The
Remembrance Society
By Jenny Gilbert, Director of Institutional Advancement
After raising a family in New Hampshire and having a successful career in nursing and then computing, Ginny Brady and her husband Bill Mann moved back to Cambridge in 2004 to be close to the city. They were taking full advantage of the musical, cultural, and culinary riches of Boston, but they had never visited Mount Auburn Cemetery. Then in 2006, they attended the Cemetery’ s 175th Anniversary Lecture Series at the Boston Public Library. The series introduced them to the Cemetery and changed the course of Ginny’ s retirement.
Ginny joined Mount Auburn’ s first class of volunteers in 2007. Since then, she has supported the Friends in many ways: doing paperwork and data entry, staffing the Visitor Center, developing a range of tours( Celtic Crosses, Tribute Monuments, Civil War, and Not So Rich and Famous), and contributing to Women’ s History Month programs. Ginny loves the process of researching individuals’ lives and visiting their monuments.“ Just being a volunteer there,” she says,“ you really [ come to ] appreciate [ not only ] the historic individuals who are buried there, but also their interactions. It’ s almost like‘ Six Degrees of Separation’ with so many entities that knew each other and know each other, even to this day.”
Ginny has had numerous memorable interactions with visitors during her years at Mount Auburn. One time she met a couple of descendants of the great navigator Nathanial Bowditch who were visiting from Salem,
Massachusetts.“ There are still Bowditches around!” says Ginny. Another time a young woman came to visit the grave of her grandmother Sarah Jordan Murray, a physician to President John F. Kennedy, whom Brady had researched for her Women in Medicine tour. Ginny loves to share her infectious enthusiasm for the beauty of Mount Auburn, for its trees and birds, and for its welcoming staff. She feels proudest when visitors are impressed with the site and tell her they want to visit again.
Ginny and her husband have purchased burial space at the Cemetery for themselves on Mist Path. And to help secure the Cemetery’ s green future, the couple has generously included a bequest to support horticulture at Mount Auburn in their estate plans. Asked why they support Mount Auburn and decided to include a bequest to the Friends in their will, Bill observed,“ It’ s a beautiful place, and it’ s well-run. The staff are all outstanding, from the gardeners to the management.” Like all who provide for the future financial stability of the Friends of Mount Auburn, Ginny and Bill( photographed here at our annual Wine Tasting event) are now part of our Remembrance Society.
For more information on planned giving, or to advise the cemetery of your intentions, please contact Jenny Gilbert, Director of Institutional Advancement, at( 617) 607-1970 for a confidential conversation to discuss your goals, or visit us on the web for more information.
2017 Volume 1 | 21