Two weekends ago, we visited our friends Gina and Hex in Buffalo, and Gina arranged a tour on Sunday of Forest Lawn Cemetery with her friend M. It was of course cold and somewhat windy, but it was wonderful. I felt a little bad for M because leading us on a tour was like herding cats. Her tour group consisted of four adult geeks with slightly different interests and knowledge bases plus one very intellectually curious little boy in the form of Hex and Gina’s son. I know she only got us through about 1/3 of what she planned to show us. Someone would see something that interested him or her, and we would either ask “what’s that?” (if she was lucky), or be bounding off like gazelles before she could say a word.
Despite knowing that we only saw a fraction of the cemetery and her intended tour, it was still a great tour. Forest Lawn is positively beautiful. It’s another garden cemetery, just like Lake View or Spring Grove, designed like a park, including lakes and fountains. Forest Lawn is from the same generation of cemeteries as Spring Grove, founded in the 1840s, and is among the models that was used in designed Lake View (established 1869). It remains in use today, and will be the subject of both future posts and visits.
A Grave Concern 