After returning to Omaha from Wahoo, it was time to focus on the city’s largest and best known cemetery: Forest Lawn Memorial Park. The cemetery is located a good bit north of the where Christi lives, so it took us a little while to get there.

Forest Lawn opened a bit later than Wyuka (in Lincoln), established in 1885 by 10 men. At 346 acres, it is a non-profit cemetery.

The cemetery web site shares the history of Forest Lawn’s crematory, something I rarely see included. It notes that Forest Lawn performed the first cremation in Nebraska in 1913.

Built and designed by the Jarvis Engineering Company of Boston, the firebrick of Forest Lawn’s crematorium was molded from Western Pennsylvania clay. The large retorts (cremation chamber into which the body is placed) were originally oil fueled but were later converted to gas. The original retorts were retired from service in February 1996.

Forest Lawn’s office is thoroughly modern and welcoming. They didn’t have a detailed guide book like Wyuka’s, but they did provide a map that highlighted the locations of a number of famous Nebraskans’ graves. They also give tours if you call ahead of time to arrange one but as usual, we chose to explore on our own.

One of the more modern monuments we saw on the way to the chapel was for Jack K. Harvey. I couldn’t find out much about him online beyond the fact he had spent most of his life in Omaha and died at the age of 65. But the stained glass cross was definitely unique.

Forest Lawn’s chapel is located on the far east side of the property. Architect John McDonald and general contractor Walter Peterson were responsible for its design and construction. McDonald designed several Omaha buildings, including the home of George and Sarah Josylyn, which became known as Joslyn Castle. It still stands today.

On December 27, 1911, the Masonic Grand Lodge of Nebraska laid the cornerstone pf the chapel, which held a copy of the proceedings of the last meeting and history of the grand lodge of Nebraska Masons.

Unfortunately, the chapel was locked up when we were there and nobody was around to ask to open it for us.

From pictures I saw on the cemetery web site, the inside is quite ornate.

In the main auditorium is a frieze in high relief pure gold, designed in two-fold form, so it can be read upon entering and leaving the chapel; “Until the day break and shadows flee away”.

The lower level of the chapel contains the original crematory (no longer in use) and 50 glass-front door niches for cremated remains. A columbarium is also attached to the lower level with 24 temporary receiving vaults (which are no longer used).

The first funeral service held in the chapel was Mr. A. J. Manderson, a railroad worker and brother to General Charles F. Manderson on September 15, 1914. The first wedding service was held there in June 1984. It seats 75 guests and is available for other events such as family reunions and parties.

Our trip was not all sight seeing. We did have a mission to locate a few graves for Find a Grave photo requests, having gotten the locations from the office staff. Once our work was done, we drove up toward the center of the cemetery where the larger, older monuments were located. After getting out and wandering around a bit, I caught sight of this fellow.

This is the Elk Lodge #39 monument at Forest Lawn Memorial Park.

This large and majestic elk statue is perched atop a hillside boulder. Buried around it are various Elk Lodge members who wanted to be near each other. Apparently, several cemeteries across the country have one of these “Elks Rest” areas where members may be buried. Omaha’s Elk Lodge #39 installed the statue in 1922.

Forest Lawn has so many mausoleums, I’m sure I didn’t see them all. But I tried to look through the windows of as many as I could. The Jacobs mausoleum was one of the first and I found myself incredibly curious about the family.

The first person to be interred in the Jacobs mausoleum was John G. Jacobs, Jr., the son of John G. Jacobs, Sr. and his wife, Lillian. A native of Pennsylvania, the elder Jacobs came to Omaha sometime in the 1870s and became an undertaker. He eventually opened his own mortuary and was quite successful.

According to the U.S. Census, John G. Jacobs, Sr. was still single in 1880. But by 1883, he had married Lillian and she gave birth to a son, John G. Jacobs, Jr., in early 1883. John Sr. died at some point later that year and I haven’t been able to locate his grave. Since Forest Lawn didn’t open until 1885, he is likely buried elsewhere.

Lillian married one of John Sr.’s business partners, M.O. Maul, and he took over managing the mortuary. By 1910, M.O. Maul had died, leaving Lillian a widow once again.

John Jr. grew up and attended two different military academies. Upon graduation, he became a stenographer at his father’s former business while also managing a chicken ranch. He was well liked around Omaha and having inherited his father’s fortune, was headed for a bright future.

Sadly, according to the Omaha Bee, John Jr. became ill with some kind of stomach ailment and died on January 22, 1910 at the age of 26. It must have been a devastating blow to his mother.

The Jacobs mausoleum has a dog’s face etched into the front of the bronze door. It took me quite by surprise, having never seen such a thing. I don’t know if it’s the face of a much beloved canine that belonged to John Jr. but that the only guess I have.

Not long after John Jr.’s death, construction was underway on the new University of Nebraska’s Omaha campus. Lillian donated a piece of land for construction of a gymnasium to honor her son. Jacobs Hall was a hub for campus activity for many years until the 1960s when it was torn down along with several older campus buildings.

Lillian traveled a good bit after John Jr.’s death. She died in 1924 at the age of 68. She is interred in the mausoleum with her son.

There’s a lot more to see at Forest Lawn but I’ll wait until next week to dive into those discoveries in Part II.

After leaving Wyuka Cemetery, we were exhausted. And hungry. I saw that a local place called the Northside Cafe was on our way out of Lincoln so off we went.

While perusing the menu, I saw that they offered Stauffer’s pies. Stauffer’s Cafe is another eatery in town that apparently produces amazing pies and when the waitress pulled a sign over detailing the many varieties we could choose from, I knew we’d picked the right place. Delicious!

I also highly recommend the quesadillas and fried portabella mushrooms, which hit the spot after wandering all over Wyuka. Cemetery hopping is not for wimps!

Although we were heading back to Omaha, I wanted to stop in Wahoo to visit Sunrise Cemetery. I mean, who wouldn’t want to visit a town with a name like Wahoo?

We stopped at the Saunders County courthouse to check out some of the cool things they were doing to commemorate the U.S.S. Wahoo (a submarine that sank 20 Japanese ships during World War II before being sunk in October 1943). I also learned that famed Hollywood producer Darryl F. Zanuck was born in Wahoo. Then we headed for Sunrise Cemetery.

Wahoo’s cemeteries are intertwined in a complex way. Small Wahoo Cemetery, also known as Greenwood, is on the north side of town (there wasn’t time to stop). On the far Southeast side of town, on one side of County Road K, is small Sunrise North (which we also didn’t visit due to lack of time).

On the other side of the County Road K is Sunrise Cemetery (also called Knights of Honor Cemetery). Inside this cemetery, on the east side, is St. Francis Catholic Cemetery. We focused on these two.

The main reason I wanted to visit Sunrise Cemetery was to visit the grave of Ludmila “Lilyan” Fencl, one of Charles Starkweather’s murder victims. She was the maid for C. Lauer Ward and his wife, Clara Ward.

According to a 2009 article in the Journal Star, Lilyan’s father was a farmer while her mother worked in a cafe. As one of four children, Lilyan was the only one who did not marry and leave home. Instead, she went to work for the Wards in Lincoln. According to her nephew, Robert Laudenback, they became a second family to her.

He remembers his step-father’s sister as a timid soul, who didn’t have much of a social life and may have not completed high school. “She was seen and not heard most of the time. ”

Lilyan, who never married, was 51 when Starweather shot and killed her. It’s hard to imagine why anyone would want to murder a gentle, hard-working woman who had lived a quiet life. But to Starkweather, she was just another person who got in the way of his twisted rampage.

Not far from Lilyan’s grave in St. Francis Cemetery was a grand monument that reminded me of many I have seen at Atlanta’s Westview Cemetery. It was made for Vincent and Marie “Mary” Simodynes.

The Simodynes were among the Saunders County founding families, having come with many other Czech immigrants starting in the late 1860s. Both Vincent and Mary were born in Nebraska to Czech parents. The Simodynes name appears often in U.S. Census records for the area and it looks like most of them were farmers.

Mary Simodynes died in 1920, at the age of 30. It’s my guess that the monument was made for her first. The Easter lily resting in the arms of the angel sometimes symbolizes youth and virtue.

Mary and Vincent had two children, Lloyd and Adeline. According to the U.S. Census, Vincent and the children were living in Los Angeles, Calif. by 1930. But by 1940, Vincent was back in Wahoo and had gotten remarried. Gennie Simodyne’s grave is nearby with other Simodynes family.

Mary’s maiden name was Koutny, so I’m sure this grave is of a child related to her. One of her uncles was named Lloyd and she named her first son Lloyd. In this case, Lloyd “Lloydie” Koutny did not live to see his second birthday.

It’s hard to miss the huge monument to Antoniae Smejkal. It’s the largest one in the entirety of both Sunrise and St. Francis Cemeteries.

The scene depicted is the Crucifixion of Jesus on the cross. I am not Catholic but it’s my belief that two of the three women are Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Mary Magdalene.

Antoniae Smejka was a Czech immigrant. Except for 1930 (the year she died), every time I found her in the U.S. Census records, she was listed as single or widowed.

I also discovered that she was the housekeeper of the priest at St. Wenceslaus Catholic Church, Father Matej (Matthew) Bor (also buried at St. Francis). Father Bor led several pastorates in the area starting in the 1890s. St. Wenceslaus, which manages St. Francis Cemetery, still has an active membership today. Her mother and three siblings are also buried at St. Francis, but not with Antoniae.

I can only guess that Antoniae’s many years of devotion to Father Bor was honored by parishioners with this grand monument. Like many monuments I find so amazing, I took many pictures from several angles.

The only mausoleum in the entire place belongs to the Kirchman family, headed by successful banker Wencl C. (W.C) Kirchman.

A Czech immigrant who was first a grocer in Pittsburgh, Pa., W.C. came out to Saunders County, Neb. in the 1870s and became co-owner of a general store in Prague. Considered one of the county’s pioneers, he eventually established several banks in the county. He was also postmaster in the 1890s and very active in local government.

W.C.’s younger brother, Frank (who was much younger than him), and their parents, arrived in Pittsburgh in 1868. In 1881, Frank joined W.C. in Nebraska and helped him manage his several banks, taking over for his brother after his death in 1924.

I was doing research on Frank’s lovely Queen Anne-style home that he had built in 1903 when I found a jolting bit of information about him. While he is not buried at Sunrise/St. Francis, his story is worth telling.

According to the application made to put the Kirchman home on the National Register of Historic Places, Frank Kirchman and his banks prospered until 1930 when the Depression hit the Midwest. Townspeople rushed the banks to collect their savings and soon discovered $26,400 missing.

In May 1930, Frank was found responsible for the missing money and arrested at his home. He was sentenced to a 60-year penitentiary term and fined $11,000. Soon after, he sold his beautiful home before beginning his term. Two of his nephews, sons of his brother W.C., worked for Frank in his banks and were convicted for lesser offenses.

Like a number of bankers who faced a similar fate, Frank appealed to the courts to have his sentence shortened. In 1936, his sentence was commuted and he was released from the penitentiary. His two nephews’ sentences were also commuted soon after.

Despite his frail appearance, Frank lived another 17 years before dying in 1953. He is buried in Calvary Cemetery in Alliance, Neb., almost 500 miles away from Wahoo.

It was time to get back on the road to head home to Omaha. There was one more Nebraska cemetery I wanted to see before I returned to Atlanta: Forest Lawn Memorial Park.

 

When I started this series, I honestly thought I’d be finished in (at most) three parts. As you can see, I was off on that estimation a bit. I do promise that today is indeed the end.

The McDonald family sarcophagus is a bit unusual because a beautiful woman in mourning is leaning over it. I think I took pictures of her at every angle I could. She fascinated me.

A native of Illinois, John McDonald was a banker, financier and real estate investor. He and his wife, Annie, spent a lot of time at their spectacular summer “cottage” at Monmouth Beach, N.J. called “Blow by the Sea.” The McDonalds appeared often in the New York Times, which reported on their summer events and guests.

Soon after her husband died, Annie built a mansion at South 22nd and Washington Streets in Lincoln, which she also called “The Blow.” If you’re curious (as I was) as to why the McDonalds liked this word, it’s thought to be synonymous with the word “respite.” The Lincoln house (which is long since gone) was ornamented with marble statuary. Maybe the person who created those figures sculpted the one on their monument.

I did find a curious story about Annie’s friendship with William Frederick Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill Cody. The famous Wild West showman is said to have attended many of Annie’s parties, which were described as “unusual.”

Not far from the McDonald sarcophagus (in Section 13) is the bust of Albinus Nance, Nebraska’s fifth Governor. A native of Illinois, Nance was born in 1848 and enlisted in the Union Army when he was only 16. Elected to the Nebraska House of Representatives in 1877, Nance became Speaker of the House at the age 29.

Just a year later,  Nance was elected Governor of Nebraska and reelected in 1880. Because of his young age, he is sometimes called the “Boy Governor” of Nebraska. His wife, Sarah White Nance, was only 24 when she became the state’s First Lady. After “retiring” at the age of 35, Nance returned to practicing law and was president of banks in Osceola and Stromsburg, Neb. Nance County was named after him.

An interesting bit of trivia is that Nance’s bust was signed by Gilbert Riswold, who studied in Chicago with none other than Lorado Taft (best known for his sculpture “Eternal Silence” in Chicago’s Graceland Cemetery that I featured last year).

A much smaller but no less impactful monument is at the grave of little Irmgard Christine Winter, who died from diphtheria before she reached the age of 5.

Christine’s parents, Phillip and Alta Winter, paid homage to their little girl (“Our Morning Glory”) with the largest photographic portrait in Wyuka. Alta, Pauline, Philip and Wilhemine Winter are also interred in the family plot.

A visually unique modern grave marker is situated in Section 1. A beloved second-grade teacher and wife of a Lincoln Public Schools board member, Barbara Evans died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 54 in 2000. The family chose to commemorate her life with a round granite table and four granite stools, a picnic table which all are invited to share.

The F. Gottlieb Beuthner iron cross is easily noticed because it is the only one of its kind at Wyuka. However, they’re fairly common in Midwestern cemeteries where many German immigrants are buried.

I like to end my cemetery series posts on an upbeat note but in the case of Wyuka, I cannot.

Wyuka’s guidebook is quite exhaustive about those buried there. But the most infamous person is not mentioned at all. I think it’s an unspoken wish to not give someone who caused so much pain any more attention than he already gets.

Charles Raymond “Charlie” Starkweather’s name sends chills down the spine of many a Nebraskan and for good reason. Along with his 14-year-old girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate, Starkweather killed 11 people in Nebraska and Wyoming. All but one were killed between January 21 and January 29, 1958.

Starkweather grew up in Lincoln, the son of Guy and Helen Starkweather. After dropping out of Lincoln High School, Starkweather bounced from job to job before meeting Caril Ann Fugate. She was not with him when he committed his first murder, shooting Lincoln service station attendant Robert Colvert on Nov. 30, 1957.

The other murders began on January 21, 1958 when Starkweather went to see Caril Ann at her home (she was not there) and her parents wouldn’t let him in. He shot them both and soon after killed Caril Ann’s two-year-old step-sister, Betty Jean. When Caril Ann got home, she reportedly helped him hide the bodies. After a few days, they left home.

Over the next several days, the pair would kill Starkweather family friend August Meyer; young couple Robert Jensen and Carole King; industrialist C. Lauer Ward, his wife, Clara, and their maid, Lilyan Fencl; and traveling salesman Merle Collison.

Fugate and Starkweather were finally arrested after a high-speed car chase with the police. Fugate swore that Starkweather held her hostage by threatening to kill her family, claiming she didn’t know they were already dead. The presiding judge at her trial (nor the jury) didn’t buy her story.

Starkweather was found guilty and received the death penalty for the murder of Robert Jensen, the only murder for which he was tried. He was executed in the electric chair at the Nebraska State Penitentiary in Lincoln on June 25, 1959.

An anonymous donor paid for Starkweather’s first marker in 1970, which was vandalized. Wyuka’s president, Michael Williams, told me that actor Martin Sheen (who portrayed Starkweather in the 1973 film Badlands) purchased a new marker for Starkweather. That’s the one pictured below.

Fugate received a life sentence on November 21, 1958. She was paroled in June 1976 after serving 17 years and settled in Lansing, Mich., working as a janitor at a local hospital. She married Frederick Clair in 2007 and, apart from a radio interview in 1996, has refused to speak of the murder spree.

After her marriage, Fugate changed her name to Caril Ann Clair and was living in Stryker, Ohio when she was seriously injured in a car crash on August 5, 2013. Her husband was killed in the crash.

Five of Starkweather’s victims are buried at Wyuka. Fugate’s step-father, Marion Bartlett, her mother, Velda Bartlett, and her step-sister, Betty Jean Bartlett, are buried only about a hundred feet from Starkweather. I was unaware of this when we were at Wyuka so I didn’t get pictures of their graves.

I did locate the graves of the two other victims, C. Lauer Ward and his wife, Clara. The killers broke into their home and found Clara, along with the family maid, Lilyan Fencl. They were stabbed multiple times. When Mr. Ward came home, he was attacked and killed as well. Their son, Mikey, was not at home at the time.

Lilyan Fencl is buried in Sunrise Cemetery in Wahoo, Neb., which I visited later that day on our way back to Omaha. I will feature her story when I write about that cemetery next week.

As we prepared to leave the cemetery, I realized how fast the time had flown. But Wyuka is the kind of place you can spend hours in rambling from grave to grave, there are so many that catch the eye.

At the same time, we had little time but lots more to see. So we got in the car to find a place to eat a very late lunch before heading to Wahoo.

In Part II last week, I highlighted several of Wyuka’s outstanding memorials for 9/11, the Holocaust and Nebraska firefighters. Today, I’m going to stick with gravestones (and an airplane propeller, but more about that later).

Over in Section 5, this marker stood out.

Jane “Jennie” Bell married Frank Ringer, a veteran of the Spanish-American War and a prominent Lincoln businessman. After Frank died in 1920, she went back to school and got her Doctor of Chiropractic and Doctor of Chiropractic Philosophy degrees. Dr. Bell-Ringer practiced for several years before passing away in California.

The story goes that Jennie won a baby contest in the late 1870s. At her wedding, she learned something surprising from her new brother-in-law, John Dean Ringer. He teased her that the only fault he had to find with her is that she had taken first prize away from him at that baby contest, making him come in second.

In Section 17, I found the small marker for Helen Mary Sargent. Born in Massachusetts, she got her degree at the University of Nebraska and entered Army service as a Red Cross nurse September 4, 1918. She was assigned to Fort Slocum, N.Y., where she died of illness Oct. 23, 1918 (most likely the Spanish flu that was raging there at the time).

Another marker in Section 17 is for a young man who also lost his life during World War I. His grave is one of the handful at Wyuka that features a portrait on a porcelain plaque.

A native of Russia, Bohl enlisted in the Army and was placed with the 58th Infantry, Company H. Only 25, he was wounded in action in France and died post-Armistice on Christmas Eve 1918.

Up to this point, everything we’d seen at Wyuka had been fairly traditional in terms of style and materials. Corel Sherwood’s monument changed all that.

Sherwood befriended the legendary aviator Charles Lindbergh when they attended Lincoln Flight School together. Lindbergh often helped him work on building his airplane. They were such good friends that Sherwood loaned Lindbergh enough money to leave Lincoln when he was short of funds.

In 1925, Sherwood was a mechanic for Lincoln Aircraft Corporation, one of two airplane manufacturers in the area during the 1920s. One day while giving brief plane rides, Sherwood crashed in February 1925 near Ellis, Neb., killing his 50-year-old passenger, Dan Camp. Sherwood died the next day.

Mounted on a podium next to Sherwood’s unique marker is a copy of the letter Lindbergh wrote to him when he re-payed his loan.

Then we caught a glimpse of an eye-catching bronze not far away from Sherwood’s grave.

Unfortunately, I don’t know who created the bronze but I did find Lois “Toots” Pegram’s obituary. Twice widowed, Lois was a pioneer business woman in Lincoln, owning multiple businesses at one time while being active in local politics. She was a restaurateur, antique dealer and avid antique doll collector, and owner and operator of rental and farm properties. I wish I could have met her because she sounds like she was a real pistol.

Around this time, we were making our way into the center of the cemetery. It isn’t often I find a port-a-john ensconced in a PVC pipe arbor in a cemetery. I wish more cemeteries provided something like this, because both Christi and I were happy we didn’t have to drive back to the office to use the restroom there.

After our pit stop, we got back to business. Circled on the map by me was the Kimball monument.

The Kimball brothers were leading monument makers in Lincoln from the 1880s through the 1930s. William R. and Frank B. Kimball established the business in Lincoln in 1887, having come from Albia, Iowa.

By 1890, the Kimballs had installed more than 20 monuments the year before, averaging $1,500 each. Their own family plot features the pink granite seen in many of their major monuments.

Frank Kimball’s monument for the Thompson family is similar to the one made for his own family, although the Thompson one has a more ornate granite setting.

David E. Thompson and his wife, Jeanee, were society leaders in Lincoln. In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Thompson as the U.S. envoy to Brazil and in 1906, appointed him to the ambassadorship of Mexico. Jeanee died in Mexico City in 1911.

After Jeanee died and his term as U.S. ambassador was up, Thompson returned to Lincoln for a few years before moving to California, where he spent the rest of his life.

Here’s you one more example of Frank Kimball’s work. The monument for Swedish immigrants Olof (as the guide book spells it) and Clara Palm is not a bronze but it’s become one of my favorite monuments at Wyuka.

Olof and Clara Palm were Swedish immigrants who established an insurance agency in Lincoln, with Olof as the president and Clara as the vice-president. He helped found the North Star Relief Society, a Swedish fraternal group. Clara died in 1931 at 70, and Olof was 75 when he died eight years later.

Try as I could, I cannot finish my series on Wyuka with three parts. There’s simply too much beauty and history here that I have to keep going.

Next week, I’ll finish up with Part IV. I’ll be featuring more monuments along with the tragic story of a spree killer who is buried only a few hundred feet from some of his victims.

Last week, I began my tour of Lincoln, Nebraska’s Wyuka Cemetery. This week, we’ll visit several of Wyuka’s memorials devoted to various events/groups. I’ve never been to a cemetery that has so many, but they are all thoughtfully and tastefully done.

Before I do that, I wanted to highlight two things. I’ve always admired Nebraskans for their strength of character and sensible nature. However, when I found out about Wyuka Cemetery’s cast iron fence, my opinion of them only rose higher.

The Southern border of Wyuka is lined by a long fence that edges O Street. I thought nothing of it when I was photographing in that area. The guide book, however, shares its impressive past.

The fence was originally installed in 1891 around the first campus of the University of Nebraska, made up of 10 acres bounded by R, T, North 10th and North 12th Streets. The fence’s narrow gateways hampered efforts of Lincoln firefighters to combat fires on campus, including one that severely damaged the State Museum building in 1912.

This problem inspired prominent Nebraska businessman Charles Morrill to make donations that resulted in a new natural history museum, Morrill Hall. Built in 1925, it still stands today and houses a wonderful collection of fossils and other archaeological treasures. That same year, the campus fence was removed and reinstalled at Wyuka, with a wide front entrance. I love the fact that they re-purposed this fence and didn’t toss it into a landfill.

The other thing I wanted to highlight was the grave of Harrison Johnson, which is located beside the fence.

African-Americans were not enlisted in the Union Army until President Lincoln changed the nation’s policy with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. Before that, the First Nebraska Regiment was officially all-white. An Arkansas native and slave, Johnson escaped and sought out Nebraska’s First Regiment. He was allowed to enlist as a private and served out the war with the regiment. At war’s end, Johnson settled in Lincoln, joined the Farragut Post of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) and worked as a hotel cook and janitor.

Near the eastern border of the cemetery is the 9/11 Memorial, dedicated to those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001 during the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and United Airlines Flight 93. The two red-painted steel I-beams symbolize the World Trade Towers, but did not come from the buildings themselves.

The 9/11 Memorial includes President George W. Bush’s rallying cry:

“Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America.”

Across the way is the Nebraska Firefighters Memorial, one of the largest I have ever seen. Names of project donors are inscribed on plaques, benches and paving blocks leading up to and surrounding the statue.

The memorial sculpture was decorated for fall so you can’t properly see the inscription on the front.

A plaque featuring “A Firefighter’s Prayer” is on the side of the base of the sculpture.

Close by in Section 42 are the Desert Shield/Desert Storm memorials.

The Purple Heart Monument was installed on Veterans Day 2003.

The Soldiers’ Circle is located on a large grassy section across from the Desert Storm/Desert Shield and Purple Heart Memorials. It was established in the early 1900s for veterans of America’s armed services who served after the Civil War. In a century’s time, 1,258 veterans were interred here before the area was filled.

All of these memorials are special in their own way. But I must admit that Wyuka’s Holocaust Memorial has to be one of the most creative and movingly designed that I have ever seen.

Lincoln, Nebraska began as a tiny village located on salt flats called Lancaster when it was first settled. Nebraska became a state in 1867 and Lincoln was chosen as its capital over Omaha (which had been the capital of the Nebraska Territory) with the reasoning that most of the state’s population lived south of the Platte River. The decision was a hotly contested one at the time. You can read more about it here.

I visited Lincoln some years ago with Christi but at that time, I wasn’t a hard core “hopper”. I didn’t know about Wyuka Cemetery. Located close to the University of Nebraska (and Cornhusker Stadium!), Wyuka covers 80 acres of beautifully landscaped grounds and rolling hills.

Wyuka Cemetery was established by an act of the Nebraska Legislature in 1869 to provide a ‘Lincoln State Cemetery” for the new state’s capital city. Mount Auburn Cemetery near Boston, established in 1831, was a model for Wyuka. Because the cemetery is owned by the city, it can’t be bought by a large conglomerate like Dignity. I found that comforting to know.

Wyuka got its name from the original Wyuka Cemetery in Nebraska City, established in 1855 (it’s still operating today). I found two different origins for the word Wyuka. One site said it’s from the Otoe Indian language, spelled as an English-speaker might hear the Native American phrases signifying “he lies down” or “place of reclining.” The cemetery’s web page says Wyuka is Lakota Indian for “to rest.”

We stopped at the office to purchase a copy of the invaluable guide book to Wyuka. This is no flimsy pamphlet but a comprehensive book with detailed bios about the famous (and some not so famous) people buried there.

I had the pleasure of meeting Wyuka’s president, Michael Williams. When I tell people I’m writing a blog post about their cemetery, I sometimes see raised eyebrows in response but not at Wyuka. Michael, a funeral director of 30 years, was happy to answer my questions and offer any help we needed.

Originally built in 1908-1909 and on the National Register of Historic Places along with the cemetery, Wyuka’s stables formerly housed the horses that transported caskets to the cemetery. Once automobiles took the place of the horses, the stables were used for storage.

A $1 million renovation to the stables was completed in October so they can hold events such as meetings, company retreats and wedding receptions. Since 2000, it’s also been the home of the Swan Theater and the Flatwater Shakespeare Company. When we were visiting, an open air production of Hamlet was scheduled for that evening.

The first stop on our tour was the Rudge Memorial Chapel, which was locked. Completed in 1928, the chapel is made of Indiana limestone in the Gothic Revival style. The cost of the chapel ($30,000) was donated by the family of Charles H. Rudge, who owned the Rudge & Guenzel Department Store in Lincoln before his death in 1921. Funerals and occasional weddings are held at the chapel, which seats about 75.

I was happy to see that Wyuka had a handful of my favorite “white bronze” markers. These are actually made of zinc. This one, according to the guide book, was made by the Western White Bronze Company of Des Moines, Iowa.

At the time they were popular, you could select one from a catalog and have it shipped in pieces to you for easy construction. They are hollow inside, too. The Western White Bronze Company operated for 22 years, closing in 1908.

Not far from Merrill’s monument is a very faded stone that I would have passed without stopping if not for the guide book. The grave of Hughina Morrison is apparently the oldest in Wyuka. She died at the age of 44, buried beside her husband.

One thing we noticed throughout the cemetery were the water spigots so guests could water the flowers/plants placed on graves. All of them had the ominous sign “DO NOT DRINK” hung on them. If you’ve spent enough time in historic cemeteries, this is quite normal. The water may be okay for the flowers/shrubs but you don’t want to drink it. I saw similar signs on the faucets at Chicago’s Rose Hill Cemetery.

One monument not in the guidebook is that of Cyrus Carman, a native of Ohio who moved to Nebraska to work as a shoemaker. He died at 41, leaving a wife and two children. His marker bears the Woodman of the World seal, one that you’re bound to see often in Nebraska since WOW is based in Omaha.

Another reason Carman’s marker is different from many WOW markers is that it lists the lodge he had membership in, Lincoln Forest Camp No. 6. Most WOW markers are for people who just had WOW insurance policies but Cyrus Carman was an early member of the Modern Woodman of the World, which was similar to the Masons and Elks. They held meetings, wore woodsmen costumes and even tossed axes in unison in parades.

Th large brown granite marker for Walter Dameron is beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time. Walter, a fireman, was killed when two trains of the Burlington Railroad collided head on near Indianola, Neb. Killed in the wreck were 18 passengers and crew members, with more than 30 injured.

Situated among the mausoleums of some of Lincoln’s prominent residents is Wyuka’s receiving tomb. Built in the Romanesque Revival style in 1886, it is the oldest building in the cemetery. Made of limestone and built into a hillside (similar to the Horatio May Chapel in Chicago’s Rose Hill Cemetery), the receiving tomb stored caskets when the ground was frozen during the winter and was too hard to dig into for burials.

The last stop for this post is the grave of Gordon MacRae, the actor/singer best known for his roles in Rogers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! and Carousel. A New Jersey native, MacRae got his big break when he appeared on Broadway in 1946 and was offered a contract with Warner Brothers.

Besides appearing in several movies, MacRae had his own radio show until 1954. He made several albums and appeared frequently on television. He battled alcoholism in the 1960s and overcame it in the 1970s, often counseling others struggling with addiction.

MacRae’s second wife, Elizabeth, was a native of Davenport, Neb. The couple settled in Lincoln in 1980. MacRae said he felt at home in Lincoln because it reminded him of his hometown of East Orange, N.J. He died in 1986 of pneumonia as a result of complications from cancer of the mouth and jaw.

This post barely scratches the surface of my day at Wyuka. There’s so much more to see. Come back next week for Part II!