A Calendar To Die For

When traveling, it is important to be flexible about your itinerary.  And now we take a little side trip into the world of fundraising.  Yes.  In 2007, the Men of Mortuaries" calendar made its debut.  The proceeds went to charity and they probably killed.  This video will explain it all.  Highlights include the cover of Funeral Director magazine with JOHN DENVER on the cover, twelve morticians come to bury a game show contestant, arriving ANYWHERE in a  hearse and more dead jokes than you can shake a shovel at.  Check it out.

Pilarcitos Cemetery and Oddfellows Cemetery, Half Moon Bay, California

I know I’ve been away for a while so to make up for it, I give you a twofer: Pilarcitos Cemetery and Oddfellows Cemetery, both in Half Moon Bay.


Half Moon Bay is a very historic little coastal town just south of San Francisco. During the days of Prohibition, rumrunners used its many beaches and coastal pockets as receiving grounds for illegal booze on its way to San Francisco. Now it is known mostly for its fishing, expensive homes with ocean views and annual Pumpkin Festival.

According to a plaque inside Pilarcitos Cemetery, what is now Half Moon Bay was once known as San Benito.

“The first Roman Catholic church in San Mateo County’s oldest town, San Benito (better known as Spanishtown and later to become Half Moon Bay), was built in this cemetery in 1856. The land was purchased from Tiburcio Vasquez, who was granted Rancho Corral de Tierra in 1840.

Wandering through these grounds one can find the names of the many families who influenced the founding of Spanishtown. Prominent among these are the early Spanish, Portuguese, Irish and Italian pioneers.

May we who lie here rest in peace.

This plaque presented to the Spanishtown Historical Society

1973

IN MEMORY OF GEORGE E. DUNN, SR. 1880 – 1971”

Nice cross with an IHS. These initials are derived from the first three letters of Jesus’ name written in Greek: Iota, Eta, Sigma. The flowers look like lilies to me. Lilies stand for purity.

Here’s a very sad tombstone. This is probably a mother and daughter, both carrying the same name and buried together for all time. The ivy is associated with immortality and fidelity (ever try to kill it?) and the shape of its leaves invokes the Holy Trinity.

This fellow was a Woodsman of the World. I hear these tombstones are considered rare and hard to find, but there seem to be a lot of them in this area.

Here’s another example of a cast zinc monument. The top was broken off and it is hollow inside.

Nice weeping willow, the tree of mourning.

Calla lilies are also frequently used to express mourning. You find them on tombstones a lot and at funerals in the flower arrangements. The one used at funerals are almost exclusively white, although the flower comes in many colors, including yellow and red.  There are also some lilies of the valley mixed in here.

Here’s a sheaf of wheat, something I haven’t seen too much of. It appears on the gravestones of people who had lived a long and fruitful life, usually over seventy years.

While Pilarcitos Cemetery is still in use and is well-maintained, its neighbor, the Oddfellows Cemetery, seems abandoned and neglected. It is one of the saddest places I have ever been. Some of the headstones are crooked and broken, the lids of the vaults are caving in, and the graves are wildly overgrown.

These branches probably blew down a couple of years ago during a particularly bad wind storm and no one has bothered to remove them.

No one comes by to freshen these flowers any more.

But there is still beauty to be found here.

This unusual headstone caught my eye.

The Independent Order of Odd Fellows is descended from the British fraternal order established in the 1700s. The Order came to America in 1819 and the word “Independent” was added to its name by the parent organization, probably to differentiate it from its British counterpart.

From the Oddfellows website:

“Odd Fellowship became the 1st national fraternity to include both men and women when it adopted the beautiful Rebekah Degree on September 20, 1851. This degree is based on the teachings found in the Holy Bible, and was written by the Honorable Schuyler Colfax who was Vice President of the United States during the period 1868-1873. Odd Fellows and Rebekahs were also the first fraternal organization to establish homes for our senior members and for orphaned children.”

While there are some newer graves here, the vast majority of them are older. This place reminds me of why I do not wish to be buried. I do not want to lie forgotten in some desolate place with only dried flowers and tall weeds for company.

Pet's Rest Cemetery, Colma, California

Colma is located about 20 miles south of San Francisco. It is known as “The City of the Silent” or “City of Souls” as it has the greatest concentration of cemeteries in the area. This is because in the early part of the twentieth century, the good people of San Francisco found themselves in a real-estate crisis. Remember, in 1849 there was a little thing called the Gold Rush which made the little town of Yerba Buena the most popular travel destination in the country. Increasing property values made all that empty space reserved for cemeteries very inviting to ambitious real estate developers. After all, dead people don't pay rent.  In 1900, San Francisco passed an ordinance banning the construction of any more cemeteries within the city limits. Then, in 1912, they added insult to injury and forcibly relocated the inhabitants of its existing cemeteries to its less-prestigious neighbor to the south, Colma, known then as Lawndale. They told people it was for health reasons, but I think we can safely say that was a fib. 

Today, there are only two cemeteries remaining within the borders of the city and county of San Francisco: the San Francisco National Cemetery, located in the Presidio, and Mission Dolores.  Apparently, they missed a few people in the move, though. During the renovation of the Palace of the Legion of Honor, workers stumbled across some Gold-Rush era graves that had been left behind.  Turns out this ground was once a potter's field for the City of San Francisco.  It was called City Cemetery, or Golden Gate Cemetery. According to this fascinating article, there may still be some remains at the site.  This is a very interesting article, I highly recommend reading it. (After you're done with my blog, of course.)   It gives the locations of the defunct cemeteries from which came the future residents of Colma. 

The current population of Colma is listed as approximately 1600 (living) and over 1.5 million (deceased). There are 16 cemeteries located in Colma, among them Cypress Lawn, Holy Cross, Hills of Eternity, Woodlawn and numerous ethnic and faith-specific burial grounds. Many famous folk call Colma their final resting place: William Randolph Hearst, Joe DiMaggio, Wyatt Earp, Charles De Young, William Henry Crocker, Abigail Folger, Bill Graham and that most eccentric of San Francisco characters, Emperor Norton. Colma has even achieved pop culture status. It is the subject of a 2004 documentary, A Second Final Rest: The History of San Francisco’s Lost Cemeteries and Colma, the Musical (2006).

I plan to visit many of these cemeteries over the next few months, but I begin my sojourn through the City of the Dead by visiting the only cemetery dedicated to our dearly departed animal companions.

Pet's Rest is a small cemetery.  When you enter, the first thing you see is this brightly-colored mural depicting the passage of our pets to the afterlife.  I like  the St. Bernard Dog leading the way.

Not much in symbolism here.  The gravesites reflect the preferences of the bereaved owners. What affected me was the devotion to the animals. 

The markers ranged from the elaborate to the very simple.

There was quite a lot of lovely statuary.

Here's St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals.  No pet cemetery would be complete without him.

Broken column!

Every type of pet is welcome here.

Where there is one...

There is always the other.

This headstone literally reduced me to tears. 

I stood in the cemetery crying like a baby.  I never get this emotional in the human cemeteries I visit.  I wonder what that says about me?

Pine Grove Cemetery, Nevada City, California

I  made another trip to the Sierra Foothills recently.  This area is full of interesting cemeteries.  Despite having been to Nevada City several times before, I had never been to Pine Grove Cemetery.  It is truly lovely place. 

Many of the symbols here are familiar. There are a lot of draped urns and interlocked hands.

A downward pointing hand represents the Hand of God.  There was a time when you were not allowed to depict the image of God, so the hand was as close as the carver could get.

There are some new ones, as well. In this picture, you can see a tombstone topped with an open book.  Closed books indicate a life ended, a story told.  Open books are thought to represent the Bible. 

I have come to the conclusion that the Sierra Foothills are a major hub for Freemasonry in California.  They are all over the place.  After saying in an earlier entry that I had never seen a Masonic keystone before, look what I found.  Here's a whole flock of them in their own private enclosure, complete with Masonic pyramid.

A cross paired with a crown is also a Masonic symbol.  When used in this manner, the crown stands for victory and the cross for Christianity.  Its use on a tombtone means that the deceased was a member of the York Rite Masons, a branch of Masonry closely associated with the Knights Templar.

Another Templar symbol is the Maltese cross.  This particular one has a Latin cross enclosed within  it.  The Latin cross is the most familiar symbol of Christianity. 

The neatest symbol I saw in this cemetery is this one.  I think it is meant to be the all-seeing eye, yet another Masonic symbol.  If it looks familiar, check out the back of the $1 bill.  When used with the three-link chain, however, it denotes the grave of a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, known as the "poor man's Freemasonry".  See what I mean?  Everywhere.

One of the most striking features of this cemetery is the amazing ironwork that surrounds many of the plots.

The detail on this gate is incredible.  Willow trees and lambs are worked into the design, indicating that these are the graves of children.

Many of the headstones are so old as to be illegible.

This was the oldest legible stone I could find.  This grave marker is probably older, but I couldn't read it:

In this cemetery I found something I had never seen before:  monuments that appeared to be made of metal, yet were very old.  They held extraordinary detail.

After doing some research, I discovered these tombstone are made of cast zinc!  The coating is zinc carbonate, which is highly rust-resistant.  Apparently, these monuments were not popular, and the "white bronze" label was used to boost their appeal.  The Western White Bronze Company of Des Moines closed its doors in 1908.  For a fascinating and detailed analysis of these metal monuments, check out this web page.

This is the most unusual tombstone I have ever seen.  I can only offer a theory as to its meaning. The diamond-shaped portion fits into the lower half using a V-shaped protrubance.  If you bisect the diamond, you are left with two triangles.  The bottom triangle is the ancient symbol of the sacred feminine, the Chalice. The upper triangle equates to the masculine symbol of the Blade.  When the two symbols fit together, they indicate the marriage of male and female into a perfect partnership:  two halves of the same whole.  This is my personal theory, but if my interpretation is correct, this is the only tombstone I have ever come across with purely Pagan symbolism. 

I could write about this cemetery forever.  It is definitely one of the most fascinating and symbol-rich I have visited so far.  I highly recommend it anyone who enjoys crawling through graveyards. Here are some last images of this extraordinary place.

Look!  The grave of Sherlock Holmes?  Probably not, but wouldn't be magical if it were true?