- Name: Lakewood Cemetery
- Location: 44.93280, -93.29940
- Date Visited: June 4, 2022
Lakewood Cemetery is the largest cemetery I’ve visited so far with over 162,000 graves the oldest of which is from 1811. This is where a lot of Minnesota’s founders and famous people are buried. Former governors are buried here, as well as senators, congress people, sports figures, media celebrities, captains of industry, et al.
Former Vice President of the United States Hubert H. Humphrey is buried here, and so is Senator Paul Wellstone, although I didn’t find this out until after I’d visited. That just means I have to go back someday.
The stones and markers range from humble to ostentatious. I could spend hours here, and I did.
Here’s every photo I took. I’ll try to get into more detail later in this post.
The first thing I saw when I got there was the Fridley family plot. There’s no missing it.
Anyone from Minnesota will recognize their name. The town of Fridley is named after them. Duh.
From there I ventured up a hill and found myself among the towering pillars that marked the Pillsbury family, another very well known name around Minnesota and the rest of the world.
There are so many ornate, giant stones with beautiful statuary. There are sections where the script on the stones is in Chinese, Arabic, Finnish, various Slovak languages… and there are small unadorned stones marking loved ones lost.
Along the way I came across the grave of Governor Rudy Perpich and his wife, Delores. Their stone is quite interesting.
Another gem was the Garden of Remembrance and the Garden of Peace. The sculpture of Christ really caught my eye. It looked otherworldly and seemed to be lit from some unknown source. Being an atheist, I knew there had to be a rational explanation as to why. Turns out the face is carved in relief, that is into the stone, but because of the way light hits it it looks like it’s sticks out. The opposite side had the face you expect, carved out of the stone like a typical statue. My explanation lacks, and I hope you get the idea.
My goal was to find the grave of Hubert H. Humphrey Jr. former Senator of the great state of Minnesota, and Vice President of the United States under President Lyndon B. Johnson. I was only 13 when he died, and didn’t really know much about him except that he could make a speech that would bore the life out of any teenager. Later in my life I found that although he was far from perfect, he was a good man, and a good leader. At any rate, having a VP from MN is enough to make him notable.
Finally, I found a good name pairing. They happen once in a while. I couldn’t resist Glenn Miller.
All in all I had a wonderful experience at Lakewood, and am looking forward to my next visit when I will try to find the graves of Paul Wellstone, Tiny Tim, Fritz Mondale, and others.
Comments are closed.