a sea-mark for an passing in and out of the Dardanelles, there is a monument 100 feet high which carries the names of 18,000 men of the British Isles. On the Anzac Ridge of Gallipoli the missing of the Australians are commemorated.  In Macedonia there is a similar monument to the Salonika force. At the southern end of the Suez Canal, at Port Tewfik, there is an interesting memorial to the Indian troops a square obelisk, with flanking walls for the inscriptions. The sculpture takes the form of crouching tigers, one guarding the monument from the Canal and the other from the sea. There are a number of other such memorials, including four in Great Britain three to men of the Royal Navy and one to the Mercantile Marine. It is of course in France and Belgium that this sort of commemoration is on the largest scale. The Ypres Salient is possibly the most blood-stained piece of ground in the world. At the Menin Gate, Ypres, at the town end of the causeway leading across the moat to the Menin Road, a magnificent arch has been erected. As one approaches from the outside on sees, below the carved figure of a lion in repose, these words:

"To the Armies of the British Empire Who Stood Here From 1914 to 1918 and to Those of Their Dead Who Have No Known Grave."

The main hall of this most imposing memorial has a span of 70 feet; it is 50 feet high and 130 feet long. In that hall and in the adjacent stairways and galleries are inscribed in stone the names of 56,000 men of the British Empire who were missing and lost their lives in those parts but have no known grave. Among these are 7,500 Canadians. Our total Canadian missing were in excess of 19,000. The remaining 11,500 are to be commemorated on our own monument at Vimy Ridge, about which I shall speak in a moment.

Quite recently in northern France I was present at the unveiling by the British Ambassador to France of a memorial at Le Touret which bears 13,500 names. I also saw in course of construction at Thiepval another great memorial, counterpart of the Menin Arch, which bears the names of more than 73,000 soldiers, practically all from the British Isles, who were missing in the terrible battle of the Somme. During the past two months several other memorials to the missing have been unveiled bringing the present total in Belgium and France up to, I think, ten. Thus is being faithfully redeemed the pledge that those to whom was denied the known resting places given to their comrades in death should be fittingly commemorated individually by name.

The work that I have so far described has been carried out by the Imperial War Graves Commission. I should like to add for the information of good neighbors like yourselves who take an interest in Canada, share with you in the occupation of this North American continent, that apart from its participation in the general work of Empire commemoration, the Dominion of Canada has been permitted to erect memorials at its own separate cost upon eight battlefield sites where her troops took an important or decisive part. Three of these are in Belgium and five in France. I shall not pause to describe them except to say that one of the memorials in Belgium is at St. Julien where in 1915 the Canadian troops commanded the attention of the World by withstanding the first German gas attacks. To use the words of Marshal Foch on the occasion of the unveiling of the memorial "They wrote here their first page of that Book of Glory which is the history of their participation in the War". The main Canadian memorial in France is at Vimy Ridge and this is now in course of construction.

You will understand; I am sure, that the recital of a story of the commemoration of men who died for their country arouses patriotic sentiments of a high order. In this case it makes us Canadians rejoice in our British heritage. The memorials of which I have been speaking are the visible signs of one of the greatest phenomena in history: a solidarity of sentiment during the Great War, a common loyalty possessed by the Mother Country by the great Dominions, by the Colonies and Dependencies of this realm, men of many complexions and creeds, drawn from regions and climes so vast that they cover one quarter of the earth, owning allegiance to one King, moved and governed by one impulse of loyalty and devotion. When was anything like it in the world before?
 
Is it possible to leave this subject without expressing some aspiration for the future? A short time ago we seemed to be rising out of the murk of doubt, fear and distrust which followed the conclusion of the War and the negotiation of the Peace Treaties. The League of Nations was functioning, as it happily still is, the Kellogg Pact had been signed, the London Conference on Naval Limitations was in view. We seemed to have heard, like a bell in a fog, a warning that we were drifting backward and to have set our course definitely ahead once more. Already we described the misty outlines of a fairer world in which differences would be submitted to reason and justice rather than to the forces of destruction and of death. And now again the outlines of that world have become faint and its bold headlines seem like to disappear. The world is full of rumors of possibilities of conflict between principal powers and of a possible train of events which would involve all the Countries of Europe except perhaps Great Britain. The status quo resulting from the Peace Treaty is acceptable to those who profited by it but it is otherwise with those whose populations were severed and whose territories were mutilated. The possibility of war is only too apparent.

But, Gentlemen, as for the United and the British Empire, our hearts and minds are set on peace. In a keenly competitive world we may have our differences but on two things we are agreed. We do not propose ever to fight each other; and to maintain .the general peace of the world is the first object of our national policies. May we not hope then that, in any conjuncture of events, we shall .be found side by side in a supreme effort to ensure that the tragedy of 1914-1918 shall not be repeated? And as between this British Country and our great neighbor may friendly visits which we pay one to the other be in every case embassies of good will, dedicated to the promotion of mutual forbearance and good understanding and to that sort of sturdy friendship which is not made for fair weather only, but which proves its worth in times of storm and stress.

From the publication:
AACS - Proceedings of the 44th Annual Convention
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
September 8, 9, 10 and 11, 1930

When we grow old and decrepit, honors are thrust upon us many times unsought, honors that in our younger days we coveted and for which we would have given a right arm or something else as desirable. Twenty years ago to address this honorable body was my greatest wish. I was then trying to put over an idea that I thought all cemeteries should be interested in.

But time has tempered my enthusiasm. I find that no organization, institution or collection of men altogether, ever at any time, wish or are interested in the same things. Generally you are lucky if you can command a majority on any subject.

However, sometime in 1912 I conceived the idea of establishing a magazine exclusively for cemeteries; a periodical whose sole interest would be the cemetery; to teach cemeteries better business methods, help them to keep better records, and to eliminate, as far as possible, what I thought was a mistake—the mutually owned cemetery with its generally slip shod methods.

I have always believed that a cemetery was a business enterprise, not a philanthropic institution. Mutually owned companies paying no profit were either a great many times the source of graft if successful, or an expense to some public spirited citizens if unsuccessful. Of course, this was not always true.

I know a great many very wonderful cemeteries maintained on the mutual plan and believe two or three of the very finest cemeteries in the United States are mutual companies, conducted on a strictly honest basis with the best of business judgment.

It was my ambition, however, to see the private corporation established for profit—legitimate profit—take over the cemeteries of the country and conduct them on a business basis, which would have meant beautiful cemeteries properly endowed, efficient and courteous in their services. Profit sharing corporations long ago learned that prosperity and profits accrued only to those who practice such virtues.

Had that been accomplished, I believe that today the majority of our cemeteries would have Community Mausoleums. It is a part of the service that, in my mind, should be furnished by cemeteries.

I am not going back over a lot of ancient history or Mausoleums; all of you know that the name was derived from the tomb erected for King Mausolus, which has long since disappeared. The great pyramids of Egypt were undoubtedly Mausoleums. The early Christians of note were buried in tombs or Mausoleums, many of which, two thousand years later, are still standing. The Chinese and the East Indians built Mausoleums for their noted men and women and some of them built of teakwood ten centuries ago are still standing.

My history, I think records that more than five hundred years after the birth of Christ, the Christians had not practiced ground burial. Some Roman Emperor, I am not sure which—Constantine, I believe—started the practice by ordering that his own body when life had passed should be buried in the ground. Then for several centuries, ground burial was quite generally practiced throughout Europe, though the princes, potentates and great men generally were interred in tombs. For many centuries the noted of England have hoped and wished for the great honor of being entombed in the famous Abbye of Westminster.

The Catacombs being under ground were still tomb and I believed it was estimated more than seven million bodies were placed there. These Catacombs are one of the wonders of the Old World, and are mute reminders that the Christians of the early Romans preferred tombs.

In this country our pioneers had about all they could do to provide for the living, therefore the dead should be cared for in the simplest and most inexpensive way, which was the ground. Three hundred years of practice have hallowed and indorsed this method to many people.

While we grow older, richer, more cultured, refined and sensitive, we wonder if the ground isn't crude, barbaric and cruel; we wonder if some plan cannot be devised that will relieve to a certain extent the anguish and sorrow we feel at parting with our loved ones on that day they cross the Great Divide. Some think cremation, and I am admitting now that cremation sounds better to me than it did twenty years ago, and I believe every cemetery should have a crematory and columbarium. I believe, though, the Mausoleum is the best answer found up to the present time.

The Community Mausoleum as we know it today, dates from a structure of about one hundred crypts erected by a man named Hood, in Ganges, Ohio, in 1907, just twenty-two years ago. It was crude, cheaply constructed and in outward appearance strongly resembled some of these Ohio and Indiana hog barns, but the idea was born. He took out patents which were un-patentable and being somewhat of an ingenious character, he fell in with some moneyed men, among them F. L. Maytag of Newton, Iowa, who financed his scheme for selling patent rights. Undoubtedly these high powered salesmen sent out to unload these patent rights on the public had much to do with the black eye given the Mausoleum in its early days. On the other hand, purchasers of these patents had to build and establish Mausoleums in order to get their money back and it is justly possible one offset the other. Without the patents few may have conceived the idea and furthermore, it would have taken much longer to develop without this artificial urge.

My own connection dates back to 1911 so that I am probably one of the oldest men in the Mausoleum business today. I have constructed seventy-five or more buildings personally, have supervised still others. The present value of these buildings is probably ten to fifteen million dollars. It is not likely that record will ever be achieved by any one man again.

In recent years I have tried to get out of the construction of Mausoleums and confine my efforts more to the two buildings I have in Pasadena and Long Beach, but for some reason I do not seem to be able to do so, as some one is constantly inveigling me into another contract to build just one more.

There have been a great many patents taken out on Mausoleums. I took out several myself, but generally they were of little actual value. The first, as I have told you, were taken out by Hood. These were thrown out on their first test in the Federal Court in Toledo, but the decision of the trial court was reversed by the appellate court, which while not establishing the patents restored them to their original status before the ruling of the Federal District Court. Mr. Maytag I think on my advice decided to let them go at that and the suit he had filed was dismissed.

After the Hood patents came the American Mausoleum patents exploited by the Hughes Granite Co. at Clyde, Ohio; then the United States Mausoleum patents, the first building I believe being constructed at Milwaukee, Wisconsin. There were several other patents, among them my own, but generally all of them fell within the systems of one of these I have mentioned; that is, the various patents all are more or less covered by these three different schemes or plans, each of which has its advocates and advantages.

The Hood patents were built around the idea of preserving the body. The American Mausoleum ventilating the crypt with the idea of drying the body up as quickly as possible. The United States was a modification of the Hood plans, but I have seen that used on the coast here in connection with the American or ventilating plan.

I have generally recommended those systems that sealed their crypts as tightly as possible and worked toward preservation, although I have erected buildings of practically every type and some, notably in Indiana, where all systems were barred by law. Frankly, I can't say there is a great deal of difference though, as I stated, I prefer the non-ventilating type.

I do not believe there is a business of any kind that has been exploited by as many peculiar types of individuals as the Mausoleum. Whenever a man has proven himself a failure in everything else, he turns to the Mausoleum. He doesn't take his modesty with him, however. He immediately preens his feathers and begins to tell the world that the Mausoleum business is going to take a turn for the better with his entrance in the business.

He is going to show us old stagers how smart he is. He is going to build the most magnificent structure ever erected to the memory of man. When he gets his building built, purchasers will flock from the four corners of the earth to buy space in his superb building. He figures the rest of us are only putting about $38.98 in our construction and by adding another couple of dollars, he can have a granite building with a dome that will make our National Capitol look like the proverbial thirty cents; then, as it will cost only a little to sell, say, maybe 10 percent, and he is sure he can easily sell his crypts for from $500.00 to $1000.00 per crypt, giving him about 1000 percent profit. Well, he will show the world. He starts on a shoestring, talk a sucker into financing, buys a lot from the cemetery on faith and glib tongue and starts out.

A lot happens, het finds it costs a little more to build than he thought, there is something called overhead, the time element cuts quite a figure, money must be borrowed, interest paid, salesmen must have 15 percent instead of 10 percent and that is only one-third of the selling expense—advertising, sales manager, business managers, janitors and a thousand and one other expenses naturally attached to any business, but this bright promoter never thought of that; in fact, he didn't think it was a business. He thought it was a discovery and he the bright discoverer. Result—another black eye for the Mausoleum.

The worst of them all is the wholesaler. You cemetery men better take warning for the wholesaler is going to be among you strong. The plums that he can pick are so luscious that it is only a matter of time when he will be working throughout the land. His cheerful and wonderful message is one long sweet song to the sucker. I know what I am talking about because I have watched their operations and have built a number of their buildings.

As a matter of fact, their plan if carried out honestly and  fairly is plausible and should redound to the benefit of all and make it possible to build anywhere and finance a building without loss to anyone, but to be fair and honest is too simple and the money doesn't roll in fast enough for these gentlemen. I built one such building for about $70.00 per crypt. It was wholesaled at twice that amount and then marked up on resale to as high as $600.00 per crypt and many of them sold for that. Honest management would have brought success to the original investors. This was too much for the wholesaler; he couldn't stand to see such profits go to the men that put up the money, so he revised his plans and they are grand and glorious for him. From now on the world is his oyster and you better watch out.

The Mausoleum has one thing about it that sets it apart from all other methods of caring for the dead. It is in truth a memorial and its possibilities as such are unlimited. A magnificent structure it can be made—one that no man will be so sacrilegious as to destroy.  Ten centuries from now it may tell the story of our civilization and progress. In fact, it may be the only link between that age and this. Cemeteries, columbarium, stone monuments, all will be removed as they fall in the way of development and progress. Not so the Mausoleum. It will stand properly built throughout the ages as to a great memorial to those who have lived and died during this age. No other one thing has contributed so much to the romance of the past as the tombs of our forefathers.

What a triumph to the French who, sixty years ago, broke through the jungles of Cambodia and discovered that immense structure—Angkor Ghat!

One more point and I will conclude. The Community Mausoleum is an attempt to popularize the private tomb to make it possible for men and women of moderate means to have above ground entombment or mausoleum burial. Such people can pay from $200.00 and up, and you must recognize this fact and build accordingly. When you put unnecessary expense in your construction and run the cost up, you simply cut out the sale of the crypts that are most in demand. I do not mean to build poorly, but eliminate waste. The greatest waste I have found is in the design of the building. My friend, Frank Hogan, never forgave me for showing him where he had thrown away $30,000.00 in the layout of his building on construction, and lost $50,000.00 in space or a waste of $80,000.00. All he would have had to have done was simply shift his plan around retaining the same size corridors and chapel and practically the same exterior design.

To my mind, reinforced concrete offers the ideal construction throughout. If you have a large building you might face it with some of the harder marbles or granite. Skylights should be eliminated as far as possible, no more doors than you must have. Ventilation of the corridors is all right in Southern California but almost everywhere else ventilation should only be possible when the building is in use for services.

The foundation should be built upon a solid slab covering the entire area of your building of property reinforced concrete. I think further the building should be well or beautifully designed for it will stand a long, long time and if you have extra money, spend it on the design, though money spent on the chapel and service will pay big dividends.

Build simply but substantially. Do not paint your building as I have seen done; that will wash off and you cannot very well establish a perpetual care fund large enough to keep up such a structure. All expensive upkeep items wherever possible should be eliminated. Ornamental iron work is satisfactory in some cases, but solid bronze is better wherever it is required for doors or gates. Do not use tubing for gates or doors. Imported antique glass is better for your windows, opalescent is somewhat more popular and only about half as expensive but cuts down the light 60 to 70 percent while antique reduces it only from 10 to 25 percent. Tile roof is good, though if your design calls for flat roof, copper or lead should be used. Use high grade marble—Colorado Yule, Alabama, Vermont and some grade of Tennessee. On the coast, Italian can be used; in the middle states it is too expensive.

Larger buildings should have a musical instrument. We have in our Long Beach and Pasadena buildings very fine pipe organs, and in Long Beach a set of Deagan electrical tower chimes. The organ and chimes in Long Beach, including space for installation, represent an expenditure of $100,000.00.

The larger buildings in metropolitan districts may be furnished with draperies and comfortable furniture, but of course the smaller building should not be. Furniture and draperies in any case should be of the very best and of such construction and material that will withstand the ravages of time as much as possible.

One more thing. Unquestionably the various legislatures should be requested to pass appropriate laws for the governing of Mausoleums before the business falls into the hands of the wrong people. Only six states have legislated on the Mausoleum so far as I know—five of those were attempts of the monument dealer to stifle the Mausoleum business and the sixth one passed a law written by a lawyer who knew nothing of construction and so far as I can see, all it does is impair the permanency of Mausoleum construction and make it cost more.

One thing I noticed particularly in Mr. Eaton's address. All the great memorials he named—every one were built. It is unquestionably the works of man that appeal most to the coming ages. And all the memorials of note that attract unusual attention are buildings, buildings erected by man. There are memorials dedicated for memorial purposes that are natural and of course no human being can build any thing that will equal a natural structure. Just the same, the thrill comes to you when you come and visit these enormous buildings built as memorials.

As Mr. Eaton told you about Forest Lawn, I want to invite all of you to visit Sunnyside. It is only a short distance from the interurban station at Long Beach. We advertise Sunnyside as America's finest Mausoleum. We truly believe it is. There you can, even if in moderate circumstances, find a place in the most beautiful surroundings for above—ground entombment. There you can see the most beautiful and costliest chapel ever built for interment purposes. There you can find the only pipe organ in the world for your final interment service.

There you can find the only electrical Deagan tower chimes to remind you that even though the service is beautiful, that time is fleeting and our stay is short—the only mausoleum in the world with these chimes.

There you can look down beautiful vistas or corridors, three hundred or more feet long, but so constructed and designed that you do not feel they are anything but beautiful vistas.

There you will see the most expensive interior decorations ever put in a mausoleum. There you will find the most beautiful waiting and rest rooms for men and women. You will have elevator service.

There is a complete apartment built right in the building. The reception room and private office have been commented upon by thousands of visitors.

Sunnyside has for its slogan—"Dignified and Sacred Service" and means it.

Its furnishings throughout are of the finest materials that money could purchase. Not many of you could think it possible to spend $25,000 on interior furnishings and curtains, but that is what we have done.

Sunnyside is laid out around a proposed court or patio and when completed will hold more than 17,000 crypts and the whole will show a consistent and evident throughout plan. You can see immediately upon entering that the builders had in mind just what they wanted from the start and never deviated from their plans.

In fact, we have tried to build in a way that you would know when you entered this great structure that it was erected by a mausoleum man, as a memorial to the men and women of today who loved beauty refinement and dignity; who despised sham but loved color, harmony and the serene contentment of a beautiful home. For, after all, it is the final home—one that can be visited by sorrowing relatives and get help instead of further unhappiness.

We give, to our people a very fine vesper service every Sunday afternoon, mostly musical, though we do have a short talk by one of the Long Beach pastors during the service.

We have a very fine crematory, and the most expensively constructed Columbarium ever built.
 
In fact, we have a complete institution with 4,500 crypts, ranging in price from $200 to $5,000. The cheaper ones are so located as not to interfere with the expensive ones, and yet all so located as to bring up no unfavorable contrasts.
 

From the publication:
AACS - Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Convention
Los Angeles, CA
September 3, 4, 5 and 6, 1929

The subject "Creation of a Modern Park Cemetery" would necessitate a theoretical discourse—the "Creation of Forest Lawn" is an actual experience from which you may acquire some practical benefit.

My first glimpse of Forest Lawn Cemetery showed it to be a little country cemetery, of ten acres developed, forty-five undeveloped; with no buildings, no improvements, with the exception of a grove of olive trees and a few scattering headstones. Such a picture most of you have seen many times. Forest Lawn's other assets were a total of 1400 interments, and yearly gross sales of $28,000.

Today, twelve years after we took charge, Forest Lawn Cemetery is Forest Lawn Memorial Park—Park it is, because the visitor rarely recognizes that he is entering into a so-called "cemetery". Forest Lawn now comprises over 200 acres, with a total of 28,464 interments, sales amounting to more than one million dollars per year, and total assets aggregating ten million dollars. It averages 300 interments per month, and 81 weddings per month. Our payroll of yesterday showed an organization of 406 employees, including an Architectural Department of 12 Architects and an Engineering force of like number.

Today it possesses many buildings of historical and architectural charm that house some of the world's greatest art treasures, and last year more than 525,000 visitors passed through her gates. Forest Lawn is not only a safe depository for our beloved dead, but also a place for the living to visit and sacredly enjoy. The manner in which these results have been arrived at are briefly as follows:

My first move twelve years ago when I awoke to find myself in charge of Forest Lawn Cemetery, was to personally visit the great interment places of the world. I talked to Superintendents, Grave Diggers, Presidents, and Undertakers. I wanted to find out why a African-American whistled when he went through a cemetery; I wanted to find out why most of the interment spots in the United States were places to be shunned—looked upon as civic liabilities where they should have been civic assets. I wanted to find out why even the most beautiful cemeteries were visited by people mainly from a sense of duty; why most of them were so ugly, and why they didn't have architects and landscape engineers connected with them. I wanted to find out if the cemeteries were wrong or if it was the people. And then when I had finished with the cemeteries, I visited public parks, glimpsed their lovely vistas, watched their fountains at play, admired their beautiful statuary and studied their architectural buildings. I strolled through museums and galleries of art; I questioned people who had traveled in the art centers of the Old World—and then I came home. I had found my answer.

BUILDER’S CREED

I have always found if I put my thoughts into writing the very act seems to clarify my mind and enables me to approach a problem in a logical manner. And so, on New Year's Day, 1917 I sat down and wrote what I termed "The Builder's Creed", and if I were called upon today to give you my recipe for the "Creation of a Modern Park Cemetery", the best I could do would be to hand you this Creed:

"I believe in a happy Eternal Life. I believe that those of us left behind should be glad in the certain belief that those gone before have entered into that happier life. I believe, most of all, in a Christ that smiles and loves you and me. I therefore know the cemeteries of today are wrong because they depict an end, not a beginning. They have consequently become unsightly stone yards, full of inartistic symbols and depressing customs, places that do nothing for humanity save a practical act and that not well.

"I therefore prayerfully resolve on this New Year's Day, 1917, that, I shall endeavor to build Forest Lawn as different as unlike other cemeteries as sunshine is unlike darkness, as Eternal Life is unlike Death. I shall try to build at Forest Lawn a great Park, devoid of misshapen monuments and other customary signs of earthly death, but filled with towering trees, sweeping lawns, splashing fountains, singing birds, beautiful statuary, cheerful flowers, noble memorial architecture, with interiors full of light and color, and redolent of the world's best history and romances. I believe these things educate and uplift a community.

"Forest Lawn shall become a place where lovers new and old shall love to stroll and watch the sunset's glow, planning for the future or reminiscing of the past; a place where artists study and sketch; where school teachers bring happy children to see the things they read of in books; where little churches invite, triumphant in the knowledge that from their pulpits only words of love can be spoken, where memorialization of loved ones in sculptured marble and pictorial glass shall be encouraged but controlled by acknowledged artists; a place where the sorrowing will be soothed and strengthened because it will be God's Garden. A place that shall be protected by an immense Perpetual Care Fund, the principal of which can never be expended—only the income there from used to care for and perpetuate this Garden of Memory. This is the Builder's Dream; this is the Builder's Creed."

That Creed has never been changed from that day to this and at Forest Lawn it has been not only our aesthetic guide but it has been the practical, every day rule upon which all our development and operation has been based.

Let me tell you of a few of the milestones that we passed in our endeavor to carry out this Creed.

Our financial set-up included two corporations—one, a corporation which owned the land and was the usual form of Business Corporation with stockholders who invested their money with the hopes of making profit. The other corporation, called Forest Lawn Cemetery Association, was a mutual association with no stockholders, comprised of lot owners and so constituted that any profits it might make must be expended back upon the cemetery and could not be distributed for the benefit of any individual. The Land Company made a contract with the Association to sell the Association its land and the purchase price was determined by a fifty-fifty division of whatever amount the Association should receive from the public for its lots. The Association thus purchased from the Land Company real estate as it would have purchased it from any other corporation or landowner. The Association then took these lands and manufactured them into a cemetery product.

Financing, efficiency and organization have always been the subjects that we at Forest Lawn give the most Attention. We know if the finances and sales are not forthcoming, the plans that we hold so dear to our hearts cannot be carried out. Forest Lawn had no money; therefore we next turned our attention to a Sales Force.

The Sales Force was divided into two groups: A salaried force for selling our products for immediate use to the purchaser who had a death in his family; the other group sold our product before need and their remuneration was based entirely on commission.

This "Before Need” was the first organization west of the Mississippi to sell cemetery lands in this manner—a method that had been tried in but two other places in the world before. Sales forces are needed, but they can be either a great blessing or a great abomination. I could talk to you for hours on our experience with sales forces, but time does not permit. In passing, let me urge this one word of caution out of our experience. That Sales Force is wrong whose whole theory of salesmanship is based upon price, money, buy cheap today and make a profit tomorrow. The best and highest type of salesmen in this business never mention these subjects—he deals only with the moral factors involved, such as insurance, duty, protection to the family, approaching the matter in the same light as one draws his will.
 
We next laid plans for development. We immediately saw the wisdom of merging together all forms of burial—namely, cremation, mausoleum, and cemetery under one management and one ownership. This, I believe, was the first time this had been done in the United States. The amalgamation of three overheads meant not only financial efficiency but again gave to the purchaser a great service. A family could disagree upon the various forms of burial each one desired and yet in Forest Lawn we offered to them the prospect of finally being gathered together in one spot.

"Beauty" was the yardstick by which we measured equally the physical development of our grounds and buildings the requests of the purchaser that something special be done on his lot or his crypt, or the Engineer's and Architect's plans and specifications. We realized that Forest Lawn must be developed as a whole. No longer must the individual be allowed to do anything in regard to his interment space.

I adopted three slogans:
1.    We shall depict LIFE, not Death.
2.    A safe depository for our beloved dead and also a place for the living to sacredly enjoy.
3.    Spend one dollar in construction today to save one cent in future care tomorrow.

We also changed the method of computing Perpetual Care in terms of a percentage of the purchase price, to that method of setting so much aside per square foot of land area to be taken care of regardless of purchase price received.

Our next step was to revise the rules, regulations and restrictions. Here we encountered the greatest obstacle of all. Precedent is one of the hardest things there is to combat in the human mind. The older we grow the less do we like changes; the more we like to do as was done before. The public looks with suspicion upon radical changes in interment places.

We had early determined that it was monuments that had turned cemeteries into stone yards. I could find nothing beautiful in ninety nine percent of the so-called "monuments" placed in the cemeteries of America. They rendered a Park plan impossible. We first offered the purchaser a ten percent discount if he would accept a deed without a monumental privilege extending above the surface of the lawn. I then called together the prominent monument dealers and reasoned with them. I suggested that in the main they were creating objects of ugliness. I requested that they cooperate with me in endeavoring to create only memorials of beauty. I left that meeting discouraged because it seemed to me there was not one of them on speaking terms with "beauty." A year later, Forest Lawn took the bull by the horns and forever eradicated the so-called "monument." Then they took me to the Grand Jury. "Restraint of trade" was the charge. Have you ever walked into the Grand Jury room as a possible defendant? I explained and the Jury laughed away my fears.

Then we underwent that experience, awful to any cemetery man, viz., of seeing would be purchaser turn and leave Forest Lawn without purchasing, because they could not have a monument. It took nerve to "Stand by the guns" in those days—particularly when we were sailing an unchartered sea. I held firm, however, in the belief that the Five Dollar gold piece was obscured by the Silver Dollar close to our eye and too, one must be true to one's Creed. Soon the tide turned. The public began to see the picture we were striving to create and today, the only requests we have for monuments are when the purchaser desires to spend sufficient money to create a real work of art.

Through the years we gradually affected other reforms. I list a few of them:

We banned artificial flowers.

Nothing in front of or on mausoleum crypts except those bronze vases and crypt memorials designed by and furnished by the Association.

(I wonder why it is that people always go to their attic when they desire to take something to a cemetery or a mausoleum I have seen mausoleum shelves that look like a bottle factory on a spree.)

No memorial decoration whatsoever placed without the approval of the Association.

The Association does all planting.

Markers at graves restricted to bronze only—more lasting and more artistic; lawnmowers do not chip.

No coping or any form of enclosure allowed to mark the lines of any lot or grave.

Memorials in mausoleum either bronze or Carrara marble—other metals and Alabaster prohibited.

No cut-in letters permitted on crypts except in first unit of mausoleum.

All burials in Forest Lawn must be made in concrete boxes, the reason being that wood boxes cave in, leaving an unsightly greensward and add appreciably to care.

We pictured LIFE, not Death. We carefully eradicated the old familiar signs of death. We substituted the winged-doves, swimming ducks, singing birds, splashing fountains—everything symbolical of LIFE. We eradicated even the trees that lose their leaves in the winter time suggesting death. And thus restriction upon restriction we piled up but always that restriction was based upon the good of all, even though it hurt the individual, and always based upon the best professional artistic judgment we could get.

Our first building was inspired by the Architect's visit to that little church at Stoke Poges where the poet Gray wrote his immortal "Elegy, written in a Country Churchyard." In keeping with our resolution to depict LIFE and not Death, we added, adjacent to the pews, conservatories filled with flowers and singing birds. Over the chancel we wrote this inscription: "A New Commandment I give unto you, that ye' love one another." This church was properly dedicated with all due solemnity and ceremony and then, like any other church it was thrown open for sermons, funerals, weddings, christenings, etc. We called this church "The Little Church of the Flowers" and it has become so popular that today we are just finishing another, to be dedicated as the "Wee Kirk o' the Heather." It is an exact reconstruction of Annie Laurie's church at Glencairn, Scotland, which lies in ruins.

Our Mausoleum has been built in units, conforming to a general plan. We estimate the general building will take about fifteen years more to complete, at a total cost of approximately Twenty-five Millions of Dollars. Four units have been completed and sold. The fifth is now under construction and will contain the great Memorial Court of Honor wherein "The Last Supper" window will be placed. These units have been built as sales progressed. Gross sales in the Mausoleum, to date, have amounted to approximately three millions of dollars. Here again we planned to eradicate gloom and depression substituting cheer, bright colors, depicting galleries of art rather than halls of death, always bearing in mind our slogan of "A safe depository for our beloved dead, but also a place for the living to sacredly enjoy." I touch the physical description only briefly because I understand you are later to visit Forest Lawn.

I shall never forget my first purchase of statuary. It was Edith Parson's "Duck Baby," made famous by Robinson's poem at the San Francisco Fair. I suggested to the Board that they authorize me to make this purchase. I immediately saw that the appropriation would not pass the Boards, so I adjourned the meeting without putting the matter to a vote. A week later I purchased the statue on my own authority as General Manager. A short time ago we placed in Forest Lawn the great "Mystery of Life" statue, comprising some twenty two life size figures, the site of which occupies 3,576 square feet, at a cost of approximately sixty-seven thousand dollars. That appropriation passed the Board without a dissenting vote and many expressions of enthusiastic approval. Such was the difference between the old attitude and the new. The same men, the same Board but with a different view point.

In 1923 I started by biennial trips to Europe, with the intention of studying at close range the art and architecture of those places acknowledged by the world, without debate, to be "beautiful." Every other year I have gone abroad, bringing back to Forest Lawn bigger and better things as my experience became qualified and Forest Lawn's progress became more assured. I could talk to you for hours telling you of antique furniture, old tapestries, the sword of Charles the First, Michelangelo's "Moses", "The Last Supper", in art glass, Fanfani's "Mother Love," Canova's "Three Graces" adinfinitum.

If you desire, go see these things for yourself. Be sure to tell my boys to give you a Guide Book, (we finally had to issue one, explaining approximately 165 works of art—educational, inspiring, and replete with the world's best historical romances. Who ever heard of a cemetery having a Guide Book? Who ever heard of a cemetery that, during the month of June, had to close its book of wedding reservations at 165 because there were no more hours left? I hear someone say—"Weddings are good advertising". If you stop there you miss the very point I am trying to illustrate. It means that the attitude of people is changing towards our interment places. Instinctive in every human heart is a desire and a reaching out for the beautiful things of life. Give the public "beauty" and it will respond a hundred fold.

We already have museum rooms at Forest Lawn. I hope the day will come when we shall have a Forest Lawn Academy of Fine Arts, free to the worthy youth of the Pacific Coast. I hope to persuade sufficient people in this Southland to provide in their wills endowments, whereby the Honor man in the graduating class in this institution or arts may be given three years abroad, with expenses paid. An ambitious program, yes, but I believe basically correct and no more difficult of accomplishment than the ones we laid in 1917, a great many of which have come to pass.

Ladies and gentlemen—this brings me to my last topic—the Memorial Idea. All the figures and facts that I have heretofore quoted have been made with the hope of convincing you that the statements I shall now make are not merely theoretical assumptions but facts born of hard experiences in the interment field. I fancy I see u smile come over the faces of the Californians in this audience, because they have heard me speak on the Memorial Idea before. I am sorry, because I fear they will be bored, for I shall say nothing new—I shall not even attempt a newness because the more familiar I can make this subject to them and to you the more surely can I drive home the intense conviction that I have.

The memorial instinct is one of the oldest and greatest in man. It is this instinct that, moving in practical ways, has created the great art and architectural triumphs of the ages. Few people realize that it was the memorial idea that gave to the world the Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, which is acknowledged to be the most beautiful building in the world. Westminster Abbey, the Partheon, the Castel Saint Angelo and practically all of the enduring works of architecture and art that succeeding generations have journeyed around the world to see and admire.

Mr. Will Durant, author of that book "The Mansions of Philosophy" which is being so generally read just now, pays a remarkable tribute to the influence which the memorialization idea has played in art and architecture. He says:

"Architecture began with tombs that housed the dead; the most ancient architectural monuments in the world—the Pyramids—are tombs. Churches began as shrines to the dead and places for worshipping them. Gradually the burial place was taken out into the neighboring ground, but still, in Westminster Abbey, the graves of great ancestors are within the church. From these beginnings came the proud temples raised by the Greeks to Pallas, Athene, and the other gods; and from similar beginnings came those fairest works ever reared by man, the Gothic cathedrals, whose altars, like those early tombs, harbor the relics of the holy dead."

All of our history books, our literature and much of our daily living, is derived from the efforts of the past ages to leave a record of themselves in memorials. Everything passes except that generated by this Memorial Idea. Its spiritual significance defends it against encroachments of a material age, and the cemetery, mausoleum, or crematory that plans such development upon this foundation can rest assured that coming generations will approve. If you hold strongly to the spiritual thought which inspires it, if you but carry the message by the dignity of form and proportion, the refinement of color and detail, by the beauty of the whole, present generations will reward you and future generations admire and preserve.

Do not fall into the error of believing that the average cemetery official can create beauty. I seriously doubt if there is a man in this room capable of truly evidencing the Memorial Idea in form and color. If any of you have that capacity then you have combined in you the qualities of a great architect, a great artist, a great landscape engineer and a great sculptor, because these attainments are needed. You will find that in the long run it will be cheaper to hire those men acknowledged to be "Great" in these lines and to whom God, at birth, gave the power to create beautiful things.

If you plan artistically correct in the beginning you will find that in the end you save money. Look at Paris with its Champs Elysees and intersecting streets, planned by a great architect long before the automobile came into existence. Correct planning meant broad avenues which automatically took care of automobile congestion, whereas today we, in our cities, are spending millions to change these narrow streets.

The financial welfare of every man in this room is dependent upon the elevation of the Memorial Idea, to encourage it is obvious—to degrade it is suicide, and yet that very thing we do every day.

THE CEMETERY MAN, who allows an ugly thing placed or developed within the confines of his grounds, or by word of mouth divests if of its spiritual significance, is helping to destroy the Memorial Idea.

THE MAUSOLEUM BUILDER, who allows any material or form of design to go into his building except that acknowledged by the technical world to be the most lasting and the most beautiful, writes his own epitaph.

THE CREMATION MAN who stops with the ashes (incinerated remains) in his hands, and fails to insist that his client create a memorial for those remains, evidenced by an urn and a niche, or solemn committal to a grave or mausoleum, will, in time, like Samson, pull the house down upon us and himself. God hasten the day when the crematories will take their stand and say "No more incineration without the creation of a memorial—we define the word 'cremation' as including incineration, inurnment and permanent deposition—the three actions are inseparable and indivisible."

THE UNDERTAKER who impresses his clients with the feeling that his portion of attending to the death is the most important, that he is, to all practical purposes the end of the transaction (where the Memorial Idea demands that he be but the entrance door to the Memorial Temple), that Undertaker is the greatest fool of all. His is the greatest opportunity because his clients are in a plastic state, ready to be tuned to the highest call of the Memorial Idea, or molded with a commercial, materialistic, get-it-over form of thought, which results in nothing of lasting benefit to society of his family.

How long—how long will the Interment Association endure the degradation of the Memorial Idea by certain low caliber Funeral Directors? I know of many Funeral Directors who are high class, intelligent, sympathetic and in tune with the Memorial Idea, but I am informed that there are many others whose efforts tend to lower the ethical standards so strived at by the Association of Funeral Directors.

God forbid that I shall be compelled to enter the undertaking business, but I solemnly prophecy this: That the Memorial Park of tomorrow will demand sweeping reforms on the part of the undertaking craft or Memorial Parks will build and develop undertaking establishments of their own. I prophecy, because the end is obvious—it is economically correct. In any other business these consolidations would .have been effected long ago. Service to the public of the future will demand an undertaking establishment in every cemetery—in every mausoleum—in every crematory, where the sorrowing purchaser may go and transact all of his interment preparations at one time with one concern and one individual, in a place where he, his family and friends at the time of the funeral may park their automobiles in grounds where roads provide ample parking area and amidst surroundings of beauty and quiet which soothe and comfort their sorrow. The public of the future will demand that this consolidation be effected to save them the high cost of burying. Then, and not till then, will the Memorial Idea be in position to be brought to its highest fruition.

Let you and me resolve to go back to our various institutions and "play the game", resolved to stand staunch and true to the Memorial Idea; resolved that when we are distracted by the barrage of requests from unthinking owners to allow this or that improvement to their interment space, to stand fast and "play the game."

I have known a few business men who consistently have fought a victorious fight, but I think most of us, with all our good intentions fall back boot by boot until at last, for some reason, we stiffen and hold our own. Hold fast to this Memorial Idea—it will make you free spiritually and financially.

Cemeteries can never be separated from religion. Yesterday, religion was puritanical—it spoke in the terms of the Ten Commandments—in terms of sacrifice—in terms of Calvary.  Today, religion is gladsome, radiant—it speaks in the terms of the Beatitudes—of joyousness and the Smiling Christ. And so, as the cemeteries of yesterday evidenced the religion of yesterday, so must the successful Memorial Park of tomorrow, evidence the religion of today. Cemeteries are the physical expression of the religious spirit of their time.

My belief is that the Interment organization that demonstrates its right to exist, must prepare to serve the living by not only giving them a safe depository for their beloved dead, but a place that will be spiritually uplifting, physically beautiful, its personnel filled with a sincere desire to serve its fellowman. Such a place will truly express the Memorial Idea. Such is the true conception for the "Creation of a Modern Park Cemetery".

From the publication:
AACS - Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Convention
Los Angeles, CA
September 3, 4, 5 and 6, 1929

As a preface to the subject of Sanitary Methods of Burial, it will be well, perhaps, to notice some of the methods (ancient and modern) of disposing of the dead, other than burial.

First, there are the crypts and catacombs of Egypt; the consigning of dead bodies to the river Ganges, in India, and the depositing of bodies within the walls of tower-shaped receptacles, built for that purpose, by the infatuated coolie of the same country; the strapping to the boughs and limbs of trees, after due process of bandaging, in the seclusion of some dense forest, by the Indian; in our own country the ever prominent over ground vault, and lastly, cremation or incineration.

The methods of burial in this our country are; the underground vault, the brick grave, slate grave, stone grave, concrete grave and the ordinary or what is called the common grave.

In almost every case before being deposited in any of these receptacles, the coffin containing the body is placed in a box, made occasionally of polished oak, or other hard wood; but invariably such outer box, known as a coffin box, is of plain unpolished deal board, and only in the case of burial of a pauper or patient of some hospital, or the inmate of some poorhouse, is the outer box dispensed with.

"Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." This mandate applies to matter as well as man, and sets forth the fundamental principles of a natural law, worthy of our consideration, namely the law of circularity and mineral assimilation. We see it in the return of the seasons, and the rise and fall of the leaf. The earth brings forth grass and herbs, grain and fruit, for the use of man and beast, and after having served the higher purpose of sustaining animal life generally, and that of man in particular, they return in their various forms, by manifold sources, back to the earth from whence they came, stimulating and enriching the latter toward future and further productions. And so man is born, lives and dies, and being of the earth, earthy, when dead, his body must be given back to the earth of which it is a part. The formation of the earth being the handiwork of the Great Architect, is designed as nature's depository and deodorizer, and contains all the chemicals necessary for the decomposition and absorption of dead bodies and other substances offensive to the living, rendering them innocuous by complete decomposition and assimilation, thus fulfilling the law of circularity by dust returning to dust, and in doing so, preparing the way for future natural, necessary processes of a like kind. And when we consign, the dead bodies of our fellow men to other than an ordinary or common grave burial we rob "Mother Earth" of her rights, set at naught this Divine mandate, and violate this natural law.

That the violation of this law has been the rule in past ages, and that little heed is paid to it in the present age, is true; but let us glance at the condition of one or two of these countries, and their people, that have set at naught this mandate, and so openly and persistently violated this law by the unsanitary disposal of their dead.

The scourge of desolation has hung over Egypt for centuries. The preservation of their dead was a failure, for in every museum in the land you see Egyptian mummified human bodies being exhibited as hideous relics of a barbaric age, the trade and commerce of the country long since gone, its rivers polluted, its cities and palaces reduced to ashes, its magnificent tombs covered by desert sand, and the people themselves wanderers over the face of the earth.

The coolie, with his method of consigning his dead to the waters of the Ganges, to be washed to and fro by the waves until finally driven ashore and buried in the sand by the soldiers of the forts, or depositing in those horrible pit-like towers, to be seized and devoured by vultures and other birds of prey, is in himself so totally ignorant of sanitary or any other laws, so weak and infatuated, as to be almost incapable of civilization, so much so that a mere handful of British soldiers dictates to and holds in subjection over 200,000,000 of his race.

The Indian, with his method of lashing the bodies of the dead to the boughs and limbs of trees, to ultimately become food for the beasts of the forest, is, year after year, by the rapid strides of civilization, being driven back into narrower and narrower limits, and bids fair ere long, he and his race, to become extinct.

Another objectionable method of disposing of the dead is placing them in over ground vaults, a method extensively practiced in our own cemeteries, and objectionable, because unsanitary, more especially so, in cases of the small cheap, shoddy and nondescript vaults, of which class, unfortunately, there are the greatest number, and they may be seen in almost every cemetery in the country, conspicuous in ugliness, the outcome of one person vying with another.

A lot owner concludes that he will build a vault. Instead of consulting an architect (he cannot afford that) he sends for a stone-man; the first measurement taken by the latter is that of his customer's pocket book; finding that, he suggests something which he knows his customer cannot pay for, and which the latter consequently refuses. When the stone-man, in the pretended greatness of his heart, describes to him what he calls a very nice vault indeed, and at a suitable sum, hastily prepares some scrawl of a plan with a flashily worded specification in one sentence, stating that all interior receptacles for the dead will, when used, be hermetically sealed, and in the next, that there will be air spaces to allow of the escape of any smell that may arise from decomposition of the bodies, under these terms the building proceeds, and when completed; proves violent in design, flimsy in construction, inferior in material, and frequently anything but creditable in workmanship, setting forth the bad taste of the owner, the avarice of the stone-man, and creating a nuisance in the cemetery in which it stands.

The name of vault with regard to such buildings is a misnomer; they have more the appearance of tool houses, or isolated buildings for the housing and protection of sick animals. Many of them have no interior arrangements, the coffins containing the bodies being placed on wooden biers, on the open floor, while some are provided with shelves on to which the dead are packed in a similar way to dry goods in a store, seen in all gloominess of appearance through an iron grated doorway, by every passing eye, and from which during the process of decomposition a noisome stench is emitted. Of all methods of disposing of the dead this is the most unnatural and unsanitary, and it is such objectionable methods as these that call forth the revival of cremation and the advisability of advocating it as a necessity.

But, aside from the sanitary aspect of the case, do we not, by our morbid desire to preserve our dead for all time, court a scourge such as has been experienced by other nations? Do we not provoke divine displeasure? Be that as it may, it would be well if cemetery associations generally would combine to prevent the erection of such places, and so suppress this worst of all, and most unsanitary method of disposing of the dead.

CREMATION

Cremation, an ancient method of disposing of the dead, and of late years revived, was once practiced by these countries of which we have spoken, and to what extent they have thriven under that, and their various other systems, we have already stated. However cremation may be patronized in the future in its present revival as yet the public does not approve of it. In the minds of the majority of people there arises a sort of paralyzing horror at submitting the remains of their dear departed relatives to its sizzling process.

In an article recently published in one of our newspapers a gentleman advocating cremation expressed himself as unable to see why we should rather consign the remains of those we love to the tender mercies of worms than to the tender mercies of heat.

In reply we would say that the idea that a dead body, when consigned to the grave, is immediately attacked by worms is a mistaken idea. We have seen thousands of graves dug, and hundreds of bodies removed from one grave to another, and that in all stages of decomposition, but we never yet saw worms in contiguity to such bodies. The earth worm enjoys a more alluvial soil; his happy hunting ground is nearer the surface than the bottom of a five-foot grave. Besides, dead and decomposed bodies are not his food.

BURIALS

The practice of burying in underground vaults, brick, slate, stone and concrete graves is objectionable, inasmuch as these methods impede the progress of decomposition, and all methods of burial that would hinder rapid and complete decay and the assimilation of the body by the earth are more or less unsanitary.

The use of metallic caskets too, of whatever description of metal, is objectionable. They not only prevent the natural decay of the body, but they preserve, as in a bottle, the germs of cholera, small-pox, and other infectious diseases, some day, it may be, if disturbed by removal, or by additional adjacent burials, to break forth in all their virulence, making and claiming fresh victims as they go.

What method of burial then is the most sanitary?

We reply: The ordinary or common grave burial. First, because it is more in keeping with the Divine mandate-"Dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return"; and secondly, because it offers fewer obstructions to the earth's, natural work of mineral assimilation.

In order to assist "Mother Earth" in her natural sanitary efforts we should remove all obstacles tending to impede her in the progress of her work, and to this end, the superfluous outer box, known as a coffin box, should be abandoned, and the coffin itself made of common pine or other soft wood, in order that the body, which is the offensive part, may the sooner come in contact with the earth and be converted thereto.

In Japan a coffin of wicker work is very extensively used, in addition to which lime is frequently put into the grave. Of the sanitary effect of such a method there can be no doubt, and although it might be contended as being , carried a little too far, yet certain it is, that the closer a body is placed to the earth, the more hastily will the latter perform its natural work of assimilation.

If such a method of burial as suggested were universally adopted and adhered to, it would not only insure the sanitary condition of our cemeteries, but would be much more economical, for were these unsanitary and extravagant methods of interment abolished, some 6,000 acres less land would suffice for the burial of the dead throughout the United States during the next fifty years. Besides, if such a method of burial were adhered to, the same ground after due lapse of time could be buried in, again and again, by each successive descend ant of its owner of today.

POLLUTION OF WATER, ETC.

It is frequently contended that the decomposition of bodies, especially where buried in large numbers, tends to the pollution of the waters of adjacent springs, brooks and rivulets.

We might give many proofs in confutation of such an argument, but will only particularize one. Within the grounds of a certain cemetery in the state of Illinois there is situated a well from which clear, cool and sparkling water is daily pumped, and which to our own individual knowledge has, by proper analysis, been proved to be perfectly pure, notwithstanding that the well is situated in a ravine, surrounded by high rising ground, on which within a radius of 200 feet there are buried over 600 bodies, while more are being regularly buried in the same locality. The water in the well retains its general purity, is extensively used for domestic purposes, and is highly prized as first class pure water, all of which proves the natural chemical power of the earth to purge and absorb all putrid bodies submitted to its process, without itself becoming corrupt.

In conclusion, we repeat that all methods of burial or disposal of the dead other than the ordinary or common grave burials, are violations of the Divine mandate and natural law, and are the revived customs of a barbaric age. When we consider man, the creature of the Creator, the noblest work of God, originally fashioned in His own image, and think of taking his body as soon as deprived of breath, and burning it up as we would the rubbish and garbage of our farms and cities, it is nothing more or  less than an insult to the Deity, to common decency and natural law, a revival of barbarism, degrading in character and highly deleterious to all moral and religious principles, an unjustifiable interference with the natural order of things, and of the designs of Him who "doeth all things well", an act disgraceful to civilization; and however shielded by man's weak and pompous show, the practice will most assuredly, as of old, draw upon us Divine displeasure, and subject us, as in the case of the ancients whom we imitate, to Divine wrath.

From the publication:
AACS - Proceedings of the 6th Annual Convention
Baltimore, MD
September 27, 28 and 29, 1892

The desire to bury the dead reverently, to care for their graves, to erect memorials to perpetuate their memory, comes to us from the primitive man.

It was recognized as a duty by all races, even those which attained only a slight degree of civilization, dating back to thousands of years before Christ. Today as we view the remains of the sepulchers, temples, pyramids and obelisks of the ancient Assyrians, Caldeans, Egyptians and Greeks, many of which are still in a more or less perfect state of preservation, we marvel at their handiwork.  To this desire of perpetuating the memory of those who had departed into eternal life, so deeply embedded in the heart of these early people, we owe the finest art treasures of antiquity, for nearly all of these art treasures are of a mortuary character.

It is exceedingly interesting to trace the developments of monumental art from the crude stone with its roughly hewn Pagan symbol through to the sculptured, memorials of Grecian times; to study our present day memorials, the tablet, the shaft, the sarcophagus the cross and the mausoleum and trace their architectural origin back to these early periods.

The history, of each one of these particular types of memorial is an inexhaustible subject in itself and I shall endeavor, in the limited time assigned me, here to give only a few of the interesting facts as to their origin, etc.

Among the earliest and most remarkable monuments ever erected by man were those built by the Egyptians, the most noteworthy of which are the pyramids, the obelisks and grotto tombs.

The pyramids were built, on the most modest computation at least 3908 E. C. Egypt was then a comparatively highly civilized and populous country and the art of cutting and polishing stones of the hardest nature had reached a degree of perfection in that country in those days, which has never since been surpassed and must have been practiced for hundreds of years before that time to have reached this state of perfection in which we there find it.

In all there were some sixty-nine pyramids built in these days, three of which are called the great pyramids and are respectively the tombs of Kings Cheops, Chephren and Mycerinus.  That of King Cheops covers thirteen and one-half acres and rises to a height of four hundred and eighty-four feet.

According to Herodotus, we learn that one hundred thousand men were employed for twenty years in building the great pyramid and ten years alone was occupied in constructing a causeway and in conveying the stone over-this causeway.

The pilasters and walls of the interior chambers were of highly polished granites and porphyry. Within these chambers were found vessels and urns of ornamented wrought bronze. Here again, in the use of bronze the Egyptians attained a development that has never been surpassed. In fact, most of the implements which they used were made of bronze, which proves that these implements were tempered in some manner. This art of tempering bronze was lost with the Egyptians for never since has any methods been found whereby bronze could be tempered.

The most wonderful grotto tombs of central Egypt are those of Beni-Hassen. These tombs were hollowed out of the mountain sides somewhere about the year of 3000 BC. Each one consisted of an entrance chamber, a well leading to the vault and the funeral bier with its usual sarcophagus.

The present day spire and shaft monuments, some beautiful examples of which adorn our modern cemeteries, trace their origin back to the obelisks of the ancient Egyptians, the largest and most famous of which are still standing.  The Egyptian obelisks were always adorned with hieroglyphical representations of the goods to whom they were dedicated and the kings by whom they were erected. As they stand today they appear to rise directly from the ground without a pedestal or even a base of any kind, but excavations have proven that they do have the pedestal and bases, which, however, have been completely covered up by Nile deposits.

These obelisks represent the source of what the Egyptians considered one of the most wonderful and mysterious powers of nature that of renewing and recreating a power so forcefully brought home to them by the quick restoration of vegetable life after each overflow of the Nile. Just as the pyramids (symbolic of death) were originally built on the west bank of the river Nile toward the setting sun so the obelisks (symbolic of life or the power of recreation) always stood on the East bank toward the rising sun.

They were constructed of a highly polished red granite Syene. Unfinished specimens in the quarries show that they were obtained by boring holes in the rock into which holes moistened pegs were driven. The expansion of these wet pegs split the rock.

As the sun was the god to whom the obelisk was usually dedicated many of the Egyptian obelisks stood in Heliopolis the City of the Sun. They were erected by the various kings as early as 2000 BC.

Of special interest is the so-called Cleopatra's Needle, which rises in one single piece to a height of seventy-six and one-half feet. Today with our modern quarries with our modern machinery and our so-called specialized labor, it is heralded as an exceptional occurrence if we are able to quarry a stone from fifty-five feet in length in one piece.

Although this needle of Cleopatra's was originally erected during the sixteenth century BC at Heliopolis, according to tradition, it was transported to Alexandria by Cleopatra's orders and re-erected by the Romans under Augustus in front of the Temple of the Caesars where it remained until 1879 when it was presented to the United States by the Khedive of Egypt, funds for its transportation being furnished by one of the Vanderbilts.  It now stands in Central Park, in New York.

Obelisks were so popular with the Romans that they transported many from Egypt and also quarried many in Egypt for use in Rome.

In our own country the obelisk has been used effectively in public memorials, two well known examples being the Washington monument at Washington, DC and the McKinley Memorial in Buffalo, NY

From the ancient grotto tombs built in the hillsides of Egypt and Asia Minor, we trace the development of the mausoleum which reached its perfection in the tomb of Mausolus, King of Caria. Probably of all examples of marvelous art of the Greeks none has excited more curiosity and admiration than this splendid mausoleum at Halicarnassus, regarded as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Its architects Satyrus and Pytheus were the leaders of their times. All the famous artists, Scopas, Bryaxis, Timotheus and Leochares were the sculptors employed on this structure. Queen Artemisia died in the year of 351 BC before the tomb for her husband was completed. But the sculptors continued their work as a labor of love.

In 200 BC the Romans conquered the Carians and the entrancing beauty of the structure with its colonnades, its hundreds of pieces of statuary including figures of lions, horsemen, etc., its carved friezed depicting the warriors in action, made such a profound impression upon them that thereafter all their more pretentious sepulchers were called "Mausolia". And so the term "Mausoleum" has been handed down to us.

The tomb of General Grant in New York is the most imposing mausoleum in America. The super structure is made of Barre, Vermont, Granite and the sarcophagus wherein repose the remains of our great General is made of granite from the quarries at Montello, Wisconsin.
 
A sarcophagus is a receptacle designed to hold the remains of a body, but the word is commonly applied to any monument low and broad in its lines. When we consider this and the original purpose which it served, the word has become a misnomer. It derives its meaning from the two Greek words sarkos, meaning “flesh” and phago meaning “to eat” or “consume”.  We learn from Theophrastus and Pliny that the name originated with the use of Assius stone from Assos in Asia Minor.  The stone was hollowed out to the shape of the body and carved and ornamented on the exterior.  Because of the peculiar caustic properties of this Assius stone, the body was consumed within a few weeks.

Again the oldest known sarcophagi are those of Egypt found in the pyramids and the grotto tombs.  By means of hieroglyphics, the inscriptions and the decorative art found on these sarcophagi we are able to link more closely the various periods of Egyptian history. The Romans were especially partial to the use of the sarcophagus but did not aid particularly to its development beyond the Grecian period.

Of the early Romans sarcophagi that of Scipio found in the Appian Way outside the Gate of Rome is noteworthy as it splendid example of applied Grecian architecture.  The design has been generally used in our modern times and one of the best copies in America is that of the monument erected to the memory of Postmaster General Payne in Forest Home Cemetery,
Milwaukee, Wis.

It is generally supposed that the cross in its various forms had its origin with Christianity. As a matter of fact we find the monuments and other remains of prehistoric races plentifully inscribed with the symbol of the cross, showing that it existed as a Pagan emblem hundreds and, yes, thousands of years BC.

The three forms of the cross as we know it from which it is possible that all the others were derived are the Tau cross - so-called because it is shaped like the Greek letter T: the St. Andrews cross shaped like the letter X and the Latin cross with its long perpendicular and short cross bar.   The Tau cross is sometimes called the cross of Egypt. Figures of the priests of their god Horus have been found, their vestments decorated with this Tau cross. Some date back 1100 years BC. Often the Egyptians attached a circle (the emblem of eternity) to the top of the Tau cross.

The Greeks made a peculiar use of the Tau cross. When a man had been condemned to death they recorded it on their judicial records with the Greek letter "Theta" the first letter of the Greek word for death. But if he was acquitted it was recorded with a Tau cross, the symbol at life.

The earliest so-called cross of Christianity appeared during the rule of Constantine, when, after his vision of the cross in the heavens with the inscription meaning "in this sign conquer" he added the "Chrisma" to his imperial banner.

Not until the end of the fifth century was the cross regarded as the sacred symbol of Christ's redemption of fallen humanity, and the best of our present day cross memorials are the same in general design as those of centuries past.

Before leaving the subject of ancient memorials, I must say a word regarding sculpture and its relation to the present.

Sculpture had its origin in Egypt and its fullest development in Greece. Rome only handed down Grecian traditions. To know anything about sculpture one had, of necessity, to know something of their view point. It developed through the deep religious motive and a sense of duty to the dead. The Egyptians believed that a double dwelt in every man and after death waited with his body and his name for the soul to return and reunite in a resurrection. If the body and the double both should perish it would mean annihilation. If either remained immortality was assured. For this reason the dead body was carefully embalmed and as a safeguard in the event of possible destruction of a statue of the double, made of the most enduring material in the image of the man himself, was placed in the tomb. Countless thousands of these statues were fashioned in wood, baked clay, limestone and polished granites.

With the Greeks as with the Egyptians, their Pagan religions were the very breath of their sculpture as well as their architecture. Their gods were embodied in the fairest human forms. To the Greek, man was the consummate flower of all creation. The soul of Greek art was a passion for naked male beauty. His gods, therefore, were patterned from his own image in heroic size with certain powers added. These conditions causing a definite need for this art made the Greeks not only the great sculptors of the ancient world, but the greatest sculptors of all time.

Surrounding the shrine of Appolo at Delphi there were at one time a hundred and sixty thousand statues. Ten thousand marble cutters in the Mediterranean World were chiseling a hundred thousand figures every year, besides vast numbers of public and temple figures and reliefs. The roads leading to the principal cities were flanked with private chapels, seats, memorial steles and sarcophagi.

The enthusiasm which produced the marble and bronze masterpieces, which are the glory of the museums and galleries of the world died when the ancient deities and heroes ceased to be objects of veneration of mankind. Painting, literature and music are living arts because demanded by our conditions and expression of our emotions. When the worship of man-made images ceased the demand for creative sculpture passed away.

That was the great day for the sculptor and if a faint light has broken since, as in Italy in the time of Michael Angelo or in our times on French soil, it is but a reflection of this Grecian period.

Memorial art, the monument to the dead, is practically all that is left to the present day sculptor. Each statue or group made by us depends for its significance on laws laid down by the ancients.

All their wonderful masterpieces are our heritage-products of the ages untainted by commercialism. We of today, living in a purely materialistic age cannot even hope to follow in their footsteps. Yet it is our constant duty to utilize every form of propaganda available for the purpose of keeping up as high a standard of art and workmanship as is within our power and within the means given us to carry out our task-ever bearing in mind the thoughts expressed by Ruskin when he said:

"All works of quality must bear a price in proportion to the skill, time, expense and risk attending their invention or manufacture. Those things called "dear" are, when justly estimated, the cheapest; they are attended with much less profit to the artist than those things which everybody calls cheap. Beautiful forms and compositions are not made by chance; nor can they ever, in any material, be made at small expense. A composition of cheapness, and not for excellence of workmanship, is the most frequent and certain cause for rapid decay and entire destruction of arts and manufactures."

From the publication:
AACS - Proceedings of the 36th Annual Convention
Omaha, Nebraska
September 18, 19, 20 and 21, 1922

Through the courtesy of the Omaha Convention Committee I have been asked to read a paper discussing this Association from the view point of an outsider. The man who is accountable for the suggestion is present and his identity will be disclosed so that he may pay the penalty in case anything in the remarks which are to follow should arouse your spirit of pugnacity.

That cemeteries do not always receive that which is supposed to be coming to them was demonstrated in the following incident. A hurry-up order was received at a Wisconsin cheese factory for a shipment of "limburger" conditioned on immediate delivery. Shipping limburger by express in winter had been prohibited, and the order was about to be turned down when a salesman took the matter in hand and proceeded to deliver the goods. He obtained an undertaker's rough box, packed in it the required amount of cheese, and engaged an undertaker to deliver it at the railroad station a few minutes before the time for the train to depart. The salesman, attired in his most somber clothes, arrived just in time to purchase two tickets. Shortly before the train reached its destination he went to the express car and found the express-man in a somewhat excited frame of mind. The heat from the stove had caused the cheese to emit the most unbearable odor imaginable and the air was thick enough to cut with a knife. "What can I do for you?" shouted the express-man, going about with his nose in the air. "I just came to be sure that the body will be put off at the next station" was the reply. "Well, I'm, mighty glad of it, and let me say right here if that man in the box is a friend of yours you surely have one consolation-you may be damned sure he's not in a trance."  It is needless to add that case never reached a cemetery.

The futility of attempting to do more than lightly touch the high points in a survey of the activities of an association whose existence ex tends over one-third of a century in the time that can be allotted me is sufficiently obvious to require no apology. I am "an outsider" as far as ever having had any actual experience in the management of a cemetery, but for many years my interests kept me closely in touch with cemeteries, and I am proud of having been a booster for the AACS before it was organized and of having had the honor of being present at its beginning, when "Father" Nichols officiated on that memorable occasion in 1887. I recall receiving a letter from Mr. Nichols in which he rejoiced at the prospect of having an attendance at twenty-five at that first meeting.

This organization came into existence at the time when what were called "rural" cemeteries were taking the place of the time-honored church-yard burying grounds and city graveyards, which had about reached their lowest ebb. Lot owners did things according to their own sweet wills, enclosures of any and every description were permitted, and established grades were an unknown quantity, the only known quantity being what some plain speaking superintendents of today would, in every day parlance, designate as "junk." Men were seeking light on the subject of cemetery betterment when Mr. Nichols, who, inspired by the suggestion of your own honored life-member, Mr. William Salway, sent forth his appeal in behalf of an organization which should undertake that very work. Mr. Salway had recently been appointed as successor to Mr. Adolph Strauch, superintendent or the Cemetery of Spring Grove, where the first really modern lawn plan cemetery had been established the brain child of that gifted landscape gardener, and the most appropriate birthplace possible for the AACS. The men who gathered on that auspicious occasion were imbued with enthusiastic zeal and a most commendable desire to reform the cemetery practices of their day, but they were by no means unanimous as to how it was to be accomplished. It is interesting to note that the first vice president, for example, was a staunch advocate of high grave mounds, and another member favored having a "gravel path on at least one side of every lot and corner posts several inches above the surface."

These men however, "builded better than they knew". The results of their early deliberations have made American cemeteries the admiration of travelers from all parts of the world; for nowhere on the globe are there to be seen cemeteries that can compare in park-like beauty and scrupulous care with those under the management of the men whom I have the honor to address.

At the second meeting of the Association, held in Brooklyn in 1888, Mr. Eurich, in his prophetic paper, on "An Ideal Cemetery", said "In all artificial and architectural structures there must be no evident desire to show what art and mechanics can produce, but they must all be in harmony with and in subordination to nature." In the remarkable development apparent in American cemeteries we do not yet note an entire absence of "evident desire"-ostentation still obtrudes itself as it always has in the sacred precincts of the dead, but fortunately, those who still believe in gratifying their pride in this manner are obliged to conform to rules and regulations which either prevent the erection of inartistic memorials or minimize their most objectionable features, and none can gainsay that very much has been accomplished in bringing "architectural structures" in closer "harmony with and subordination to nature." In Mr. Eurich's paper above quoted, he expressed the most radical views concerning monuments, and at the Cleveland convention in 1900, Mr. Hatch, a prominent citizen and member of the Board of Trustees of Lake View Cemetery, advanced the idea of abolishing monuments entirely. It was such discussions as these that gave impetus to the most advanced ideas in cemetery practice.

The education of the public as to what constitutes harmony in a cemetery has not been an easy task. Rules that seemed harsh and arbitrary to the lot holder were not easily enforced because these rules were misunderstood, and much bitterness resulted, when only the most harmonious relations should have existed. The pioneer work in this most beneficent reform was done by the founders of this Association, and those who now follow in their steps know as little of the trials with which they had to contend as does this present generation of the hardships of the pioneers of our own fair land.

"Graceland", Chicago, "Spring Grove", Cincinnati, and "Lake View"', Cleveland, and possibly others, set apart entire sections or portions of sections in which monuments were prohibited, or, if allowed, were permitted to extend only a few inches above the ground. Other cemeteries soon followed this example, and it has been the experience of many of the members of this Association to hear lot owners express their approval of the, restrictive rules pertaining to monuments. Old and revered though the custom may be, its observance had been carried to an excess, and rules that would correct this abuse were a natural result. Progressive monument builders who have caught the spirit of the ideas advanced by advocates of the modern lawn plan realize that the restrictive rules which may seem somewhat arbitrary were in reality adopted not so much with the intention of eliminating monuments, as of elevating their standard. Monument builders who are not cooperating with their local cemetery managers lack vision, and retard their own progress. But it is gratifying to note that the Memorial Craftsmen of America are now urging closer cooperation between that Association and this.

This Association has disseminated information of immeasurable value to cemeteries pertaining to the subject of acquiring funds for the future care of cemeteries. Perpetual care has been and doubtless will continue to be a perennial subject for consideration. Long-term financing as applied to cemetery lots and the structures erected thereon is a complex problem. Perpetual care involves many considerations, not the least uncertain of which is the earning power of the unstable dollar. Think of what must be taking place in Germany today, if they have perpetual care funds based on the pre-war value of the mark. The ablest minds in this Association have deliberated on it, and only future generations can tell whether our present systems have made good. My sole purpose in alluding to the subject at this time is to direct attention to an angle from which it is seldom discussed, namely, the proper safeguarding of funds of this nature. Lot owners, who by bequest or otherwise, place sums of money in the keeping or cemetery companies for a certain specified purpose, do so with implicit confidence that the conditions of the trust will be faithfully complied with. The question arises, "are cemeteries availing themselves of the safest means of keeping their trust funds from falling into the hands of dishonest or incompetent persons or of those who, through indifference will fail to have a proper regard for their trust?" Trust companies of recognized responsibility are, by virtue of their experience, conceded to be the safest depositories for cemetery funds. Granting that the funds are placed in such hands, can they be said to be properly safeguarded unless both the trust company and the cemetery trustees are obligated to conform to conditions that will render violations or the trust impossible?  A distinguished Chicago attorney, who has made a very thorough investigation of the subject, is authority for the statement that in his opinion, the perpetual care funds of some of the best known cemeteries are not as properly safeguarded as they should be. While there may be no question whatever as to the integrity of the men who are handling these funds today, these officers and their immediate successors will be responsible for them but a comparatively short space of time, a few generations will see them under the control of those far removed from present day conditions: it is, therefore, obvious that cemetery associations cannot be too careful in safeguarding such trusts, and that there should be more rigid laws in every state in the Union concerning them. Without the least desire to cast any shadow of doubt upon the integrity of those who will come after us, it is surely not only the part of wisdom, but an imperative duty as well, to so protect these sacred trusts that they will riot tempt man's cupidity, or, having tempted it, will make impossible any, attempt to divert them to any other purpose than that for which they were originally intended.

Progress in the development of American cemeteries has more than kept pace with other branches of Art and Industry. To continue this record of achievement and pass on to posterity cemeteries that will be a blessing and not a burden, it behooves cemetery managers to give more serious consideration to the subject of endowing mausoleums and other cemetery structures, to provide for their future upkeep. While the importance of this matter has been recognized at many cemeteries, and the necessary action taken, this practice is by no means as general as it should be. The boards of trustees of many cemeteries that stand high in the estimation of the public, are either ignoring or purposely side-stepping the issue, for fear of offending lot owners. In so doing, they have allowed many costly structures to be erected without making the slightest provision for repairs that will be inevitable in years to come. The ultimate result of this unwise course will reflect upon the cemetery, builders of today. In this connection it is interesting to note that the City Commission of Grand Rapids, Mich., has adopted very rigid rules concerning the endowment of mausoleums in "Woodlawn", the new municipal cemetery: these rules also prohibit vertical joints in all monumental work: The question that naturally arises in this connection is, "what is the most practical method by which to determine the amount of endowment necessary?" Some cemeteries solve this complex problem by requiring a minimum deposit of ten percent or fifteen percent of the cost of the proposed structure. The consensus of opinion is that it is not practical to arrive at even an average percentage to use as a basis for estimating such deposit. This subject has not been stressed by the AACS to an extent commensurate with its importance.  Mr. Eurich discussed it in a very informing paper several years ago, but the matter is one so far-reaching it should be reiterated again and again.
 
Landscape engineers and gardeners who have gradually transformed our cemeteries from places of gloom to spots of sylvan restfulness and beauty have had their visions of the cemetery beautiful just as truly as any sculptor, artist, or artisan has had his ideal. Discouragements have come to them just as they have to all who have labored earnestly to express their highest ideals in their work. In this respect the experience of the cemetery idealist is unique: he has been obliged to contend with not only the prejudices of the public, but in many instances with unsympathetic boards of trustees whose vision was dimmed by the figures on the balance sheet.

There is (and quite naturally too) a division of sentiment among the members of this Association as to what will constitute the ideal cemetery. That it will be far more park-like than many of our cemeteries of the present day is very evident from the trend of present cemetery planning. No landscape gardener of any reputation would think of recommending a plan for a new cemetery or for remodeling an old one that did not conform to present-day practice in planning and planting, and in regulating the extent to which stone work shall be permitted. Rapid progress has been made in approaching what is believed to be the ideal most to be desired, and in many cemeteries as beautiful effects have been created with trees and shrubbery as are possible under similar conditions. There will be still greater improvement when lot holders give their sincere cooperation, and are willing to consider the cemetery as a whole more than they do their individual lots, when selecting their memorials.

There are few professions or callings in whose daily labors the apathy of the public is so constantly in evidence, as in that of the cemetery man, be he sexton, superintendent, or manager, and the apathy is not always confined to the public; it frequently is seen in the indifference of members of boards of trustees or directors whose failure to provide for the needs of the cemetery is reflected in the inability of a handicapped, disheartened superintendent to obtain the results he knows are expected of him. This spirit of indifference is illustrated by the experience of the man who was soliciting funds for a fence to enclose the village cemetery. "What's the use", said the villager; “of putting a fence around a graveyard?  Then what’s in can't get out, and then what’s out don’t want get in."

The public has always been apathetic on the subject of cemeteries and will continue to remain so until it has been educated out of this undesirable state of mind.  Educators are loud in their praises of moving pictures as a means of making lasting impressions on the minds of the young – the minds of older persons are equally impressionable when the subject under discussion is one that has sentimental reasons as its basis of appeal. The educational value of illustrated lectures on this subject has not received the consideration which could profitably be given it in any community.

The necessary qualifications of a successful cemetery superintendent are many and varied. The outstanding factor of his success is found in his ability to render just the kind of service that the emergency calls for. This implies tactfulness such as shown when Mrs. Newlyrich consulted the superintendent in regard to the most appropriate flowers for the grave of her late husband, who she said was very fond of smoking.  She thought that sweet-smelling tobacco plant and some salivas would make a real nice bed: "yes" replied the tactful superintendent, "and we'll border it with some beautiful spittoonias." Needless to remark he made a hit with that lot owner.
 
The service rendered by your late Mr. W. C. Rapp, of Fort Plain Cemetery, Fort Plain, NY, endeared him to his lot holders and enabled him to establish a record unique and worthy or emulation.  Years ago Mr. Rapp became imbued with the idea that cemetery memorials could be made to fill a two-fold purpose by serving the public in a useful way and also perpetuating the memory of the departed. Through Mr. Rapp's efforts several noteworthy memorials of this character have been erected in Fort Plain Cemetery. (They, with other cemetery memorials of this kind, will be illustrated at the close of this paper.) Herein lies a very pertinent suggestion for cemeteries to profit by: bring to the attention of your lot owners the thought of erecting memorial chapels, entrances, conservatories, fountains, etc., that more real significance may attach to their memorials, always remembering that no such memorials should be erected without adequate endowment. Memorials of this character have been referred to as utilitarian, and therefore unfit. That the public is not in sympathy with that idea is seen in the constantly increasing number of memorials of this nature.

In connection with the subject of useful memorials is not this centenary of the birth of Adolph Strauch a most opportune time for this Association to establish a memorial scholarship in his name that would assist and encourage young men and young women who may desire to follow the profession of landscape gardening as applied to cemeteries? Mr. Strauch originated and put into practice the landscape lawn plan in cemeteries. He was superintendent of the Cemetery of Spring Grove from 1854 until the time of his death in 1883, during which period he corrected and cultivated public taste concerning cemeteries in the face of the bitterest and almost insurmountable opposition, and laid the foundation for the high standard of cemetery development we enjoy today.

Statistics ordinarily make dry reading: a few, however, pertaining to the membership of the AACS may not be without interest. In 1897, at the close of the first ten years of the Association's existence, the membership was 192; in 1907 two hundred nineteen; in 1917, two hundred eighty and four years later, the Detroit report showed an enrollment of 360. Analyzing this membership, we find that approximately sixty percent of it comes from six states, numerically in the following order-Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Illinois, Massachusetts and Michigan. Of the forty-odd members west of the Mississippi River, two thirds are from Iowa, Minnesota and Missouri. In the states south of the Ohio and including the great state of Texas, the membership is about 30. It is also interesting to note that of the 68 cities in the U. S. with a population exceeding 100,000, twenty-five percent are not represented in your membership. These figures are given simply to show that there still remains a vast territory into which the inspiring message of this Association has not been carried.

Every cemetery manager is interested in knowing how other cemetery managers get the best results, and this Association has been the means of gratifying that desire. There are, however, thousands of cemeteries whose managers seldom, if ever, have the opportunity of participating in the deliberations of this national organization, who could be benefitted through state organizations. Organizations of this kind will not be formed without leaders, and who are better qualified for such service than the men who have made this Association what it is today? Ohio and New England have demonstrated what can be done in this direction and what cemetery men in those states have accomplished, others can.  The Ohio Association has a membership of seventy-eight, twenty-two of whom are members of the AACS. The New England association also has a goodly membership including many who are active members of the AACS.

Mr. Oscar F. Burbank president of the New England association in a recent letter says: "The New England Association has been responsible for a great deal of work which has been very helpful to cemetery men as well as to the general public. Not the least of the services rendered have been with relation to needed legislation. One of the best features of the Association, to my mind, is the fact that members are ready at all times to assist other members to obtain facts necessary to the efficient operation of their various cemeteries.  Therein the very essence of the association idea is expressed.

Mr. Painter and Mr. Jones with the assistance of other AACS members in Pennsylvania, or organized an association in that state. Its principal work has been to direct attention to and aid in defeating pernicious legislation, in which it has been successful. Far-reaching, through the influence of this Association has been, it must continue to widen, until, through its efforts, every state in the Union has seen the wisdom of having laws that will insure adequate provision for the permanent care of cemeteries and that will also protect the credulous and gullible public against the why schemes of promoters and speculators who promise fabulous returns from investments in cemetery projects.

Here lies a most potent reason for establishing local clubs and state associations. There is no surer way of spreading the gospel of better cemeteries and of arousing public sentiment when the necessity arises, against get-rich-quick propositions of this kind. The fact that state organizations have failed in some cases should not be allowed to discourage further action. The more the AACS does in this way, the more will its own strength increase and its ability to do good be multiplied. Every convention of this Association should give impetus to the organization of associations of this character until they become nation wide.

There are persons who prefer earth burial, others who regard it as abhorrent, and consider sepulture in vaults or mausoleums the only way to inter the dead, and still others who will have neither of these methods when cremation is possible. Cemeteries, therefore, which are prepared to give the public what it wants and to do it in the most acceptable manner usually, find favor. Personal prejudices should not deter a cemetery from fulfilling its rightful mission. When the AACS was organized there were but six crematoriums in this country; today there are eighty or more and nearly half of them are located in cemeteries. Each year marks additions to the number of crematoriums at cemeteries; several are now under process of construction, and others are in contemplation. The Association has never gone on record in favor of this method of disposing of the dead. It is a fact, nevertheless, that many of its members approve of it and are members of the Cremation Society of America, an organization which deserves the cooperation of all who believe in cremation. The subject of cremation has been discussed at conventions of this Association-it is one that might profitably be considered from time to time, for the benefit of those who should be thoroughly informed, as well as to remove some of the mistaken ideas that have retarded its progress. Cremation is more popular on the Pacific Coast than elsewhere in the US. Los Angeles and its environs has seven crematoriums, and there are five in San Francisco and nearby towns.

It seems almost incredible that eleven years ago automobiles were excluded from a number of cemeteries whose superintendents are on record to that effect. The transition that has come in the meantime, in conducting funerals, and the constant development of air travel, also the broadcasting of all manner of services, give one visions of funeral parties being transported by airplane, and funeral services disseminated by radio. When that time comes, metropolitan cemeteries will have sections set apart for landing stations for the accommodation of their lot owners who arrive by airplanes and chapels will be equipped with radio broadcasting apparatus. A funeral by airplane has already taken place in Chicago. Three planes were in the cortege that recently paid tribute to a captain whose ashes were dropped into the waters of Lake Michigan.

While this Association has had no special axe to grind, and has, therefore, given but little attention to the matter of newspaper publicity it cannot be said to have received the degree of publicity to which an organization of its importance in public affairs is rightfully entitled. Possibly this is due to the fact of its having no duly authorized press agent. The Association manages to get into the spot light about once a year during the annual conventions when newspaper reporters who are assigned to the hotels give the public a glimpse of its activities in a story often times as pain fully abbreviated as the most modern bathing costume. Most persons seem loath to think or speak of cemeteries until the subject is forced upon them. Members of this Association can greatly assist in changing the attitude of the public mind regarding cemeteries by supplying their local newspapers with items of public interest. Excerpts from some of the excellent papers that have been read at your conventions would be published by the editors of your home papers if they were given the opportunity.

The subjects discussed in papers and question box have run the entire gamut of things pertaining to cemeteries, from bugs, birds and beetles, to reptiles, roads and the most radical rules and yet, like that famous biblical story, "the half has not been told," nor will it until every cemetery in this country has felt the refining Influence of this Association.

Between sessions, congenial spirits have hob-nobbed and swapped experiences, and of these occasions every one of the older members has pleasant memories. The dream of a certain superintendent which points a moral is timely. "I dreamed that I had died", said this certain man "and to my dismay, I found the elevator going down instead of up. On arriving at my destination, which was decidedly tropical as far as temperature was concerned I was registered and questioned as to my vocation on earth. When his Satanic Majesty heard I had been a cemetery Superintendent he remarked, “I have a very interesting department to show you”. He proceeded to escort me to a compartment above the doors of which I read the words Cemetery Superintendents and Officials and informed me this was where the kun-drying was done. “Why do you need such a place?” I asked. “Why” remarked “His Majesty, this is where we have to put the cemetery men who did not join the Association of American Cemetery Superintendents, they are so green they won't burn.” I saw my finish and wakened in a cold sweat. The next morning my application for membership in the AACS was on its way to Mr. Jones.

This Association has numbered among its honorary and active members men distinguished in various walks of life, at least two of whom deserve mention. The Rt. Rev. Bishop McQuaid, of Rochester, NY, whose presence at Rochester in 1903 was an inspiration, was unquestionably among the first Catholic clergymen to take the initiative in bettering the condition of Catholic cemeteries. Mr. Charles M. Loring, president of Lakewood Cemetery Association, Minneapolis, who died recently at an advanced aged, was one of that city's most distinguished citizens. He was president of the first Board of Park Commissioners of that city, and did much to promote the planting of trees there and elsewhere.

With the passing of the weeping willow, the impossible lamb, the attenuated slab, and the variegated forms of lot enclosures, we cannot fail, to note the infrequency of the tombstone that "could stand up and at the same time lie on its face" with such ineffable complacence. The days of the quaint epitaph truly have passed. Do you realize, gentlemen, that in bringing about a changed condition you have deprived some visitors of one of their chief joys? At the Richmond, VA, convention of this Association in 1893, one of the memorable places visited was St. John's church and churchyard. There we were permitted to stand where Patrick Henry delivered his famous address. In the graveyard one epitaph fixed itself indelibly in my mind. It ran: "Remember friends as you pass by, as you are now, so once was I, as I am now, so must you be, prepare for death and follow me." It was that which followed, however, that made the lasting impression. A wag had written under the epitaph these words:  "To follow you I would not be content, unless I knew which way you went."

Professor Bailey paid a very high compliment to the AACS when he classed it as "one of three national societies conserving the landscape gardening and rural art of the country." Yet cannot something still greater be said in its favor when we consider the absolutely unselfish motive that brought together its founders to organize an association whose object "shall be the advancement of the interests and the elevation of the character of cemeteries in America"? For thirty-five years these men and their successors have met in annual convention to carry out their high purpose with never a thought of personal financial gain; without the slightest suspicion of graft and without any emolument or salary whatever, to any officer excepting the utterly inadequate remuneration paid the Secretary-Treasurer. The men who have brought this Association to its present high standard are amply qualified to speak with authority on all practical and ethical matters pertaining to cemetery management. With many of them it has been the study of a lifetime, and out of their actual experience they are giving freely to all who choose to attend their annual conventions.
The bane of many associations is the tendency to form cliques: its absence in this Association is cause for genuine congratulation. This real spirit of democracy of which have been born ties of warmest friendship, should never be allowed to wane.

Theodore Roosevelt said: "Every man owes some of his time to up-building of the profession to which he belongs." It was that very principle which actuated the founders of this Association, and has been preeminent in all of its deliberations.

The talented men who organized and carried forward to success the Association of American Cemetery Superintendents have immortalized themselves in their profession by raising the cemeteries of America to their present high standard and earning for themselves an everlasting debt of gratitude from the public.

This cursory glance at the activities of the Association would surely be incomplete without allusion to the part women are taking in the improvement of cemeteries as well as to the inspiration of their presence at the conventions. They have played a most important part in the always delightful social functions, and have on several occasions made valuable contributions to the program. Landscape gardening as a profession, has a natural appeal to women as a vocation, and is so closely allied to cemeteries that women are finding here, as they are elsewhere, new and not inappropriate fields of activity.

All hail to the men and women who have helped the Association of American Cemetery Superintendents reach its high peak! May their tribe increase!

From the publication:
AACS - Proceedings of the 36th Annual Convention
Omaha, Nebraska
September 18, 19, 20 and 21, 1922

In the words of the poet William Cullen Bryant – “All that tread the globe are but a handful to the tribes that slumber in its bosom".

Our Dominion Astronomer, Dr. Otto Klotz, some years ago favored us with a short, but very original mathematical contribution, to show that if the world goes on increasing its population at the rate obtaining during the past century, it will within measureable time be overcrowded to extinction!

THE DELUGE: The deluge is of course the legendary funeral of note. Many painters have tried to depict it. The painting by Wouters shown you on the screen was being exhibited through Belgium in 1907, an unsuspected premonition of the national fate in 1914.

PREHISTORIC: The skulls and the bones, the burial caves and barrows, the Megaliths and Kurgans of prehistory are our data on the evolution of man.
The burial customs of the tribes give the key to the trend of human ascension, the skulls furnishing the anthropologists with the cephalic index, the proportion of width to length, that they wrangle so much about and what a mixing of races on the foughten fields of Europe.
Our time does not allow for a complete and detailed display of this one of the most interesting studies into which there has been so much painstaking and learned research. Henry Fairfield Osborn, Beddoe, Dennis, Madison Grant, Frazer, Grant Allen and many others are beacons that lead far afield in diverse directions to gather the threads of this very tangled skein. The few typical examples discussed and shown upon the screen may help us in analysis of our present problem and aid toward a synthetic solution.

SYMBOLISM: Longfellow tells us that- "Dust thou art, to dust returneth; Was not written of the soul."
We commemorate the soul, the living soul, not the clay that has crumbled; there is imposed upon us to express its idealism with understanding and with art.
Flinders Petrie writing on the character of Egyptian Art, holds that "The truest analysis of art, that of Tolstoy, results in defining it as a means of communicating emotion."
The question still seems an open one as to whether inhumation or cremation be the more ancient method of disposing of the dead; i.e., relatively among historic races. There is the theory of Rhode that the custom of burying the dead is of Indo-Aryan origin with the view of separating the body from the soul more rapidly, to give the latter its liberty the sooner.

BURIAL CUSTOMS: It appears at the time of Christ nearly all important races burned their dead except the Jews, which would account for their opposite custom of burial coming down through Christianity and western civilization to us.
Religious controversies which have raged around this subject are apart from our theme, it is largely a matter of sentiment. There is nothing as conservative as the dead-unless it be the near dead!
As our laws stand, one cannot be cremated unless expressly so stated in one's will-the living are given no discretion in a matter to which the departed have rarely given any thought.
Cremation seems to be slowly gaining recognition by its inherent attributes-the war has emphasized its physical advantages-and art can better express emotions in allegorical symbols.
What should be symbolized are the ideals that men have lived for-that the individual may have practiced-that the time proclaims.

ARCHITECTURE: Let us now turn to architecture described by Staham as "a great world wide art in which the human race has endeavored to realize in material form its aspirations after abstract sublimity.
What conclusions may be drawn as to reason and type; what best fitted to express our modern ideal of death?
And before reviewing this historic pageant may I urge upon you to seek and to favor the guidance of artists-architects and sculptors in the designing of monuments and to resist the trend of commercialism, art that is today well nigh overwhelming the living and the dead.
In one of my reports on the development of Hamilton (1917) there is reiterated my strong conviction that Commercialized Art is to Aesthetics, as Commercialized Vice is to Ethics--a defilement.

GENIE GUARDING SECRETS OF THE TOMB IN LUXEMBOURG GALLERIES
Rene de Saint-Marceaux, Sc.

HISTORIC TOMBS: Egypt from her prehistory, 8000 to 5500 BC has left us burials of figures crouched in square boxlike receptacles which evolved into the Mastabas and the Pyramid tombs of the ancient Empire and that prevailed for about two thousand years.
The Middle Empire which ran for about another thirteen centuries was the age of the Rock Cut Tombs which in turn brings us to the beginning of the New Empire about 1700 BC, the age of Temples which lasted to 340 BC.

The Egyptians believed that the conservation of the body after death was essential for its ultimate reunion with the soul-therefore, mummies.

The stepped pyramids of Sakkars with its five steps about two hundred feet of height is the oldest dating about 4000 BC.

The great pyramid built about 3700 BC by King Cheops (Khufu) in the Gizeh group was an astronomical observatory during his life and his tomb after death-it is the largest of some 70 pyramids in Egypt and covers 13½ acres, and is 451 feet or more high.

Computations run that from 100,000 to 350,000 men were employed for twenty years in building it-a government job, but magnificently done!

From its summit there is a view of the Lybian desert where the ancient tombs have been shrouded by the ever shifting sands.

The Mastabas or built tombs at Gizeh date from about 3900 BC. The Rock Cut Tombs begin about 3000 BC, the most important subsequently being those of Beni-Hassan.

With the beginning of the New Empire we get the Mausoleum of Queen Hatshepsu (about 1517 BC) known as the temple of Deir-el-Bahri on the opposite shore of the Nile from Karnac. It is some 900 years later than the Beni-Hasson caves.

The Egyptians continued building tombs without further evolution of ideas; they had their "Book of the Dead". A very interesting romance, "Uarda" by George Ebers, the great Egyptologist, describes the burial customs and the Necropolis of Thebes about fourteen centuries BC.

The Babylonian laws of Hammurabi, over twenty-two centuries BC, the oldest code known, contain minute instructions regarding the care of the irrigation canals-the penalty for their neglect being greater than that for beating one's wife. But Babylon has left us no tombs; all their structures being of clay, have crumbled and only a few titles reward the searchers in the palace mounds. Similarly with the annals of the Kings of Assyria.

China, likewise, whose accepted history, if a bit mythical, goes back according to W. G. Old and others, to 2943 BC-the approximate date of the Deluge-has few tombs to tells its early standing.

There, apparently almost everyone with a few dynastic exceptions has been buried in the back garden and China is one vast cemetery the sacredness of which in the worship of its ancestors has made it very difficult to introduce civilization by the desecrating railway!

Their temples were halls for ancestors worship. To God they erected their altars in the open.

Greek art has left us the record of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (350 BC) in Asia Minor, the excavated remains of which are now in the British Museum. It is from these that comes the famous slab representing the extermination of the Amazons by the Greeks.

The Greeks being a highly cultured people usually raised memorials to abstract ideals-not to house the mortal remains like the monument of Lysicrates at Athens.

Italy is a land of many tombs. Each city of ancient Etruria had its Necropolis, a thousand years and more BC, the finds from which fill museums and help to trace the genesis of Roman art and customs.

The distinguishing Etruscan feature was the podium and tumulus and also the more usual subterranean vaults.

An interesting feature of the later are the funerary urns which at a certain period were often in the form of miniature huts indicative of the architecture of the day. It is from this source that we gather that the Etruscans began to change from round to square dwellings about the seventh century BC.

The Romans, on the other hand, built their tombs above ground the greatest of which was the Mole of Hadrian; now since the Middle Ages, the fortress Castle of St. Angelo.

The Street of the Tombs at Athens was copied on a colossal scale in the Appian Way outside the St. Sebastian Gate and where the great round bastion-like tomb of Cecelia Matella still stands sentinel over so many others in complete ruins. Both the Hadrian and Matella tombs show Etruscan influence in form.

The Christian Catacombs are a subject by themselves, the outcome of necessitous circumstances and not of display.

The Temple Tomb of Diocletian at Spalato on the Dalmatian coast, early fourth century, shows the incoming influence of Eastern thought on Western architecture and which with the rise of Christianity to power, evolved to custom of burial crypts and monuments in Mediaeval Cathedrals; enduring to our day.

The tomb of the Popes in Saint Peters; from the Renaissance are the most magnificent examples of their kind.

Westminster Abbey, the shrine of England's Great, and the Pantheon for those of France and Napoleon's tomb are also outstanding examples of this custom.

Nor must one forget a Campo Santo at Genoa.

In passing it may be noted that the Parsee towers and the Burning Ghats of India are not classed as tombs.

India claims, however, the culmination, in the seventeenth century, of woman in India.

HAMILTON

Now I am encouraged to submit the theories I hold in their application to the city of Hamilton, where my reports on railway reorganization, on highways and on general development, have already been so kindly and so sympathetically received-and where they are beginning to be carried out.

The magnificent high level entrance to Hamilton with its beautiful cemetery aligning the route to the west appeals to me greatly as a possible revival of the street of the Tombs in Athens and of the atmosphere that hallowed the majesty of the Appian Way-where there was no shrinking from death by the myriads who passed cheerfully into its shadow.

It should, however, manifest the highest symbolism and the purest art in the tombs and shafts that hedge the way-and it were better they stood for the collective ideals of social units.

Such splendid tombs should not vie with each other in size nor in ostentation, but solely in dignity and simple beauty. Those who have been privileged to know Stoughton Holborn's "Need for Art in Life" will realize the vision.

There appears today in our cemeteries too great an assumption, an obsession of invidious personality, as Veblen might say.

As an example of Symbolism: in the suggested Mountain Stadium as shown, my thought was that as a War Memorial it would express the sacrifice of the dead for the living-for the continuity of the race.

Further, the suggestion includes a composition symbolic of the struggle of man in the quest of freedom in evolution on the Altar of Human Sacrifice.

Thus in the center of the great traffic circle facing the Terminal, a tall Obelisk would be centered on a pyramidal series of massive concentric and circular altar stones, the whole resting in the center of a large fountain pool.

At the foot of the Obelisk figures symbolizing the fecundity of the Earth would be backed against the base of the shaft. Around these on the upper degree of the altar, groups of men of the stone Age struggling by instinct; descending, a degree of men of the Metal Age struggling for
survival and again a degree lower the sword and the javelin battling for conquest; and again down a degree further ahorse and afoot champions of the Cross and the Crescent down finally to the broader ledge on the Altar of Time, where, amidst all the panoply and horrors of modern war, the Conflagration of our own flesh and blood is incense supreme in retribution for all ignorance and in merit of ultimate freedom.

The blood of conflict mingling with the springs that fertilize the earth overflows from age to age into the oblivion in the sea of Time, into the ether of Eternity, through which this planet wanders beyond our realms of consciousness.

Reverting to a comprehensive Necropolis for Hamilton.

Let it be something splendid, real, like the Castel d'Asso Valley of Tombs-and sufficient for ages-such is the mountain top, rim and the southerly sloping talus on the northerly side of this valley, where the Guelph road climbs over its heights.

My professional usefulness as an engineer and a town planner lies perhaps mainly in regional and city planning for the living, yet is not without grave concern in the disposition of the Necropolis where we all of the League of Nations will eventually find passive transition.

May I trust that these views of an outside observer have proved of sympathetic interest and stimulation.

From the publication:
AACS - Proceedings of the 34th Annual Convention held at Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
September 7, 8, 9 and 10, 1920

No phase of human activity has stronger traditions than the burial of the dead. In all ages man has attempted to give expression to his belief in the immortality of the soul. Almost the only records we possess of many races are the tombs which they erected. It is to be hoped that our own present age will never come to be judged by the records it will leave of burial in its great cities.

Idealism in Cemetery Design.-The first principle in cemetery design is the creation of that unmistakable atmosphere which we associate with the burial of the dead. There is a modern tendency to avoid a funereal aspect in cemeteries as though a cemetery was after all something to be ashamed of which ought to be disgusted as something else. Cemetery design as a fine art seeks to give expression to the purpose for which the design is created. In other words, the cemetery must look like a cemetery, not like a public pleasure park or recreation ground. This can only be accomplished by a study of the traditions which, throughout innumerable centuries, have produced certain well marked associations which we recognize as the atmosphere surrounding burial. An obvious example to prove this point may be drawn from architecture. No architect or designer who is unacquainted with the traditions of ecclesiastical architecture can build a church which is going to look like a church. He may succeed in meeting all the schedule of requirements laid down for his guidance as to seating capacity, choir space and altar, but the result is likely to prove much more like a moving picture theatre or physics lecture hall than a church. The reason for this is that, as a result of thousands of years of religious faith definite associations in architecture have grown up which we instinctively connect with public worship. When we go to church we are disappointed if the outside of the building looks like a barn and the inside like the Strand theatre.

What are the associations which have grown up around the burial place for the dead? They are seclusion, repose, solemnity and mystery.

Seclusion.-The modern cemetery is seldom secluded. Too often the roar of traffic on the great thoroughfare, where it is usually located, is only too audible.

Repose. - Having finally succumbed in the whirlpool of modern business life, the soul is everlastingly denied that repose for which it has been craving and is left in contemplation of the traffic problem of our great cities.

Solemnity.-Solemnity is accomplished by means of masses of granite balancing upon one corner.

Mystery.-There is nothing mysterious about our cemeteries. They constitute a permanent monument to the vanity, cynicism and materialism of our age.

In the United States reaction against the indecencies of the modern civic cemetery with its harvest of dragons’ teeth and its glorification of atrocities has led to extremes in which the whole purpose of the cemetery must be disguised as though death itself were the crime and complete obliteration of its evidence of the object.

Some years ago I received a call to visit a small cemetery and make suggestions for re-planning on more modern lines. What I found was a cemetery which approached more nearly to my ideal in cemetery planning than any modern burial ground which I have ever seen in any country. I felt instinctively upon entering that I was in the presence of the work of a student of great intellect and vivid imagination. My clients informed me that the cemetery was originally designed by a much traveled Jesuit father, since deceased. The rectangular site, of perhaps 30 acres, occupied the whole of a high tableland from which all views of the surrounding town were completely shut off by a double belt of Scotch and Austrian Pine, forty feet high. The plan simplicity itself took the form of a great cross which cut the property into four quarters. The lines of the cross were marked by straight wide alleys of level grass with a well designed monument at the crossing. Bounding the alleys on either side was a tall cedar hedge, in front of which were spaced out pyramidal cedars 25 feet high. The four blocks were subdivided into lots with simple head stones and served by a road way passing through each. Those fortunate enough to be buried here enjoy an atmosphere of seclusion repose, solemnity and mystery.

Requirements of the Modern Civic Cemetery.-The site: While twenty-five years is an extremely long period in the life of cities, it is an extremely short period in the life of a cemetery, if one may use the word life in connection with a burial ground. During the past twenty-five years the principles of transportation in our cities have undergone a complete revolution resulting in the spread of population over vast areas which would have been impossible under previous methods. A site chosen twenty-five years ago on account of its seclusion may now be the centre of the utmost congestion. The time has not yet arrived when definite limits will be set to the growth of cities although signs are evident that such action will eventually have to be taken.

The search for a site for a cemetery, therefore, will be guided by geographical and topographical conditions more than by judgment as to future civic development. A site partially or even entirely surrounded by water, for instance, will promise seclusion for an unlimited period. In mountainous and hilly districts sites can often be found which will insure seclusion for the cemetery on every side but one.

Accessibility.-In order to be accessible the cemetery need not necessarily be located on a great thoroughfare or any road which seems likely to develop, as such. A good road open to traffic at all times of the year is a necessity, but the possibility of an entrance some few hundred yards away from the thoroughfare rather than immediately upon it, is no disadvantage. Street car service within short walking distance of the cemetery should be provided or the probability of the provision at a later date considered. From two to four miles from the district which the cemetery is expected to serve is not too great a distance.

Seclusion.-Seclusion is by far the most important feature in my opinion when choosing a site. Natural topographical features, such as the crest of a hill or an expanse of water, are more to be relied upon than belts of trees either existing or proposed. Few of our native trees thrive well in the densely populated districts of our cities and it is doubtful if any trees can be counted upon to provide seclusion of such permanence as is demanded by a cemetery.

Aspect.-A site sloping toward the southeast and heavily protected toward the west, northwest and north is the ideal which should be sought. There are days in spring and fall when attendance at a funeral is sufficient to strain the affection of the most trusted friend. As our cold weather comes almost invariably from the north to the .west, protection from that quarter is essential. I have seen properties only a few hundred yards apart where the transformation from bleak winter into glorious summer is accomplished solely by means of a plantation of evergreens on the northwest. The convenience and comfort of the public, the associations surrounding a resting place for the dead and the operations connected with a cemetery in winter time demand adequate shelter from strong cold winds.

Natural and Topographical Features.-A hilly or undulating site is usually more attractive than a level site. Level sites are inclined to become extremely monotonous unless great skill is used in the layout and planning. It is most important that the whole of the Property should not be seen at one time as quite apart from the unsightliness of a forest of monuments, a piece of property invariably gives the impression. of much smaller size when the whole of it is seen at once than when broken up into a number of spaces varying in interest with well screened boundary lines. A property may be broken up in two ways, either by topographical irregularities or by masses of planting existing or proposed. While a site should not necessarily be condemned on account of being level a sharply undulating property will us usually possess greater possibilities for interest and beauty than one devoid of natural features. Existing trees on a property are of course a priceless asset, but much would depend on their character and disposition. If the property is likely to be fairly well preserved from city smoke for a long period a growth of cedars would be invaluable. Cedars, owing to their character and shape, will help more than any other native tree to produce the atmosphere of mystery which should be the keynote of a cemetery. Being evergreen they will also maintain the character at all times of the year. White pine and Norway spruce, although evergreens, are not to be counted upon to any great extent. The former invariably dies out upon the approach of the city while the latter is a short lived tree at the best of times and becomes extremely ragged and unsightly when old. A heavy growth of deciduous timber over the whole of the property may be rather a disadvantage than otherwise. While theoretically, the exact amount of clearing desired ought to be possible it is usually found in practice that great difficulty is experienced in having trees removed and the result may be less satisfactory than building up plantations where needed upon a bare site. In city cemeteries natural streams of water are an asset if obtainable, but can seldom be counted upon for very long, as the development of the city will usually eventually cut off the supply.

Soil and Drainage.-Every cemetery superintendent will agree upon the importance of soil and drainage when choosing a site for the cemetery. Owing to the depth at which graves have to be dug the water table must be kept down below six feet from the surface at all times of the year. The depth at which drainage operations have to be executed. may be an item of very great expense if large areas have to be dealt with. A deep, well drained sandy loam is the ideal soil for cemetery sites. Heavy clay should be avoided. Rock close to the surface would of course condemn any site.

The Layout.-Having chosen the site the next problem is its development. The scheme of development will be based upon certain information which must be on hand before a start can be made. An accurate topographical survey must be prepared of the whole with contours varying from one to five foot intervals according to the extent of the property and the differences in elevation to be encountered. Full information should be provided as to boundaries, location and character as well as the nature of the property beyond them. All trees and shrubs should be located their caliper spread and variety being marked clearly upon the plan. Armed with this information the designer may sit down and think out his problem.

When designing for any utilitarian purpose certain arbitrary limits and requirements are always laid down for the guidance of the designer. The designer of a dinner fork, for instance, knows that he is required to invent some type of instrument to be used for transferring pieces of roast beef from the plate to the mouth by means of the hand as a carrying medium. His first business is not to conceive something beautiful, but to sit down and discover the limits and requirements within which his design must take form. His summing up of the situation will probably be somewhat as follows: In the first place, he finds that his instrument must be suitable for picking up off the plate easily and gracefully a piece of meat. In the second place, he sets limits to the size of the piece of meat with which he has to deal. Thirdly, his instrument must be easily grasped in the fingers. Then again the meat must not be so firmly grasped by the instrument that it cannot be easily removed in the mouth. He knows that the fork must be easy to clean. It must be strong enough for the purpose but not so unnecessarily strong as to be clumsy. In solving all these problems he has already made long strides toward introducing an object of beauty, an object which expresses the purpose for which it is intended.

In exactly the same way the cemetery designer will sit down and think out the utilitarian purposes which his design is intended to serve and the limits within which this problem is to be solved. The requirements in this case are as follows:
1. The provision of suitable sites for graves, keeping in mind economy of land.
2. The provision of access to those graves.
3. The creation of a setting, or atmosphere, for the graves in keeping with the traditions of burial.

Instead of commencing by locating individual graves, he will turn his attention first of all to the question of access to the property as a whole. This involves the question of an entrance or entrances. In this connection the general direction of traffic to and from the centre of population which the cemetery is expected to serve will be considered. In a general way, the most convenient spot on the boundary of the property will be chosen but the right choice of an entrance is most important. In addition to being convenient for people approaching the cemetery, the entrance should also provide possibilities of concentration from and distribution to the various parts of the cemetery. Assuming that the cemetery does not front upon the main thoroughfare the entrance should be so placed, if possible, as to be visible from the thoroughfare, so possibly at the end of a connecting street. In order to make it more imposing the entrance should be at a slight elevation.

Having located the entrance, the distribution of roadways and the location of definite areas to be set aside for graves will be considered in conjunction with the cemetery office and chapel. For two reasons the bottoms of alleys are unsuited for graves. In the first place, they are apt to be wet, no matter how well drained artificially, and in the second place, the bottom of a valley filled with monuments is much more likely to destroy the restfulness of the cemetery than high ground similarly treated where the monument can be partially screened. In a general way, it may be said that the roadways should be kept to the graves on the high land. Distances between roadways are determined largely by the distance the pall bearers may be expected to carry. As this distance should not exceed two hundred feet it follows that the property should be intersected by roadways not more than 400 feet apart in cases where the intervening space is given over to graves. Traffic distribution must be carefully studied. It is quite obvious that circulation of traffic is preferable to blind alleys provided with turning spaces, although some of these latter will be inevitable on certain properties where the grades do not permit of circulation.

In a general way, three widths of roadways will be used in cemeteries. The one-way road of nine feet; the two-way road of eighteen feet and the three-way road of twenty-four feet. The one-way road, circulating and returning, may be expected to serve an area of from 15 to 20 acres. The two-way road will serve one or more of such areas. Three-way road will be used near the entrance and central parts of large cemeteries where much concentration of traffic is to be expected. Time will not permit us to deal further with the details of roadway layout and construction.

Focal Points and Controlling Features.-Something more is required of the cemetery designer than an engineering solution of a roadway scheme at the best grades and curves. The plan must represent something more than an aimless maze of curving roads. Focal points and controlling features are absolutely essential to the well thought-out plan, even in the smallest cemetery. The symbolism of burial demands a certain degree of formality, dignity and stateliness and although it is only seldom desirable to have formality embrace the whole of the design some areas must always be given a formal setting. Architectural features of merit; such as chapel, office and larger private monuments, which ought to enrich all cemeteries, form an admirable opportunity for the designer to provide controlling sites in his plan for just such features. In larger cemeteries one central distributing point, formal in treatment, comprising the chapel and some monuments, will form a controlling feature of the plan. A number of secondary focal points should also be provided at various points in the plan. A roadway may, for instance, be diverted to the right or left at the approach to a steep grade forming an admirable site for one of the larger monuments.

Graves and Monuments.-Until complete control is obtained by the designer over the monuments permitted, the ideal cemetery will never take form. Fifty years ago some simplicity and restfulness in the village church yard and cemetery were possible. This was, partly due to the fact that in most cases the funds available did not permit of anything more than simple headstones and partly to the fact that the traditions of burial were held in greater respect.

Some cemeteries in the United States have succeeded in the control of monuments almost to the point of abolition. Abolition, although infinitely better than individual license, is not the ideal. Monuments can and should be beautiful. They should be an aid to the designer instead of a hindrance and a priceless asset to the dignity and beauty of the cemetery. What is needed is control, both of lots and of monuments, by the cemetery designer. He it is who ought to decide the character of the memorial which is to be permitted on each grave. They will vary from flat stones level with the turf to the simple head stones or sarcophagus, while special lots will be set aside for larger monuments.

From the publication:
AACS - Proceedings of the 34th Annual Convention held at Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
September 7, 8, 9 and 10, 1920

Cemetery, from a Greek word meaning to sleep-literally, a sleeping place, was the name originally applied to the Roman underground burying places or catacombs. The early Christians also used the term for the places set apart for their dead and we learn from the fathers of the church that here, in the dawn of Christianity, were held the assemblies of the Christians.

These places were not connected with churches, interment in churchyards being unknown until later times. The term cemetery has, therefore, been appropriately applied in modern days to the burial grounds which have been substituted for the overcrowded churchyards.

Among the most picturesque cemeteries of the world are those of the Turks and it is possibly from them that the first idea of the cemetery, as we know it today with its shade trees and walks, was obtained.

In the Turkish burying grounds a cypress is usually planted beside each grave and so the cemetery becomes, in time, almost a forest where, by day, the doves are on the wing or perching on the trees. Here, too, are always to be seen Turkish women, pale shadows, praying beside the narrow graves. In Armenian cemeteries the tombstones depict the manner of the death of whoever is buried below, and on these extremely weird monuments one may see representations of men being decapitated or hanging on the gallows.

Of the cemeteries still in use in Southern Europe the catacombs of Sicily are the most curious. There is one near Palermo where in the subterranean corridors some 2,000 corpses are ranged in niches in the wall. The chief cemetery of France is the famous Pere la Chaise, in Paris. It obtains its name from the celebrated Confessor of Louis XIV to whom as rector of the Jesuits of Paris, it once belonged. It has an area of 200 acres and here are monuments to the great dead of modern France - soldiers, poets, painters and scientists. On two occasions this cemetery and the heights nearby have been the scene of battle. In 1814 the Russians stormed the heights during the attack on Paris. In 1871 the Communists made their last stand among the tombs of Pere la Chaise and there 900 of them fell. In 1874, as a consequence of the crowded state of the cemeteries of Paris, a great new burying place, two square miles in extent, was laid out some 16 miles north of the city with which it is connected by railway. In France every city and town is required by law to provide a burial ground beyond its barriers, properly laid out and situated if possible on rising ground.

In England from 1840 to 1855 attention was repeatedly called by the press and in Parliament to the condition of the London churchyards. The vaults under the floors of the churches and the small spaces of open ground surrounding them were literally crammed with coffins and were in consequence a direct menace to health. In all the other large towns the evil was prevalent in a greater or less degree, but in London, on account of the vast population and the consequent mortality, it was more forcibly brought to public attention. After several measures of partial relief the churchyards were closed by Act of Parliament in 1855 and the cemeteries, which now occupy large areas, became the burying places of London.

Several had already been established by private enterprise, Kensal Green, for example, dates from 1832, but the Act of 1855 marks the date of the general development of cemeteries in Great Britain.

Many of the churchyards of rural England are places of quiet and solemn beauty, of contemplative peace; in one such God's Acre was written Grey's majestic Elegy.

Beneath those rugged elms that yew tree's shade
Where heaves the turf in many a moldering heap
Each in his narrow cell forever laid
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep

Wolfe, the mighty soldier who scaled the heights of Abraham, found inspiration and solace in this poem. You will recollect that as he began his great adventure to storm the frowning cliffs he quietly recited the lines:

The boast of heraldy the pomp of power
And all that beauty all that wealth e'er gave
Awaits alike the inevitable hour
The paths of glory lead but to the grave

In June last I visited several of these English churchyards. Among others, one at Coniston in the Lake District, a churchyard of soft rains and sunshine, of green grass and white flowers, with the grey old church standing sentinel over all, and nearby the quiet sunlit waters of Coniston Lake. Here among the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleeps one of the mighty dead-John Ruskin, the apostle of beauty. Here, too, as all over England, are the pathetic graves of boys who died in England of wounds or of exposure or sickness contracted on foreign service.

The moral of Ruskin's teaching that a living art requires truth, nature, purity and earnestness has now become the axiom of all aesthetic work and judgment. If we all in our respective works would but abide by his teaching a fairer and more beautiful world would be at hand.

On this continent the cemeteries have developed in two ways, from the old time forlorn burying ground with its shapeless, ill-kept roads, grassless mounds and jumble of badly designed monuments, these latter often of slate, first to the beauty spots of today, such as may be found in many Canadian cities and towns; secondly, to the carefully tended, but artificial and monotonous cemeteries, on that ground of vegetation and cheerless to behold. Our aim should be to make our cemeteries in Canada places meet for the dead dowered with all the beauty art and thought can give.

To turn now to the question of the location of the cemetery, we can be guided in this by certain general considerations. A cemetery not laid out as a park is naturally considered a detriment to a residential district. A recent case in Toronto illustrates that even tombstones on a lawn may be seriously objected to and I will read the report of it from the Ottawa Citizen of August 8th:

"Tombstones are all right in the right place, but next door to a doctor they have their drawbacks.” This was the substance of a judgment issued this afternoon by Magistrate Ellis in refusing to fine Joseph Steiner, charged with offering tombstones for sale in a restricted area.
The city solicitor's department produced a photograph showing at least six tombstones on the front lawn of Steiner's home, but so many people thought that someone was buried there that he put up more stones. A doctor and a next-door neighbor to the defendant told the court that the tombstones had caused a tremendous amount of trouble and expense to the district.
“It has brought an onerous state of affairs upon the professional men of the district” stated the neighbor.
“We have to sleep with one eye upon this, gentlemen and it is a serious handicap to professional life. It is no pleasant reminder for people of sixty or seventy years of age to see this group of stones on the front lawn.”

Magistrate Ellis ordered the stones removed.

A cemetery site should be selected sufficiently far from the city to free it from this reproach, at the same time it must be easily reached by good roads and by systems of transport. We must consider the site in its general relation to the city and especially to the more thickly populated parts and take note also of the trend of growth of the cities population. A cemetery should be an improvement to a district, it should not occupy land that by the presence of railway facilities is likely to develop into an industrial or warehouse district nor should it abut on a water front if the latter is in the line of commercial development. This would be an economic waste from an industrial point of view as well as the wrong place for a cemetery.

The extent of ground required by a cemetery may seriously complicate the future street system of a city. I understand that the Hamilton Cemetery, although beautifully situated, occupies a strategic position on the narrow neck of land which provides the high level access to the city from the north. It is much to be desired that in choosing a new location for the extension of the cemetery area in Hamilton, consideration will be given to the desirability of fitting it in as part of the comprehensive plan of the city. The cemetery must be planned to interfere as little as possible with existing thoroughfares or with those that may later be required. Gently rolling land should, if possible, be selected. This is mowed easily; drained and naturally affords better opportunities for artistic treatment than flat land. The soil should be suitable for plant growth, be well drained and easily excavated.

All these points are elementary so far as the members of this Association are concerned. It is nevertheless true that they are frequently lost sight of where sites are purchased. Less important local considerations are allowed to prevail in the selection of land for the public purposes. When the site has been selected the first need is for a correct topographical plan showing all the natural features, the grades and the existing trees. The more accurate and complete this plan is the better will our work of planning be. In the plans for new developments in our cities in the plans for parks the "gridiron" system has been discarded. The same is true of the newer cemeteries. Here we have pleasantly curving roads following the contours of the ground, these roads being no wider than is necessary for traffic.

As in a park there will be main roads and secondary roads. They should all, however, be designed in the nature of private drives and not as public thoroughfares. Part of the cemetery should be laid out as a permanent lawn not used for burial purposes, a wide sweeping lawn shaded by trees and with perennial flowers and vines; the whole effect indeed of the cemetery should be park-like and to this end unceasing care is necessary. At the entrance and for a limited distance a formal treatment may be adopted, but beyond this the sylvan atmosphere should predominate.

This short paper would not be complete without a reference to monuments. Now, it is a question if ornate monuments have not frequently been erected because it was the custom. If in parts of the cemetery the tribute to the dead consisted of a small tablet of stone or bronze beautifully designed and laid almost flush with the grave would this not be better than the jumble of monuments we so often see and would not the whole appearance of the cemetery be thereby improved. In parts of the cemetery where headstones may be desired there might be a certain formality to give them scale and to provide an adequate setting. The monuments to public men also offer an opportunity for a somewhat formal treatment.

In the old churchyards, unused as burying places, for a century or more the headstones have harmonized with nature's background. The proximity of the church saves them from complete inconsequence and lends to them, indeed, something of its graciousness and charm. Our cemeteries, however, generally lack buildings of any size; to correct this could we not build a wide cloistered court, adding thereby dignity to the too often isolated chapel? On the walls of this court inscriptions and tablets could be placed. Might not such a cloister, filled with flowers be a worthy remembrance of those soldiers of the neighborhood who fell in battle that our lives and walks and quiet ways should be unmolested?

From the publication:
AACS - Proceedings of the 34th Annual Convention held at Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
September 7, 8, 9 and 10, 1920

From time immemorial respect for the dead has been one of the dominant virtues of the higher types of civilized people. In the earliest pages of history we read the beautiful story of the purchase of the cave of Machpelah by the patriarch, Abraham and the dedication thereof as a family burial place, where he deposited the loved form of Sarah his long time helpmate and sharer of his weal and woe, and where later on his own remains were tenderly laid away by his sons; Isaac and Ishmael.

During recent years this respect has been shown more and more strongly in the establishment and maintenance of the modern cemetery, where those dearly loved in life may be laid away for their long rest in a quiet, well cared for place, where the mourning relatives and friends may visit the graves of their departed, feeling safe in the assurance, that come what may, the beauty and sanctity of the spot will be preserved for all time.

Frequently the desire to show respect for the dead leads people to expend large sums of money in providing elaborate caskets and other funeral trappings, numerous carriages, and expensive floral pieces, and perhaps their feelings are relieved by such expenditure; all this is but transitory, the funeral cortege comes and goes, the casket is consigned to the grave soon to molder and decay, and the flowers fade and are removed from sight. Next a fine monument is erected and a marker placed at the grave, and the friends feel that they have done all that mortal man could do to perpetuate the memory of and show respect for the departed. But in the majority of cases the most important item of all has not been considered at all, i.e. the provisions for perpetual care of lot, monuments, etc.

Does the corporation controlling the cemetery in which the burial was made provide a fund for this purpose? Or is it controlled by a close corporation, or individual owner, whose only aim is to declare large dividends, and when the land is all sold abandon the grounds? Private ownership of cemeteries is not conducive to the best results as to permanency, and if permitted at all, should be under strict laws, and in what better way can our legislators show respect and reverence for the dead than by enacting such laws as will require the establishment of a permanent care fund in every cemetery.

In our own city we have two deplorable illustrations of the old style, go-as-you-please cemeteries that were run for revenue only until they were squeezed dry, since which time they have been abandoned entirely and have become the scenes of vandalism which beggar description. Similar cases will be found in nearly every city in the country and in many of the smaller towns and villages. It is a pleasure to note, however, that the people are awakening to a realizing sense of the condition of things and in many places are endeavoring to reclaim the abandoned burial plots.

In respect to the dead, and justice to their descendants, provision should be made which will in the future preclude any possibility of a repetition of the above mentioned conditions. It should be required of the lot owner that all work of a permanent nature placed in a cemetery be constructed in the most durable manner possible, and no improvements of a perishable nature permitted. Granite and marble monuments and markers set upon solid foundations, and metal vases should be about the extent of artificial adornments permitted.

But the matter of paramount consideration is the permanent care fund. How or when this shall be provided is not so important, if it be made certain that by the time the land is all sold and the business of the cemetery has ceased to be profitable, that then an income will be available, sufficient to keep the property in good condition. There are different plans of providing for the permanent care fund. One is to set aside a certain percentage of the receipts from the sale of lots, another to set aside a certain fixed sum per square foot of land sold. Either plan is good and can be readily and comfortably adopted by a cemetery well established, with a large income, but in case of a young cemetery where the income is yet small, there is a great temptation to put off the day when a portion of the income shall be set aside for permanent care and to use all the income for other purposes.

This, no doubt, is mainly the reason why so many cemeteries are still without proper provision for the future.

The writer has a plan in mind which he would like to have discussed, namely: to set aside a portion of the ground of the cemetery the proceeds from the sale of which constitute a permanent care fund. Suppose, for instance, one-fifth of the cemetery in quantity and quality to be set aside, why would not this secure the same result as to set aside one fifth of the cash proceeds of lot sales? It may be urged as an objection that the management would sell the four-fifths and let the remainder go to the last. This could not result in damage to the fund, as the last one-fifth would in all probability bring larger prices than the portion sold earlier. The beauty of this plan is that it makes it easy to do the right thing. Not every cemetery can spare a portion of its cash income, but there are none than cannot, even in the beginning dedicate for this purpose a portion of its ground. There should be immediate legislation in all states, requiring provision to be made for permanent care of all cemeteries, old and new, and if the option were given of setting aside ground ill stead of money it would meet with little or no opposition. Another important advantage of this plan would be in applying it to cemeteries which had disposed of a large proportion of' their lands, say two-thirds or three fourths. It would be impossible to reach the money received from sold lands, but the one-fifth of the land would still be available and could be subjected to an arrangement of this kind. .

In closing I would say that while to our society is due most of the credit for the improved condition of cemeteries throughout the country, there still remains much to do, and we must continue the work so well begun till we have effected still greater reforms.

From the publication:
AACS - Proceedings of the16th Annual Convention
Held at Boston, MA
August 19, 20, 21 and 22, 1902

From the time when people began to form general graveyards or burial places until the last century was well on its way, but little change or improvement in the management of such places was made; the dead were buried; the rich in the churches and the poor in the ground immediately surrounding. In the new world, either from the determination to break away from the ritualistic observances of the Fatherland or from force of circumstances, the idea of forming cemeteries either public or private was generally adopted.

If we escape for a few days or a few weeks it may be from the rush and turmoil of business and take the opportunity of visiting an old country or village church yard, we will find that within the area of a few acres are gathered the remains of all who have lived and died in that village for near upon 1,000 years. Could we have seen it several centuries ago, upon an ordinary day, we would have seen it in much the same condition as we would see it at the present day. Could we have seen it upon a feast day, we might have seen the sacred precincts occupied by the necromancer and the mountebank and crowded by the holiday makers. The ancient grave yards were invariably the property of the parish; and under control of the church. While the names of the more wealthy inhabitants were perpetuated by means of monuments and mural tablets; the graves of the common people received but scant attention. Sexton succeeded sexton; in course of time grave mounds became leveled; time is a wonderful leveler; the same ground was used over and over again and often in opening of new graves, the remains of previous occupants were exhumed. Both in the rural and urban districts until the last few years a total lack of sentiment prevailed with regard to the handling of these unfortunate remains; they were carelessly exposed to public gaze and freely handled, by the curious. In short, the general aspect of burial grounds on both sides the Atlantic was one of neglect.

The following extract from colonial times on Buzzard Bay will give us an idea of cemetery management in the days of the New England colonies. "The Rev. Rowland Cotton had the privilege of pasturing his horse in Sandwich burial ground on condition that he fenced it around." This privilege, says the narrator, is not to be considered as an indication of poverty for a burial ground was in colonial times a favorite browsing ground for the minister's horse. A Plymouth town meeting in the year 1788, requested the Rev. Chandler Robbins not to keep more horses in burial hill cemetery than was absolutely necessary, owing to the damage done to gravestones.

I think you will agree with me that cemetery reform, as cemetery reform is generally understood, is still in its infancy. While there are in the country a number of cemeteries beautifully arranged and in excellent order, we need not look far back in history nor far away in distance, to find numerous cemeteries in a state of extreme disorder and neglect. We need not travel far from Boston to find cemeteries to which even at this late day, the word desecrated would be far more applicable than would than the word consecrated.

There did exist, less than six years ago, upon the highway between Fall River and Newport, just over the line, as we Massachusetts people say, an old family burial ground which at that time was doing service as a poultry yard. About ten years ago, the president of a .local improvement association, when describing the condition of things, expressed his surprise that the snouts of the hogs, and the hoofs of the cows had not turned up the bones of the last surviving pilgrim of the Mayflower. I am happy to say that the grave of said pilgrim is now under the control of the improvement association, and I hope the time is not far distant when an appropriate monument will mark the spot. These are not the only cases where the graves of the sturdy pioneers of this progressive nation are treated in a manner sacrilegious.

When we compare the state of the crowded, uncared for cemeteries of our fathers with that of the latest production of the landscape artist, and contemplate the rapidity of the transition from the one to the other, we are inclined to reiterate the remark made by a member of this association, I think it was at Cleveland, “that there may be a danger of us riding our hobby too far or too fast.” And here I would say, that if in the course of my paper, I have made use of remarks made by my predecessors, I beg to assure the author thereof that it is only because the lessons they teach us are too useful to allow of an opportunity to impress them upon our minds being lost.

In cemetery improvement, as in everything else the American undertakes, he must move rapidly and go pretty well to the extreme. Without making any attempt to review the history of cemetery improvement, we may take note of a few facts; a few landmarks; which more nearly concern the superintendent of the present day. We cannot charge to the account of the superintendent all of the extremes we encounter in cemeteries; it is a great pity, for he has to stand almost everything.

No matter how highly or how lightly our departed friends have been esteemed by us, no matter what conscience may say of duty towards them done or undone during life, we are prompted to embellish their last resting place in a manner not only incompatible with our means, but also in a manner totally out of order with the surroundings, and to the detriment of the general appearance of the immediate neighborhood. The days of go-as-you-please in things permanent are passed; in things of less importance, floral decorations, elaborate funerals, etc., fashions will ebb and flow. What was intended as a day for memorial services, and for the decoration of the graves of deceased soldiers, has developed into a day for the most elaborate and extravagant decoration of the cemetery generally. It is well where these adornments do not assume a more permanent character. There is a custom at present prevailing of planting an iron emblem upon the grave of every deceased comrade, brother, or associate. I find the grave of one man decorated with the S. of the G. A. R., the U. S. N. of the naval association, and the shield of the veteran association. It is possible for a man to have in addition, the honor of having been policeman, fireman, Odd Fellow and other things too numerous to mention. Happy is the man who aspires to so many honors, but woe to the superintendent who has charge of his grave. The superintendent is often severely tried by the accumulation of superfluous flower holders. I once counted upon one small lot thirteen pieces of table ware and discarded ornaments, which had been placed there from time to time by loving hands for the purpose of holding flowers. Time and frost deal kindly with us in regard to these things; more kindly than with the iron emblems just spoken of.

Perhaps the easiest part of my paper is that in which I have endeavored to point out the ideas, the wary ideas of course, of those outside the pale of the brotherhood. Among so many hundreds of lot holders, gardeners, and monument makers as we have to deal with, it would be strange if we did not find a number of persons more or less capricious. And I venture to say, that neither the profession nor the experience of a cemetery superintendent is a guarantee, that he is entirely without caprice; and we might with profit apply to ourselves the words of the Scotch poet, "Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us." The ideas of a lot holder affect one lot; the ideas of the superintendent affect the cemetery and we hope influence a community. It is therefore a serious matter when the caprices of a cemetery are concentrated in the superintendent.

In forming a new cemetery or in reforming or improving an old one, by in one case keeping out all superfluous granite, or other inappropriate ornamentation, and in the other case, wherever practicable, securing the removal of these blots and maintaining a uniform grade, the superintendent does well, if in his enthusiasm he does not forget that the first essentials of a cemetery are not those of a park but pertain to the suitable disposition of the dead.

It is indisputably necessary in the interests of the public, that even in the time of our bereavement, in the extremity of our sorrow, the impassive hand of authority make itself evident. And the lot holder must realize that he is a member of a corporate body; and that he has laid his loved ones where many others have also laid theirs, and that the appropriate planting, along with the general treatment of the surroundings insisted upon by the cemetery authorities, contribute to the serene and peaceful aspect of the graves of his loved ones, and that he in turn must yield to the necessities of the situation. The promiscuous planting and adornment of individual lots must be kindly, but firmly, ruled out. This is a rule in which lot holders readily acquiesce; but when this is followed by other rules, by virtue of which all bounds or other marks indicative of personal or family possession are obliterated, mounds leveled or prohibited, the erection of headstones and monuments prohibited unless the style