Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn In Celebration of 175 Years | Page 7

its every detail but rather by retaining its spirit and essential
features. While we preserve, we also change. Mount Auburn
is not an historic site frozen in time.
Taking Service to the Next Level
Mount Auburn has created a new position, Vice President
of Cemetery Services, to bring increased high-level at-
tention to the needs of families grieving a recent death or
planning ahead. Richard W. Dalton joined us in this new
position in June 2006. He arrived with years of experience
in developing new programs and counseling from his pre-
vious job at the Mind/Body Institute and from volunteer
activities.
“I would like Mount Auburn to find ways to help our
clients through the entire grief process,” Richard says. “I
believe we should have a more extended conversation
about death, dying and grief with families, so that they are
better prepared for the inevitable.” Richard envisions Mount
Birch Gardens: A New Interment Landscape
One of Mount Auburn’s 175th Anniversary Legacy Proj-
ects is the creation of a new burial garden. Construction
on Birch Gardens will begin this spring and be completed
in 2008. Birch Gardens will cover almost half an acre of
Mount Auburn’s perimeter land along Coolidge Avenue,
directly across from Cambridge Cemetery. Designed by the
Halvorson Design Partnership with input from the Build-
ings & Grounds Committee of the Trustees and many staff
members, it will be an innovative and elegant addition to
Mount Auburn’s landscape. Birch Gardens will consist of
seven-foot-high, 16-inch-thick granite panels connected
by ornamental iron fencing, all weaving through a variety
of woodland plantings both inside and outside the Garden
perimeter. The panels and fencing will replace the existing
chain-link fencing but will still allow those in the Ceme-
tery to look out and those driving by on Coolidge Avenue
to look in.
Landscape Architect Craig Halvorson, who worked on
the Cemetery’s Master Plan, says, “A garden woodland
weaves through the space, blending classic Mount Auburn
forms and surfaces: lawns, shrubs, groves of trees, granite
and water. Birch trees herald the entrances to the space and
clusters of elegant, spring-flowering amelanchier trees—
used for centuries in New England memorial landscapes—
are scattered along the path.”
The new trees, shrubs and groundcovers were carefully
chosen by the landscape architects and the Cemetery’s
horticultural staff for their shape, seasonal color and the
texture of their foliage. Trees such as river birch, stewartia
and paperbark maple, known for their beautiful bark, will
be planted throughout the site, along with a mixed grove of
shadblow and Carolina silverbell. Holly, Japanese umbrella
pine and Korean spruce will provide green throughout the
winter, and the upper canopy of the site will include exist-
ing and new white pine, sugar maple, red maple and
Construction begins
on Story Chapel.
1896
The first cremation
is performed at
Mount Auburn.
1900
Chinese elm. A reflecting pool with a gentle fall of water
and seating will provide a setting for quiet contemplation.
Graves for both caskets and cremated remains will be
located in the lawn directly in front of the granite panels,
which will provide a venue of various sizes for personalized
inscriptions of names and dates. These will thus serve as
“headstones.” “We went through several years of planning
and design, evaluation and re-evaluation—including listen-
ing to focus groups—to determine all the details so that
new burial areas will connect with the Cemetery’s heri-
tage,” says Mount Auburn’s Mapping & Planning Projects
Manager Candace Currie. The Cemetery’s original cast-
iron Egyptian revival fence, designed by Mount Auburn’s
first president and founder Jacob Bigelow in 1844, was the
inspiration for the design of the ornamental iron fencing,
which will be embellished with triple lotus finials that are
similar to the Victorian originals but smaller. Says Build-
ings & Grounds Chair, Trustee Louise Weed of Cambridge,
“We’re excited about the final design and we’ve contracted
with one of the finest landscape contractors in the state,
Robert Hanss, Inc., of Chestnut Hill, MA, to do the work.
Birch Gardens will become another wonderful landscape
within Mount Auburn.”
Additional land is
purchased along
Grove Street.
1912
World War I and the 1918
influenza epidemic reduce
available labor.
1916-1918
Spring 2007 | 5