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Victorian Day Seeks
to Revive Interest in Old City Cemetery
By Bill Lindelof
Bee Staff Writer
(Published September 12, 1998)
Passing stranger call this not
A place of fear and gloom
We love to linger round the
spot
It is our friend's tomb.
-- Epitaph of Enoch Matter
who died at
age 50 on Nov. 29, 1879.
The Victorian Era's treatment of
death could be flowery and friendly -- much like the epitaph for Matter
who is buried in the historic Old City Cemetery in Sacramento.
"Look at all the flora," said cemetery
historian Dale Suess as he walked the shaded paths of the Victorian graveyard
at 10th Street and Broadway. "Cemeteries were not meant to be scary places.
They were some of our first parks."
The Old City Cemetery Committee
is sponsoring a special event today called "A Victorian Day of Mourning,"
which takes a look at death, music, funerals and cemeteries of another
age.
Artifacts on display capture the
history and quirkiness of the Victorian era (1837-1901) in vivid detail:
Locks of hair from dead loved ones behind framed glass that once hung in
the family home; photographs of the dead -- especially children -- which
were popular keepsakes; four stages of mourning clothes for women that
illustrate how a widow would grieve for two years.
The free event from 9 a.m. to 5
p.m. will also include the replication of three Victorian funerals, graveyard
tours, music and lectures on mourning and etiquette.
Most of the burials in the cemetery
took place between 1849 and the early 1900s. The cemetery is Victorian
in design with elevated brick enclosed areas.
And the headstone art is ornate,
unlike many grave markers today that are flat stones on the ground.
"A good friend of mine said that
some modern cemeteries are designed for the convenience of the lawn mower,"
said Suess.
On Victorian headstones, often the
only date listed is when the person died, because upon death "you are born
into eternity," said Suess.
Funerals that took place a century
ago featured men in top hats following a horse drawn carriage. The event
today is an attempt to recreate that time.
"We've put thousands of hours into
this and I think it will be interesting and intriguing," said Dr. Bob LaPerriere,
co-chairman of the event with Suess.
A decade ago, dirt, weeds and crumbled
brick borders marred the cemetery. About that time, LaPerriere was chairman
of the historical committee for the County Medical Society.
During a search for the grave sites
of pioneering doctors, he saw that the cemetery was a mess. So he helped
form a committee to restore the cemetery.
Thanks to the work of city employees
and volunteers, the graveyard is looking much greener and kept up. Each
year tours and special events entertain and teach history to 8,000 people,
including 3,000 school children.
Tours occur almost every Saturday
and once a month there is a special evening tour with themes such as "Wild,
Wild West." The event today is an effort to foster more interest in the
cemetery.
The death of President Lincoln stunned
the nation and was the country's pre-eminent Victorian funeral, Suess said.
"Lincoln's funeral ushered in this
kind of mourning -- the farewells in splendor, the decorative arts on the
headstones and the epitaphs," said Suess. An actress looking very much
like Queen Victoria will be on hand today to dispense certificates of her
1998 "visit" to Sacramento.
"What the Victorians did was reflect
their time," said Suess. "Death was all around them. While we look at it
as over-dramatic, they would look at our treatment of death as minimizing." Reprinted from
the Sacramento Bee's
www.sacbee.com.
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