Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn Connecting the Present with the Past | Page 3

sweet auburn | 2019 volume i
President’s
Corner
I
n this issue of Sweet Auburn, we focus on
PRESERVATION. Mount Auburn Cemetery, after all,
is a National Historic Landmark recognized for its
significance and influence on the rural cemetery and public
parks movements, and has much worth preserving. But just
what does preservation really mean at Mount Auburn and
what are we striving to preserve?
Gus Fraser (pp. 2-3) nicely summarizes the framework and
philosophy we are following when we talk about preservation
at Mount Auburn. In a nutshell, we strive to honor the bold
and innovative vision of our founders to create a beautiful
landscape that would serve the important function of burying
and commemorating the dead while also inspiring the living.
To achieve this, we must continue to be innovative in response
to changing beliefs and customs surrounding death and
commemoration while still respecting the past. We must also
consider the buildings and monuments as an integral part
of the landscape and always consider the structures and
surrounding plantings together in an integrated fashion as
we undertake preservation projects.
The “landscape” at Mount Auburn consists of a remarkable
collection of monuments and commemorative art integrated
within an equally remarkable collection of trees and other
plantings. We strive to preserve this integrated combination of
built and natural – just as our founders intended. Jenny Gilbert
and Meg Winslow (pp. 4-5) describe our ongoing program
to conserve our thirty most significant funerary monuments,
which was initiated with a grant from the Institute of Museum
and Library Services and continues thanks to the generosity of
many individuals and foundations who have contributed funds
for these efforts.
Our most recently completed significant monument
preservation project, the Samuel Appleton Monument, is
described on pages 6-7, followed by Dennis Collins’s article
(pp. 8-9) about the landscape enhancements planned for this
spring around the Appleton monument together with the
adjacent North Dell Meadows landscape and habitat
restoration project near Consecration Dell. These projects
collectively illustrate our integrated approach to monument
conservation and landscape improvements that together help
to preserve the inspirational character of Mount Auburn that
our founders envisioned.
Photo that first appeared in Sweet Auburn in 2010 of Dave Barnett sitting on
the Purple-leaf Beech across from Story Chapel. After years of accelerated
decline, the tree had to be removed in February 2019.
One of the most inspirational aspects of Mount Auburn
– what attracted me here to begin with back in 1993 – is its
collection of trees, but unfortunately we cannot preserve
any individual tree forever. It was one of the toughest days
of my 25 years at Mount Auburn, in early February, when I
had to watch the magnificent
140-year-old Purple-leaf Beech
tree near the front entrance
being cut down because of
its advanced state of decline.
Kristin Macomber captures
beautifully on pages 14-15
how emotional it was to watch
the tree decline and then be
removed. While we cannot
preserve any individual tree
While the loss of the European
forever, we can keep planting
Beech in the foreground was
new trees and preserve our
traumatic, the renovated Asa Gray
collection of 5,000 trees and
Garden and Bigelow Chapel in
the overall character of the
the background are exciting new
additions important to Mount
landscape. That is precisely
what we have been doing and Auburn’s future.
will continue to do, and I look
forward to watching the beech tree’s replacement begin to
enjoy its prominent new home and flourish at Mount Auburn.
Thanks for your support of Mount Auburn, and I hope to
see you out on the grounds this spring!
David P. Barnett
President & CEO
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