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What's New at Arcadia
Historic Burial Grounds of the New Hampshire Seacoast By Glenn A. Knoblock
Arcadia Publishing has releases a new title in the Images of America series, the historic account of the cemeteries along the New Hampshire Seacoast. This collection is a must for anyone interested in local history, genealogy, or colonial-era art. Please visit Arcadia Publishing to purchase your copy of Historic Burial Grounds of the New Hampshire Seacoast and browse other cemetery books!
Green-Wood Cemetery By Alexandra Mosca
Arcadia Publishing announces the release of the historic account of one of New York's most famous cemeteries. Aracdia Publishing's Images of America series has an extensive catalog of many cemetery publications! Please visit Arcadia Publishing to purchase your copy of Green-Wood Cemetery.
Announcements
Quoting Death in Early Modern England: The Poetics of Epitaphs Beyond the Tomb By Scott L. Newstok
An innovative study of the Renaissance practice of making epitaphic gestures within other English genres. A poetics of quotation uncovers the ways in which writers including Shakespeare, Marlowe, Holinshed, Sidney, Jonson, Donne, and Elizabeth I have recited these texts within new contexts. Visit Palgrave Macmillan and purchase your copy today!
Living by the Dead By Ellen Ashdown with illustrations by Mary Liz Moody.
A memoir about living beside a cemetery--and about the members of my family who came to rest at Roselawn Cemetery in Tallahassee, Florida. Please visit Kitsune Books for more information.
Graveyards of Chicago: The People, History, Art, and Lore of Cook County Cemeteries By Matt Hucke And Ursula Bielski.
Discover a Chicago That Exists Just Beneath the Surface - About Six Feet Under! Take a tour of Chicago's permanent residents! Please visit the Lake Claremont Press website to purchase your copy of Graveyards of Chicago today!
Epitaphs: The Magazine for Cemetery Lovers By Cemetery Lovers
For information regarding subscriptions, single issues, submission guidelines, deadlines, classifieds or advertising for future issues, please visit The Cemetery Club.
Guardians of the Soul: Angels and Innocents, Mourners and Saints with photography by John Bower and foreword by Claude Cookman
Indiana's remarkable cemetery sculpture is now available. Please visit Studio Indiana for more information.
West Springfield Massachusetts: Stories Carved in Stone by Rusty Clark
Features information on early New England gravestone carvers with more than two hundred photos and illustrations. Please visit the Dog Pond Press website.
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Cemetery is for the living, too |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Sunday, 13 June 2004 |
By Chery Sabol
Towering shade trees, acres of immaculately kept grass and sunny sloping roads rise out of the business district east of Kalispell where lunch-time strollers and joggers pass. It's not a park, but the historic Conrad Cemetery.
More than 100 years after Kalispell founder Charles Conrad was laid to rest there, the stately cemetery has evolved into something unexpected — a place where liveliness and death are smoothly juxtaposed.
Manager Jim Korn said cemetery officials don't actively discourage people from walking, running or exploring around the hallowed grounds.
"When people come in a respectful manner for the solitude and peacefulness of the area, we try to accommodate them," he said. "We don't see anything wrong with that."
It is a tribute to the four seasonal caretakers and five trustees of the cemetery that people are attracted to the well-tended 85 acres. That attraction doesn't fall too far from the origins of the cemetery.
The family of Charles Conrad realized the little town of Kalispell had grown to a size where a cemetery was needed. True to their style, they methodically went about planning one, picking out the spot on Conrad Drive and ensuring legislation that will keep it maintained in perpetuity.
A landscape architect from Minneapolis designed the circular roads, the way that trees are grouped and how monuments are laid out in a striking pattern.
"This cemetery has a unique design that isn't found often out West," Korn said. The cemetery copies the trend occurring in the metropolitan East at the turn of the century, when cemeteries and parks commingled in design.
It is that same park-like quality that attracts people in running shoes now.
On the west side lies "babyland," bright and busy with whirligigs and wind chimes in motion beneath the pines. Inlaid headstones tell of the brief lives of beloved infants, some of whom would now be elderly had they lived.
In contrast, on the east side is the somber brick mausoleum where the Conrad family is entombed. Separated from the rest of the property, the shed-sized mausoleum overlooks the Stillwater River. Austere and self-contained, the crypt contains the remains of five of Kalispell's wealthy and benevolent founders. High, barred windows offer a glimpse of the marble tombstones inside.
Between babyland and the mausoleum are looping roads, connecting the history-rich headstones in the center with an area of newer burials on the northeast hillside.
For something as permanent as a graveyard, Conrad Cemetery has a feel of fleeting moods and changes, dictated by the weather from which it stands unprotected.
"As the light hits the monuments at different times of the day and different seasons, you become aware of some you didn't see before," Korn said.
Some visitors to the cemetery lope through, heedless of the monuments. Others have to stop and investigate. Their curiosity is rewarded.
Three former Montana governors reportedly are buried in the cemetery. Robert Burns Smith was Democrat-Populist governor from 1897-1901. He died in 1908 in Kalispell. Samuel Vernon Stewart was a Democrat in office from 1913-1921. He also was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for vice president in 1920; he died in office during his second term in 1939. John Edward Erickson, another Democrat, served from 1925-1933. He was also a U.S. Senator in 1933-34. He died in 1946.
Korn, whose grandparents are buried at Conrad, said," I grew up understanding it was a special place."
He says old-school etiquette is still observed there. Visitors take care not to walk on the graves. They don't litter, and they treat the cemetery with respect, even if they're only there for the cardiovascular benefits.
That means the funeral-in-progress signs are the equivalent of "no vacancy" for recreationists in the cemetery.
"When there's a funeral going on, they should be elsewhere. For the most part, they're respectful of that, not having somebody jogging through the middle of cars [in a funeral procession]," Korn said.
There's usually a good time to come back. The cemetery is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. in the summer, and people come and go "all day long," Korn said.
It is open to all who come with a spirit of respect, and that is in keeping with what the Conrads had apparently hoped for in "a fantastic vision of what they were trying to accomplish." Even before the advent of Nikes.
http://www.dailyinterlake.com/NewsEngine/SelectStory_AD.tpl?command=search&db=news.db&eqskudata=45-801682-52
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