The Deserted Village

Miren and I share an attraction to cemeteries whose intrigue pulls us, mesmerized, to these silent communities of stones and sculptures. We linger among the dead, drawn to the summations of lives given in chiseled dates and quotes, together filling in details born only of our imaginations. The Boston cemeteries along the Freedom Trail have rewarded us with their stark rows of dark headstones so well-maintained that they seem like reproductions. The names roll from our mouths with the pleasant after taste of candy when we say "Granary Burial Ground" or "Copp's Hill" before walking through the gates and seeking the skull motifs, the nameless mothers and the early American dates. We step away from the crowds standing around the grave sites of Paul Revere, Samuel Adams and the like to the more obscure Bostonians of the 17th and 18th centuries.

Yesterday, Miren and I took the family to the highly touted Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge. The experience did not disappoint. Mt. Auburn is the country's first landscape or garden cemetery. Inspired by Pere LeChaise near (and now in) Paris and realized out of the Universalist and Unitarian movements at the turn of the 19th century that celebrated a loving God and the natural world, Mt. Auburn changed the face of cemeteries. Led by the ideas and direction of Jacob Bigelow who sought to create an environment where the dead could be honored and the bereaved inspired, Mt. Auburn turned to the horticultural arts to provide such an atmosphere. All of this is explained in the audio tour provided by the cemetery that seeks to preserve while continuing to serve as an active burial ground.

The 175 acres of rolling hills (seven of them), a small lake and wide variety of mature trees (among them a beech planted by the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII on a visit in 1861) offers a picturesque setting for the many ornate granite sculptures as well as for the simple markers scattered along the paths and roads that wind their way thoughout this oasis away from the urban world just beyond the gates. Mt. Auburn began as a place open to the public and it became a popular place for reflective recreation drawing people to its serene grounds long before death. The cemetery led a nationwide movement toward rural, garden cemeteries and also claims to be the basis for the development of the public park.

In our short time in New England we have come to know the region as a place that celebrates itself and its people unlike any other place we have been. And it is no different in death. Large memorials and life-sized sculptures celebrate influential figures while monuments such as the civil war memorial recognize the many people whose sacrifices and daily toil made significant, if nameless, contributions.

Mt. Auburn offers a little of everything for cemetery aficionados and their families. Narrow paths wind away from the paved roads into secluded family plots that feel as intimate and remote as the mountain cemeteries in the Smokies. A lone hitching post recalls images of carriages where cars now drive. A celebrated iron gate, once commonly used to encircle family plots reminds us that even features of cemeteries grow in and out of fashion. The Washington tower rises from the cemetery's highest peak, Mt. Auburn itself, to provide, from the city of the dead, views of the vibrant city of Boston stretching beyond Cambridge and Harvard Stadium .

Even the dead accommodate. Literary lovers can seek and find the final resting places of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell and his wife, Amy, and Bernard Malamud. Art devotees might pay respects to Homer Winslow, Charles Dana Gibson and the architect Charles Bulfinch. Charles Sumner, Colonel Robert G. Shaw and Henry Cabot Lodge should satisfy those seeking storied political figures. Julie Ward Howe, Isabella Gardner and Mary Baker Eddy are among the notable women settled into the rolling hills.

The audio tour directs you to many of its popular inhabitants and to others like the Francis family, drawing attention to the four young children of a couple buried in a few short years. The high mortality rate of children in the 19th century is revealed in other similar plots and beneath the lambs and angels scattered about. Contrastingly, sheaves of granite wheat lie atop family elders, suggesting a long, full life ready for harvest.

We pulled out of the cemetery gates and listened as Miren planned a return trip. Our conversation turned to life and death and our own impending mortality (perhaps explaining why Lise does not share this interest in cemeteries). We briefly acknowledged the anchor-less ship that we now sailed, landing us in Boston, no longer tied to Asheville and so far from our Louisiana origins as Miren worked out the details of her funeral.

Craig drove in silence toward Lowell, an old mill town and the National Historical Park that would unfold the story of the industrial movement there (a short-lived bright spot followed by a long history of darkness) while Rem mimicked the voice of the GPS as she guided us to our next stop.