Mrs. Goodale’ s son, Peter Perkins Goodale, who died of cancer at age 46, is buried at Mount Auburn, and her daughter, Kate Goodale, of Cambridge, also owns space here. When asked if her grandfather, the creator of so many nationally known images, would wish for a grander monument in lieu of his very plain one at Mount Auburn, Mrs. Goodale observes,“ He wouldn’ t be impressed by a grand monument at all. He was a thoughtful, quiet man, very deep. He was not at all status conscious. He poked fun at the foibles of the rich all his life.”
R. Buckminster Fuller and Benjamin C. Thompson were men of far-reaching vision and imagination. Fuller designed ingenious structures for a more sustainable lifestyle accessible to everyone; Thompson advocated design that was visually appealing and that encouraged human interaction.
Doing More with Less: R. Buckminster Fuller, Jr.( 1895-1983), Visionary Architect
Lot # 2669, Bellwort Path
Richard Buckminster Fuller, Jr. was born in Milton, Mass., into a family with deep New England roots, whose ancestors came to the region during the 1630s. The feminist, transcendentalist, and author Margaret Fuller Ossoli( Lot # 2250, Pyrola Path) was Fuller’ s great-aunt.
Chafing under the confines of academic life, Fuller exited Harvard, forsaking a degree to work as a laborer, cashier, and export manager. Then, in 1917, he served in the Navy during World War I, and, that same year, wed Anne Hewlett, beginning a marriage that would endure for 66 years.
In 1922, Fuller was crushed by the death of his four-year-old daughter, Alexandra. On the verge of suicide, he had an epiphany that humanity could be improved through innovations in mankind’ s environment. He vowed to make this his life’ s work.
He began designing structures he later called“ dymaxion,” a new term combining“ dynamic,”“ maximum,” and“ tension”: his goal was always“ doing more with less.” Fuller coined the phrase“ spaceship earth” and was an early advocate for the conservation of resources and protection of the environment. He was celebrated for his invention of the geodesic dome, a shape using a pattern of self-bracing triangles that provide maximum structural
8 | Sweet Auburn
Buckminster Fuller lecturing at Carbondale, IL, circa the late 1970s. Courtesy of the Estate of R. Buckminster Fuller advantage while utilizing the least material possible. By the 1960s he was lecturing to audiences around the world who saw him as“ the Leonardo da Vinci of our time.”
His monument at Mount Auburn is carved with the words“ Call me Trimtab,” referring to the miniscule rudder attached to the larger rudder on ships and planes, which with minimum effort, can change a massive vessel’ s course. Fuller believed the role of the inventor in society to be analogous to that of the trimtab, producing big change while expending little energy.
Fuller suffered a heart attack while keeping a vigil at the bedside of his comatose wife; the couple died within 36 hours of each other.
Fuller’ s daughter, Allegra Fuller Snyder, of Pacific Palisades, Calif., is very attached to Mount Auburn:“ I think Mount Auburn was like an old family home for my father and his father. It held an important and tangible place in his sense of family. My father was a real student of history because he felt that in order to understand the future, one must understand the past.” For her 16th birthday, Buckminster Fuller gave his daughter a genealogical history of the Fuller family, tracing their roots back 30 generations to Sir John Fuller, born in England in 1042. The Fullers’ Cambridge roots are equally deep, with seven generations attending Harvard.
“ I visited Mount Auburn with my father on quite a few other occasions. I brought my daughter and first grandchild to Mount Auburn when she was about three( she is now 19). I plan to have my ashes, and those of my husband, placed in the family lot. Mount Auburn remains an important center for all of us in the family, in our hearts and minds, even though we are dispersed throughout the country and the world.
“ My son, daughter, and I designed my father’ s very humble gravestone but he specifically requested that the words‘ Call Me Trimtab’ be on any monument.”
A Powerful Imagination: Benjamin C. Thompson( 1918-2002), Designer and Architect
Lot # 10762, Halcyon Garden
Minnesota-born AIA Gold Medal architect Ben Thompson came to Cambridge in 1946 to work with Bauhaus Architect Walter Gropius as a founding partner of The Architects Collaborative. He was one of a handful of mid-20th century modernists who recognized the value of historic buildings in the face of the ravages of urban renewal. Beginning with his saving of Boylston