Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn Inspiring All Who Visit | Page 15

Graduate student interns Amanda Baker (left) and Erin Butler
(right) processing lot correspondence files, Fall 2014.

are they respected, both in terms of honoring the dead
and preserving the documents themselves? Who are the
people charged with preserving these records, and how
do they handle that responsibility? These questions were
so interesting to me that I listed Mount Auburn as my
top choice. Furthermore, as a writer I found the poetic
and thematic implications of working in a cemetery quite
tantalizing.
Erin: What has surprised you most about the collections at
Mount Auburn?
Amanda: I think what surprised me most was the
thoroughness of the records. Each lot file contains every
instance of communication between the cemetery and
the family that owns the plot. The correspondence holds
answers to larger questions, such as who bought the lot and
when, and who has rights to interment there—but it also
covers smaller interactions such as the planting or removal
of shrubs, or the permitted size of a headstone’s foundation.
I’ve learned just how important the small details can be.
The work order for a petunia planting in the 1920s is an
important document, setting a precedent for the upkeep
of that particular lot.
Amanda: What is the coolest thing you found in the lot
correspondence collections?
Erin: Some of the files have had newspaper clippings of
obituaries for the people buried in the lots, and it has
been neat to look at those. Most often, there is an obituary
for someone who has done something noteworthy, so it
has been interesting to think about how someone’s life is
summed up after death. In terms of individual records, the
most interesting one I found was probably a copy of a will
that dated back to the mid-1800s.
Erin: Based on your experiences, what is one thing you wish
everyone knew about cemetery archives?
Amanda: These records are incredible sources of family
history. The letters testify to the personalities of the people
who wrote them, regardless of their subject matter. They

come on all manner of stationery, from stately company
letterhead to tiny handwritten notecards and anything in
between. Sometimes I pick up a handwritten letter and
think about how amazing it would feel for a member of
that person’s family to read it.
Amanda: What skills from this internship do you think
will be the most useful to you in your future career?
Erin: I learned a great deal here about intelligent and
informed but subjective decision-making. Little unique
problems tend to show up in the archives, and they require
careful decisions on the part of the archivist. Sometimes I
have been so afraid of making the wrong decision that it
has impacted my ability to actually make the decision. In
watching that process at Mount Auburn, however, I have
been struck by the fact that every decision is fully thought
out and backed up with logical reasoning, with many
alternatives considered. I believe that now, with the proper
training I would be able to make the decisions that would
be best for my institution.
Erin: How do you