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S.J. memorial revives piece of Donner history

Written by DeadGirl
Monday, 23 August 2004
By Jessie Mangaliman Mercury News It was an unmarked grave for 130 years. On Sunday afternoon in San Jose, under the patchy shade of a deodara pine, a piece of tragic California history was reclaimed and marked with a white granite memorial and the name ``Donner.'' The 700-pound polished granite memorial marks the grave site of George Donner Jr., one of 46 survivors of the Donner Party, a group of early California settlers caught in a deadly blizzard trying to cross the Sierra in the winter of 1846. Some of the survivors later recounted eating their own dead to survive. ``My father never talked about our history, but we knew all our lives,'' said Ron Donner, 66, of Santa Rosa. His great-grandfather George Donner Jr. was the son of Jacob Donner and Elizabeth Blue Hook, settlers from Illinois who set out on a 2,500-mile wagon journey in search of new land to settle in the West. Donner said he knew that his great-grandfather was buried in San Jose. But this was his first visit to the cemetery. ``I'm glad to know there's a memorial to my family's part in history,'' said Donner, as he read the historical text on the memorial. The memorial at Oak Hill Memorial Park was the work of two local historical groups, E Clampus Vitus and the Native Sons of the Golden West Parlor 177. Both groups are dedicated to preserving California's pioneer history. At the urging of historians with the Argonauts Historical Society of San Jose, Bill Clark, a historian with E Clampus Vitus, began work in June on establishing the memorial. ``The Donner name is a significant name in California history,'' Clark said. According to historians of the infamous westward journey, George Donner Jr. was 10 years old when he and the other survivors were rescued. He married in San Jose and fathered eight children. He established a farm near Sebastopol in Sonoma County. He died at 37 in 1874, and his body was returned to San Jose. ``I want my children to understand California history, because it's important we understand our past,'' said Doug Rose, a native-born, fourth-generation San Jose resident and president of Native Sons of the Golden West Parlor 177. The Donner memorial is the latest acknowledgment of the role of pioneers in settling early California, said Marlene Walther Cowan, a great- great-granddaughter of George Donner Jr.'s uncle, George Donner, who led the group on the ill-fated journey. ``I think we're revaluing their sacrifices to settle the West,'' Cowan said. The Donner memorial also pays tribute to the overland pioneers -- settlers who came to California from 1844 to 1846 -- who also are buried at Oak Hill. http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/9412884.htm?ERIGHTS=28724631603689745mercurynews:: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it &KRD_RM=8oppxwvqwvspwwxuuooooooooo\|C\|Y

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Taphophilia?

taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)

ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"

DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries

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Have you decided on eternal repose?

	earthen burial
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	cyrogenically frozen
	you mean I'm still alive?

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“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

Henry David Thoreau, 1854