I know. How many cemeteries can one person visit? Two of them in four days for my sister, Linda, and me. Yesterday, we did a two hour walking tour of Green Lawn Cemetery in Columbus. It opened in 1849 as part of the rural cemetery movement, the trend to build large park-like cemeteries. I owe Linda an apology. I gave her the wrong statistics for Green Lawn. It’s 325 acres with 270 acres developed. Our tour guide, Randel Rogers, said it will be at least another 100 years before the cemetery is filled. It’s still an active cemetery. It’s also a major urban bird-watching destination with over 225 species of birds. It’s an arboretum with about 7,200 trees, representing around 150 species.
We’ll have to go back. The Huntington Chapel with windows designed by Tiffany, is going through a major restoration. There have been delays due to problems with the outer glass dome to cover the inner dome. The Tiffany floor had a carpet over it for years. There were even Tiffany windows in the restrooms at one time. This is a major project.
Even the smaller mausoleums, such as the Gay Family one, have beautiful stained glass windows.
This is the C.H. Hayden Mausoleum, the largest single-family mausoleum in central Ohio. It was designed by architect Frank L. Packard. A few families left money for maintenance of the mausoleums, or the families are still local, and help with it. With some of these mausoleums, there are no remaining family members. This is one of them. The cemetery board is always raising money, through grants and donations, to maintain mausoleums and the cemetery. This one has a leaking roof, weathering, crumbling interior walls, and has had vandalism. It’s going to cause around 30 million dollars to completely restore it.
Frank L. Packard was a prominent architect in the Columbus area until his death in 1923. He designed several of the mausoleums here, but the cemetery has recently changed the account of his mausoleum. Until recently, it was thought he designed it. They recently discovered that the parts of this mausoleum were ordered from catalogs.
This particular tour was a new one for the cemetery. It was centered around the mausoleums and loop around the pond. The pond was originally a quarry. Eventually, when water filled it, they decided to allow it to return to nature. It’s important for the birds in Green Lawn.
This is a new family monument for the Budros/Fletcher family. It’s on a family lot, and it was chosen for the interesting appearance and ability to balance.
The picture doesn’t look like it, but it was so sunny, this dead tree photo didn’t turn out. But, it’s interesting as a home for bats. Speaking of trees, Green Lawn does offer eco-friendly burials for cremated remains. I liked Rogers’ information about that. He said we could be put in a eco-friendly container, buried under an oak tree for 400 years. They have an agreement with the Columbus Zoo. If that oak tree dies, it could become food for the animals, and eventually we could become panda poop. Yes, we know the zoo does not have pandas, but it was a cute illustration of what happens.
James Thurber is one of the famous people buried in Green Lawn. But, notice that it’s a fairly flat stone. It wasn’t easy for people to find in the cemetery.
To make it easier to find James Thurber’s stone, this tribute to Muggs Thurber was placed nearby. Muggs was the Airedale terrier owned by Thurber’s mother. He bit everyone except her. Our tour guide said Muggs’ statue was added, in 2021 with permission of the family, Now, people can find James Thurber’s stone.
I loved the story about this deer. It’s called “Waiting for Her Beau”, a bronze sculpture by Renate Fackler. First, you need to know there are three deer called “Scioto Lounge” in downtown Columbus. Green Lawn decided the stories of the deer in the cemetery fit their role as a rural cemetery. “Waiting for Her Beau” represents the people who picnicked in the cemetery. She’s waiting for the deer “The Green Lawn Birder” that is elsewhere in the cemetery, with his binoculars. According to the cemetery’s Facebook page, “Next year her father, loosely chaperoning and grieving his wife, will be added strolling down the main street. Together they tell aspects that separate Rural Cemeteries like Green Lawn from other cemeteries.”
So, that’s it for cemeteries for now. We have no plans to visit other ones in the near future. However, you never know. We’d like to go back to Lake View in Cleveland and take the trolley tour. Someday, we might head to Spring Grove in Cincinnati, the largest cemetery in the state with over 700 acres. And, of course, you’ve seen us hunting family stones in various country cemeteries, and in Connecticut. So, you never know.
