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Taphophilia (dot) Com...
A repository of morbid curiosities:
Thanatology and Taphophile Issues, Cemetery,
Funeral Industry and Death Related News.
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Cemetery faces an uncertain future |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Sunday, 25 July 2004 |
Pioneer cemetery in Rosemead may have to be moved
By Jason Kosareff , Staff Writer
ROSEMEAD -- Grandma Mary Pallett must be turning in her grave. The bones of Pallet (1796-1889) and thousands of other San Gabriel Valley pioneers buried at Savannah Memorial Park could be moved to make way for a future development.
"Unless something happens and we get the money from somewhere, I don't know how we're going to make it,' said Rosie Gutierrez, treasurer for the El Monte Cemetery Association, which owns the 4-acre graveyard at 9263 Valley Blvd.
The association has enough money to keep the place open at least two years, said Bob Bruesch, vice president of the association and a Garvey School District board member.
Developers have an eye for the cemetery site and the community of Asian businesses and residents nearby would like to see it gone because they think it brings bad luck, Bruesch added.
But Savannah is rich in history and should be preserved, Bruesch argues.
"The pioneers from the Santa Fe Trail would bring their dead along with them, preserved somehow, and bury them here,' he said.
More than 3,000 graves fill the cemetery, dated as early as 1847. Bruesch said more graves are scattered under Valley Boulevard and beneath area businesses. The area also was an Indian burial ground before the corpses of settlers filled the place, Bruesch said.
Bruesch said the association would go for historical landmark status with the state, but fears a lack of resources to pull it off. If the cemetery was sold for development, the association or developer would have to move the graves to another location and notify every relative. That task could cost millions of dollars, Bruesch said.
The association has about 200 more plots it could sell for $1,000 apiece, but it would not bring enough cash to keep Savannah running, Gutierrez said.
"I don't know what the solution is, I really don't,' Gutierrez said. "It's going to take a city like Rosemead to take care of it.'
One of those remaining plots was bought by Harry Trepanier, owner of Harry and Sons Radiator Shop on Valley Boulevard, the oldest family owned business in Rosemead.
He would be heartbroken to see the Savannah developed, but said most in the community wouldn't notice if i t was gone.
"They just drive by it, they don't know anything about it,' Trepanier said.
Trepanier's father bought the radiator shop 62 years ago from famous turn-of-the-century prize fighter Jim "The Boilermaker' Jeffries. It's across the street from Savannah, and Trepanier remembers the time in 1952 his father found a husband-and-wife suicide in the cemetery.
It was one of three suicides Trepanier can remember happening in the cemetery.
In the late 1950s, Savannah was the site of a fatal shootout between police and fleeing robbers, he said.
And when Trepanier was 9, an ice cream truck crashed right in front of the graveyard and neighborhood children were treated to free ice cream under the shade of the old oak in the middle of the cemetery.
But the times, they are a changin'.
Trang Hoang owns Hoang's Video at 9240 Valley Blvd., across from the graveyard.
"People don't want to go here because they're scared, because of the ghosts,' Hoang said.
The area has a strong Vietnamese community, many of whom fear Savannah as a source of evil spirits, said the video shop owner.
Hoang said he doesn't believe in ghosts, but business has been slow since he moved in about five years ago, probably because Asian customers do not want to shop near a cemetery.
"Asian people, they believe in spirits,' Hoang added. "They believe they're still around here and they make the business slow.'
As an interesting footnote to the cemetery, two Japanese buried in Savannah during the 1920s and 1930s are historically significant, Bruesch said.
Their gravestones are written in Chinese, a sign of social status for Japanese at the time, Bruesch said.
"This is the first known use of Chinese characters in a public area outside of Chinatown in L.A.,' Bruesch said.
They likely owned farms in the area and were quite wealthy. Their families are likely still living in the region, he said.
Also buried in the cemetery are a slew of Civil War veterans, and even a veteran of the War of 1812. And founding families who settled the region, like the Whislers and the Wiggins, lie under the grassy fields of Savannah.
Bruesch wants local schools to get more involved in uncovering the history of Savannah.
"This could be a tool,' Bruesch said. "To let children know what our community was like 150 years ago.'
http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/Stories/0,1413,206~22097~2292924,00.html |
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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
Quote Repository
“Of comfort no man speak Let's talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs; Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth; Let's choose executors and talk of wills.” King Richard II, Act III, Scen
Shirtless and Sculpted
The Men of Mortuaries 2008 Calendar is now available! All sale proceeds benefit KAMMCARES, a breast cancer foundation.
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