A cenotaph, from the Greek kenos( empty) + aphos( tomb), is a memorial honoring someone whose remains are missing or located elsewhere. Mount Auburn Cemetery has several well-known cenotaphs, such as the bronze plaque honoring Col. Robert Gould Shaw on his family’ s monument near Bigelow Chapel and the memorial to Margaret Fuller on Pyrola Path. There are also group tributes, such as those commemorating the First Corps of Cadets and the U. S. Exploring Expedition.
Other less-famous cenotaphs are scattered throughout the Cemetery, but they can be hard to locate. Unlike burials and cremations, such memorials are not recorded in any central ledger or database, though they may be mentioned on the old“ lot cards” faithfully kept in the Cemetery archives. How is one to find memorials to those lost at sea or buried at a distant battlefield? Research in the archives can often turn up an answer.
When faced with such requests, as a volunteer research docent I first look for an immediate relative who might be interred at Mount Auburn. A visit to the family lot may turn up the name of the absent decedent. The real challenge comes when the names of family members are only partly known, or are spelled differently, or were changed by marriage.
A researcher from Vermont, Tisa Rennau, asked the Cemetery for help in resolving conflicting information about an artist named Martha“ Molly” Neill Upton. Upton was a pioneering quilt artist who jumped to her death from the Golden Gate Bridge in 1977, at the age of 23. Though the artist’ s body was never recovered, Rennau had learned from Upton’ s mother that“ a commemorative stone was placed where the grandparents are buried” at Mount Auburn Cemetery.
I found no mention of Molly Upton in Cemetery records but thought perhaps there was a cenotaph. I found that Molly’ s father, Gordon J. Upton, who died in 2007, was buried in the Allen family lot on Coral Path.(“ Allen” was Molly’ s mother’ s maiden name.)
Visiting the lot late on a dim fall afternoon, I couldn’ t find the name“ Upton” on any of the memorials. The following morning, however, I discovered Molly’ s name inscribed across the back of the Allen family monument. Tisa Rennau was able to finish her research on Molly Upton, which she subsequently posted on Wikipedia.
Mount Auburn Cemetery Research Docent, Steve Pinkerton discusses commemoration in the landscape.
In another case, journalist Mark Casey sought the Cemetery’ s help in finding a cenotaph memorializing Staff Sgt. Richard Hoover Treat. Treat was one of six U. S. Army airmen who perished in a B-26 training flight on November 16, 1942, when the bomber disappeared into the Gulf of Mexico. Though Treat’ s body was never recovered, wreckage of the plane was found in the waters off Sanibel Island, Florida, in 2008. Casey, who is writing a book about the plane’ s disappearance and rediscovery, wanted to contact the family of Sgt. Treat, to share news of the find and learn more about the lost airman.
It was known that Treat’ s mother had placed cenotaphs in his honor at Waterside Cemetery in Marblehead and at Mount Auburn. And while the Cemetery does not divulge family information to third parties, it sometimes acts as a go-between.
The first step was to find Richard’ s cenotaph. Casey provided the names of Treat’ s mother and stepfather. While I found no mention of Florence Wilhelmina Hoover Treat Fagan in Cemetery interment records, I did find her second husband, John Joseph Fagan, who was buried in the Randall family lot in 1960. Visiting the lot, I was pleased to find Richard Treat’ s flush, military grave marker.
Cemetery correspondence showed that Richard’ s mother inherited the lot from her aunt in April 1944 and installed the memorial to her lost son the following November. It also documented a chain of ownership leading to the current lot representative, but as the names of successors changed with each link, their relationships to Richard Treat were hard to decipher. I turned next to Waterside Cemetery, site of the second cenotaph, where I found the burials of Florence Hoover Seifert— Richard’ s mother had married a third time— and her two married daughters, Richard’ s sisters. Their names matched those found in the correspondence folder.
Florence had left the family lot at Mount Auburn Cemetery to her daughters when she died in 1966. Responsibility for the lot has since been assumed by one of her granddaughters, Richard’ s niece Sharon Burgard. I forwarded a copy of Casey’ s request to Burgard, and soon learned that they had made contact. Burgard kindly furnished a photo of Richard for this article:“ I am so glad I was able to keep this after my mother passed away and I found it along with her things. My grandmother was devastated when he was lost and missing.”
2017 Volume 1 | 5