Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn In Celebration of 175 Years | Page 15

Consecration Day More than three hundred people filled a tent erected on Bigelow Chapel Lawn on September 24, 2006, to mark the 175th Anniversary of the consecration ceremony that officially opened Mount Auburn Cemetery. A warm wind coursed through the scene as the soft plopping of acorns drop- ping from the oaks above sounded on the tent’s roof and Harvard Chap- lain Rev. Peter Gomes praised Mount Auburn as a treasured sacred space and an enduring and vital Boston institution, a theme re-enforced by the other guest speakers: clockwise at lower right, Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin; Bill Clendaniel; President of the Boston Foundation Paul Grogan; poet Celia Gilbert; and Rev. Peter Gomes. A 1938 hearse—com- plete with running boards and whitewall tires—was on hand (upper right), as were an enthused and festive brass ensemble from the New England Conservatory (upper left, in front of Bigelow Chapel). Refreshments were provided courtesy of Whole Foods, River Street, Cambridge. Four- teen Trustees and former Trustees were on hand for the celebration. One Trustee of the Cemetery summed up the day as, “Perfect, abso- lutely perfect.” PHOTOs left and