Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn Mount Auburn as a Community Resource | Page 15

People and Happenings
Staff news and travel
Chief of Conservation David Gallagher
(left) attended the American Institute for
Conservation Conference in Los Angeles
May 19-23. He has also recently agreed
to serve on the Board of The Northeast
Chapter of the Association of Preservation
Technology International.
Jim Holman (right), Director of
Cemetery Services Administration,
was elected as a Director of the Mas-
sachusetts Cemetery Association (MCA)
at their annual meeting in April 2009 at
the JFK Library in Boston. Vice President
of Cemetery Services Sean O’Regan
and President Dave Barnett also attended
the MCA meeting. Bob Keller, Mount Auburn’s longtime
Director of Sales, had previously served the Association as a
Director.
Also in April, Sean O’Regan attended the annual
International Cemetery Cremation and Funeral Association
meeting in Las Vegas, and in June several members of the
Cemetery Services staff attended the annual conference of
the New England Cemetery Association in
Nashua, NH.
Natalie Wampler (left), Preservation
and Facilities Planner, is partnering with
Vertical Access, a building and structural
inspection company, to present Mount
Auburn’s pilot monument survey to the
National Center for Preservation Technology
and Training’s nationwide Cemetery Summit
in Nashville, TN, October 19-20, 2009.
Natalie also presented two sessions at the Association
for Gravestone Studies Conference June 24-27 in
Schenectady, NY. One session (“In Defense of the Fence”)
focused on the challenges of managing a collection of
historic lot fences in a permanent place like a cemetery
affected by changing times and evolving tastes. She notes
that during the 19th century over half the family lots at
Mount Auburn had decorative iron fence enclosures, and
that by the start of the 20th century, over half those fences,
prone to rust and other weather and time-related damage,
had been removed and continued to be dismantled through-
out the century. In recent years, however, our few remaining
iron lot fences have received important attention, a testament
to the interest, historical and emotional, of families and
friends connected to those lots.
Natalie’s second presentation at the Conference was on
Mount Auburn’s monument inscription program which has
uncovered and captured often heart-felt biographical infor-
mation about children buried here and cenotaphs detailing
the lives of people not buried at Mount Auburn.
Right: Mount Auburn President Dave Barnett (left) and Vice Presi-
dent of Preservation & Facilities Bill Barry, with helicopter on May
21, 2009, they took their
cameras up for a “bird’s eye”
view of Mount Auburn.
Below (aerial shot):
Egyptian Revival Entrance
Gateway, Administration
Building and Story Chapel
as seen from above through
the lens of Dave’s camera.
Mount Auburn’s president, Dave Barnett, has been much
on the move also. In April he attended the American Public
Gardens Association (APGA) Board meeting in Wilmington,
DE, as the immediate Past President of APGA, and June 23-
28 he attended the annual APGA Conference in St. Louis,
MO, hosted by the Missouri Botanical Garden.
He has also had a number of speaking engagements in
September around the country: on September 14 at the
New York State Cemetery Association Conference in Lake
George, NY; September 18-20 at the American Society of
Landscape Architects conference in Chicago; and September
24-26 at the Historic Cemetery Alliance meeting in
Providence, RI.
Inter-cemetery connections
Mount Auburn’s Preservation staff have recently visited
or hosted small groups from other Massachusetts historic
cemeteries to explore and discuss a wide range of topics of
mutual interest. On May 13 the Mount Auburn preservation
staff toured Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston; on May 21 our
preservation staff hosted a group from Ridgewood Cemetery
in North Andover; and on May 29 representatives from Rural
Cemetery in Worcester attended a monument inscription
program at Mount Auburn.
The preservation staff hosted a group on July 31 from the
National Center for Preservation Training and Technology
(NCPTT) for a “back-of-the house” preservation tour of
Mount Auburn. The tour focused on challenges faced by
Mount Auburn “as steward of an historic cemetery landscape
comprised of a rich array of structures set intimately within
magnificent horticulture” (as described on the NCPTT’s
own website).
Fall 2009 | 13