Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn In Celebration of 175 Years | Page 6

Auburn also cares for the remaining 62 cast and wrought iron fences surrounding family and institutional lots . Dating mostly from the mid-nineteenth century these Victorian survivors need to be painted and repaired on an ongoing basis , so the Cemetery has made a commitment to restore two each year as long as funds are available .

When the staff needs the specialized skills of outside experts , they call on people such as conservator Barbara Mangum , who worked this past fall on the Richard Duca sculpture on Willow Pond Knoll , a work of art less than thirty years old and a project that was completed with the input of the artist . ( See article on page 17 .) A significant project completed last year by outside experts was the restoration of the

“ You need no special occasion to appreciate its beauty and tranquility … It may even allow you to reflect on the pace of your life and wonder what the rush is all about .”

— Richard P . Carpenter ,

BOSTON SUNDAY GLOBE , July 16 , 2006

21.5-foot-tall north chancel window in Bigelow Chapel , a rare example of mid-19th-century Scottish stained glass . The restorers at Serpentino Stained & Leaded Glass of Needham , MA , were so enthusiastic about the results of their work that they used a detail from the window on the firm ’ s Christmas card . ( See pictures on page 14 and article on page 17 .) The Cemetery has also established partnerships with other organizations , such as the informal “ exchange ” it has with Historic Scotland . After Dave Gallagher spent several weeks working throughout Britain , Historic Scotland sent stone expert Alan McKenzie to Mount Auburn for two weeks last summer . Alan worked on the Barnard monument , a brownstone cross on Pyrola Path , and on the Fagnani monument ’ s marble flowers on Greenbriar Path . Alan treated these eroded 19th-century monuments with an acrylic mortar seldom used in this country . Mount Auburn has also shared its growing knowledge with other cemeteries , organizing two monument workshops at the Cemetery in 1998 and again in 2002 .

Photo by janet heywood

The Larger Challenge of Preserving the Whole

But preservation at Mount Auburn is not done with a narrow focus , monument-by-monument . Here preservation encompasses considering the entire landscape , which is a work of art in itself . It has undergone many changes during its 175-year history . Buildings and mausolea have been torn down ; significant details of other structures have been removed . As an active cemetery where we have created new burial areas and rejuvenated old ones , our challenge is balancing inevitable and desirable change with preservation . Since 1993 we have been guided by the Cemetery ’ s awardwinning Master Plan , a document developed in a team effort by the Cemetery and what is now the Halvorson Design Partnership , Inc ., a Boston landscape design firm . The Master Plan states :“ It is not singular objects — vegetation , structures , topography , water — but their relationships within a series of interconnected spaces that creates and strengthens the design of a landscape .” Therefore , any changes proposed for a portion of the Cemetery must be evaluated as to their impact on the whole .

Meg Winslow smiles when she hears people thank the staff for keeping the Cemetery “ exactly as it has always been .” She stresses that the decision process has been much more complex :“ When we have a site that we want to develop for burials , for instance , the staff goes to the archives and looks through historic images and records to learn what the site used to be like and refers to the Master Plan . The staff then incorporates that information into its decisions about the new . So we ’ re not copying what used to be — we ’ re using it as a reference to create new landscapes that reflect our contemporary feelings about memorialization and commemoration .”

As Bill Clendaniel emphasizes , Mount Auburn is “ a dynamic landscape that has grown and changed from the day it started . The people who

“ Mount Auburn is a wonderful place to visit . The collection of trees is one of the most spectacular in the Northeast , and the plantings provide a far richer habitat for birds and other wildlife than you would expect in an urban zip code .”

– PEOPLE , PLACES , PLANTS , Summer 2006

worked here over all those generations and the people who came here as clients brought their contemporary values with them . The same is true today .” In short , Mount Auburn is preserving its historic landscape not by keeping