People and Happenings Volunteer Profile:
People and Happenings Volunteer Profile:
Judy Jackson
By Jennifer Johnston, Media & Communications Director
Two remarkable women— Janet Heywood and Judy Jackson— made my early years at Mount Auburn Cemetery a virtual graduate education in history.
Janet Heywood was Director of Interpretive Programs at Mount Auburn in the spring of 1997 when I applied for a job in her department. She made it abundantly clear to me that Mount Auburn was no museum but an active cemetery with daily burials, inurnments, and cremations. Just moments after I met her, she toured me through the Cemetery vaults, showing me boxes and urns of cremated remains waiting to be picked up by family members or funeral directors: in other words, the daily operations of my employer. Certainly Mount Auburn is an arboretum and a fantastic historical and cultural site. But Heywood made sure I knew that it was still primarily an active cemetery.
I had the good fortune of growing up across the street from Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira, New York, which is actually two cemeteries in one: a rolling 50 + acre property with scenic paths and lawns designed in the“ rural cemetery” style by noted architect Howard Daniels in 1858; and a smaller( now 10 + acre) National Cemetery created in 1877 for the interment of Confederate prisoners who had died at the Elmira Prison Camp during the American Civil War. Given my connection with these historic cemeteries, I was delighted when Heywood gave me a job in her Interpretive Programs Department.
As if working with Janet wasn’ t amazing enough, I was quickly introduced to her inner-circle of equally extraordinary friends: Barbara Rotundo, Ph. D.( 1921 – 2004), Blanche M. G. Linden, Ph. D.( 1946 – 2014), Bob Stymeist, and Judy Jackson— all exemplary authorities on Mount Auburn with nearly a century’ s worth of combined years of learning about the Cemetery.
Jackson, a former Law School dean, settled in the Boston area after her retirement and quickly became a self-taught authority on local history. Like Heywood, Jackson effortlessly memorized the birth and death dates of great numbers of people buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery. I once mentioned that my birthday is on March 23rd and she immediately rattled off the names of three notable people with the same birthday buried at the Cemetery: architect Eleanor Raymond( 1887 – 1989); culinary expert Fannie Merritt Farmer( 1857 – 1915); and horticulturist Walter Hunnewell( 1917 – 1999).
16 | Sweet Auburn
Judy Jackson and Janet Heywood, 2002
Jen Johnston and Judy Jackson on a walk at the Cemetery in 2001.
On April 4, 1998, Judy led staff and a few regular visitors to place flowers on the grave of Dorothea Lynde Dix( 1802 – 1887) to celebrate the birthday of that famed social reformer. Following this walk, Jackson helped organize nearly a decade of celebratory birthday walks to the graves of over 200 notable people buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery. Just last summer, Judy led the 20th anniversary tour of her first-ever Friends of Mount Auburn program, The Lawyers of Mount Auburn, which originally took place on June 11, 1996.
As Visitor Services Assistant Jim Gorman recalls,“ During the introduction to her 20th anniversary walk, Judy reminded everyone how so much of Boston’ s life and history comes together within Mount Auburn. While Judy herself first visited the Cemetery with a professional interest in law, she quickly learned how many other interconnections herein exist within the realms of business, religion, science, art, horticulture, government and politics.” Not surprisingly, most individuals interred at Mount Auburn have family and friends also buried or memorialized here – which allows volunteers like Judy and staff like Jim to expand upon whatever might have been their primary topic of interest, initially bringing
them through the Egyptian Revival Gateway into the Cemetery, to a series of many returning visits.
Thanks to Judy, as well as Janet, Bob,
Blanche, and Barbara, our present-day volunteer docents have plenty of inspiration for creating walking tours and programs about the Cemetery. Recent programs topics have included notable Abolitionists, African Americans, Architects, Armenians, Artists, Explorers, Innovators in Medicine, Inventors, Jews, Journalists, the LBGT Community, Mothers, Musicians, Politicians, Scientists, Supreme Court Justices, Theologians, and Visionaries and Eccentrics. I urge you to join us for a tour in the near future, continuing the legacy of these outstanding individuals.