Forest Lawn Cemetery

The Forest Lawn Cemetery tour was very different than the last two tours I took. That doesn't mean it was any less interesting though. The cemetery itself has 165,000 inhabitants and 1.5 million documents on file. That is astounding! It was actually opened in 1849 when Charles Clark was in Boston and saw a new movement. The movement was the Rural Cemetery movement. Instead of burying your families dead at the family farm, people were buried in an eclipsed area. Clark came back from Boston and bought 80 acres of land from Erasnus Granger. It wasnt until a year later that a fur trader bought the first plot for burial. Walking through the cemetery we came across some trees. I always thought the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Soxiety was the only thing standing from the Pan-Am Expo, but I was wrong! There were actually tree planted during the Pan-Am that are in the cemetery, they came from Louisianna. 

I have come to realize that sandstone from Medina is very popular...in fact one of the families that helped shape Buffalo had their mausoleum made out of it. The family was the Larkin family. It is 3 stories tall and houses 35 members from the Larkin family. 

There are a lot of mausoleums at the cemetery, and it's actually interesting how the whole system works. The family actually buys the plot to build it, and actually has to pay an endowment to the cemetery for upkeep. And when you sign a contract to get buried here, it's for life! No one will ever be moved from the cemetery! There were of course plenty of Celtic crosses, which historically helped make the merger of paganism and Christianity easier. 

I also learned about cenotaphs, which was a word I had never heard before. They are basically memorial without anyone buried there. Forest Lawn Cemetery actually has quite a few! Including this guy...

There were also random steps almost going nowhere. They actually had iron or metal fences and handrails going around them once. But during World War I the government asked for metal for the war effort and families donated the metal. 

The cemetery itself has over 120 different species of trees. Unfortunately the October Surprise Storm in 2006 I believe cost 1.4 million in damages to the plant life and insurance didn't cover it. There are trees from all over the world, including elm trees which were planted in various locations. I know we talked about homes sold out of the Sears catalog. There were once burial monuments also sold out of the seats catalog! One is on this cemetery, it's a light blue color and made from zinc. 

There was also the Blocher Memorial, which is one of the most impressive Victorian style memorial in the world actually! The story behind the family is also very interesting. 

And of course there is the only cemetery memorial Frank Lloyd Wright ever designed in Forest Lawn Cemetery. "Blue Sky" was built in 2004, paid for by Forest Lawn Cemetery. You can actually get buried in one its crypts if you want, however I'm sure it's really expensive. The family that had it designed for them went broke during the depression, and couldn't afford it anymore. The family was Darwin Martin's family. 

There is one last place we stopped on the tour. It is called The Meadow. It has trees everywhere that are over 100 years old. It was maybe my favorite place during the tour. The many different species of trees is absolutely stunning!