Sweet Auburn: The Magazine of the Friends of Mount Auburn Mount Auburn as a Community Resource | Page 3

Mount Auburn: A Vital and Vibrant Community Resource by Stephen H. Anable M ount Auburn Cemetery is a treasured community resource for people from the Boston region and visitors from the country and around the world. It is a unique place, beloved by many, and consulted, walked, toured, admired, studied, emulated, and enjoyed by more than 200,000 people each year. And it serves, of course, as a sacred repository of community memory for the families and friends of the more than 94,000 people who are buried here. Here, told in their own words, are the stories of some of the people who find Mount Auburn to be a valuable resource and a dynamic yet caring environment. Michael Horn, sixth-grade science teacher Shady Hill School, Cambridge E very year I go bird-watching with my sixth graders at Mount Auburn Cemetery, around the ponds and in Consecration Dell. My students are beginning bird-watchers who haven’t seen birds in such quiet surroundings; the quiet makes them focus a bit more. At some times it feels like we’re in deep woods, and yet we’re in a major city. The students find out the Cemetery is on the flyway for birds– and is a fant astic spot for birding. Fall 2009 | 1