A bench in the Cemetery near Alice’ s Fountain. People may honor a living person or commemorate a deceased individual by purchasing a plaque for a bench or tree.
20th century, the lawn cemetery movement again softened the presence of death by favoring flat markers flush with the ground so that the monuments themselves became less visible. Then, after the 1960s, the Washington, D. C., Vietnam War and Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial designed by Maya Lin“ revived the movement toward personal commemoration.” And today Mount Auburn remains a dynamic landscape, reflecting landscape design history and our attitudes toward death and commemoration.
Commemoration and the Increase of Cremation
In both the United States and much of western Europe, there is a growing trend toward choosing cremation. By 2010, the National Funeral Directors Association projects that more than 30 % of deceased people will be cremated in Massachusetts and more than 38 % nationwide. By 2025, more than 51 % of deceased people will be cremated nationwide. Here at Mount Auburn an average of 1,000 cremations take place each year. Cremation does allow a wider timeframe for a commemorative service or ceremony because it makes an immediate interment unnecessary. Families can hold an interment or memorial service soon after a death or wait until all family members and friends can be present or until warmer weather or some other meaningful time of the year.
Some people mistakenly believe that when a person is cremated, they need not make decisions about memorialization. This is simply not true. Cremated remains, popularly referred to as“ ashes,” can still be memorialized. Some people
2 | Sweet Auburn keep a decedent’ s cremated remains, but most inter them just as they would a body, placing them in the ground or in a niche in a structure built to hold cremated remains, a columbarium, like the one here in Story Chapel. Other families divide cremated remains so that portions can be interred or scattered in two or more locations.
Families may choose to scatter a decedent’ s cremated remains at a favorite park, beach, or forest, but often come to regret this irrevocable act when they realize they have no private, protected space specifically designated to commemorate their loved one. A colleague recounts the story of a friend whose cremated remains were scattered, at his request, over a slope at the side of his house. Since then, the house has changed hands several times, so the man’ s family no longer has access to the site. Another colleague stipulated that her cremated remains be scattered over a quiet garden in the quadrangle of the university she’ d attended. Subsequently, the quadrangle and an adjoining administration building have undergone an extensive renovation, obliterating the garden. In both instances there is no way for survivors to retrieve these scattered remains, even if they could visit these sites.
Of course a person who wishes his or her remains to be scattered can still have a place of commemoration at a cemetery such as Mount Auburn, in the form of a cenotaph. Or a person can be commemorated by a plaque in his or her honor fixed to a bench or tree( see photo above left). Cremation is one of several end-of-life options, which also include traditional in-ground burial and entombment.
Diverse and Evolving Commemoration Traditions
Like the country beyond its gates, Mount Auburn is experiencing an increasing diversity in the ways that people commemorate. Since its founding in 1831, the Cemetery has been open to all, interring African Americans