Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn Mount Auburn and The Civil War | Page 21

Remembering
Blanche M.G. Linden
(July 4, 1946 – July 31, 2014)
Historian of Mount Auburn Cemetery, Author of Silent City on a Hill
We are saddened by the loss of our friend Blanche M.G. Linden
and are forever grateful for her scholarship on the founding
and early decades of Mount Auburn Cemetery.
Blanche with her two children Marc Lindow and Julia Lentini on
February 8, 2008 (above). At the signing of her revised and expanded
edition of Silent City at the Harvard Bookstore, 2008 (below).
“Blanche’s magisterial Silent City was just being published when
I arrived as the new President of Mount Auburn in the spring of
1988. What a gift it was to me, a new chief executive trying to
understand the Cemetery’s place in American history. And what
a gift Blanche herself was to us, always an invaluable resource
throughout my 20-year tenure at Mount Auburn.”
— Bill Clendaniel, President Emeritus,
Mount Auburn Cemetery
“Blanche helped us appreciate how Mount Auburn reflected the
culture of its founding period and gave us insights to understand
the changes that occurred over time. We
shall miss her but hear her voice when we
visit the Cemetery, read her books, and
remember her spirit.
— Janet Heywood, Former Vice
President of Interpretive Programs,
Mount Auburn Cemetery
“Since it was first published in 1989,
Blanche M. G. Linden’s Silent City on
a Hill has been the cornerstone in our
understanding of the 19th-century rural
cemetery movement and Mount Auburn’s leadership role in that
movement. Silent City provided the intellectual context for the
1993 Master Plan that has guided stewardship of the Cemetery
for the past 20 years.”
— Shary Berg, Author of The Mount Auburn Cemetery
Historic Landscape Report, 1993
“Her passion and dedication to the study of cemeteries and grave-
markers have served as an inspiration and model of excellence for
those who follow.”
— J. Joseph Edgette, Ph.D.; Chair, Cemeteries and
Gravemarkers Area American Culture Association
“Our knowledge and understanding of Mount Auburn
Cemetery and the rural cemetery movement begins with
historian Blanche M.G. Linden. In fact, Blanche was the
first scholar to discover and study Mount Auburn
Cemetery’s archival collection of institutional records. With
penetrating scholarship, Blanche made the most important point
of all: that these designed landscapes have meaning. ”
— Meg L. Winslow, Curator of Historical Collections,
Mount Auburn Cemetery
“As Mount Auburn inspired the rural cemetery movement in
19th-century America, Blanche, through her work, inspired scores
of scholars to study historic cemeteries as complex and layered
landscapes.”
— Elise M. Ciregna, Cultural Historian
Also online at:
mountauburn.org/2014/remembering-blanche-linden
“As Mount Auburn approaches its bicentennial it remains vibrant in a constant Renaissance, its beauties repeatedly
renewed through the seasons while it serves actively as a place for burials and for preserving memory.”

— Blanche Linden
Winter 2015 | 19