Woodland Cemetery, the oldest cemetery in Des Moines, is a large, rolling expanse studded with oak trees. Included within it is Emmanuel Cemetery. If you combine them, around 30,000+ people are buried there, with the oldest grave being from 1835. The markers include those of Congressmen, Governors, Medal of Honor recipients, and a whole bunch of Civil War generals. On some of the more famous mausoleums there are QR codes you can scan which will direct you to a short YouTube video about the famous person entombed therein.

Judging by my photos of Woodland taken in November of 2020, I was super interested in the Woodmen of the World stones, having never really seen them before. Likewise the white zinc cast markers. Anyway, the 4 PM autumn light made for some nice shots.

Then there is the cemetery complex that includes Glendale Cemetery, the Jewish Glendale Cemetery, and the Masonic Cemetery. Added together there are over 92,000 graves and cenotaphs (a marker for a person buried elsewhere), the oldest of which is from 1811.

The more famous markers are those of (once again) Senators, Congressmen, and Governors, as well as Medal of Honor recipients, the 33rd Vice President of the US (Henry Wallace, who was VP under Harry S. Truman), a couple of Pulitzer Prize winning photographers (Donald Ultang and John R. Robinson), and a “noted stage, screen, and Big Band star” (Joy Hodges).

This place is HUGE. It is wide open, rolling, and for the most part kind of low on a coolness factor, except for the Masonic Cemetery which has some very impressive statuary and installations.

The first was North Lawn Cemetery, a large, gently sloping expanse with over 11,000 markers dating back to 1836. Most of the markers are fairly modest. One of the larger ones is for a man named Karl L. King.

King was a composer of band music and was known mostly for his marching or military band pieces, although he wrote in many different styles. He composed his most famous work, Barnum & Bailey’s Favorite while playing in Barnum’s circus band.

King is buried next to his wife, Ruth, near the main entrance. I left him a 35¢ tip, which would have been equal to around two bucks back when he was writing for the circus.

The second was Oakland Cemetery, which is one of the most beautiful spaces I’ve ever seen. The newest section is flat and featureless, but the older section is extremely hilly, I would even say challenging in its topography. There are close to 8,000 people buried there, with the oldest grave dating to 1840.

The markers range from ostentatious to humble, from 30+ foot obelisks to simple cement markers with the deceased’s name hand written before the stone hardened. It was so interesting to see the difference between the graves of the rich, and those of the poor.

My favorite “famous” grave was that of Lili Damita (1904-1994) who was at one time married to Erroll Flynn. You see her glamorous Hollywood photo on her Find A Grave page, but on her marker the photo is that of just someone’s grandma. Sadly, I didn’t take a picture of it.

I would love to visit Oakland Cemetery again. There is so much to see there.

• Name: St. Marys Cemetery, Waverly, Minnesota
• Location: 45.06920, -93.98170
• Date Visited: October 30, 2021

St. Marys is a medium sized, with around 2,200+ graves the earliest of which dates from 1863. It’s fairly typical for the area, but it does have an interesting half-buried mausoleum.

• Name: Guardian Angels Cemetery, Chaska, Minnesota
• Location: 44.78750, -93.61190
• Date Visited: October 30, 2021

Guardian Angels is similar in size to the previous cemetery with 2,200+ graves (1864). It is on a hill, and features some very nice stones and monuments, as well as a grotto. On a sunny Saturday in October, it was quite beautiful.

• Spring Lake Cemetery, Prior Lake, Minnesota
• Location: 44.70504, -93.45783
• Date Visited: October 30, 2021

Spring Lake is small, with only 526 graves as of this posting, the oldest of which is from 1831. These photos show just how beautiful a place like this can be.

• Name: Credit River Catholic Cemetery, Prior Lake, Minnesota
• Location: 44.69155, -93.37929
• Date Visited: October 30, 2021

Another small cemetery with only 800+ graves dating to 1861. I took only one picture here. The carving on this very old stone is amazing. To think that that was all done by hand with a hammer and a chisel.

• Name: Old St. Thomas Cemetery, Corcoran, Minnesota
• Location: 45.12420, -93.58420
• Date Visited: October 29, 2021

Old St. Thomas is a very small, very rural cemetery surrounded by farm fields. It has only 290 graves as of this posting, the oldest of which is from 1860. I noticed that most of the people buried here were Irish.

There are three cemeteries adjacent to one another on the northern part of Dubuque. Linwood Cemetery (23,500+ graves, the oldest of which dates from 1824), Mount Calvary Cemetery (29,200+ graves, 1817), and St. Johns Lutheran Cemetery (2,700+, 1862). That’s over 55,400 graves in one location.

Linwood is by far the prettiest in terms of topography, and statuary.

Mount Calvary also has some cool things to offer in terms of aesthetics. St. Johns is pretty dull and flat with very ordinary headstones.

We also had the opportunity to visit the grave of the founder of the town, Julien Dubuque at the Julien Dubuque National Historic Site.

It was a beautiful spring day when I visted Woodlawn, an amazingly beautiful cemetery with over 17,000 graves, the oldest of which dates back to 1803.

Even more astounding is the earliest birth date of 1757. You typically don’t see birth dates that old in the Midwest. Most of the people who settled this area were born in the first half of the 19th Century. That guy by the way, Steven Taylor, lived to be 100 years old.

Winona is in bluff country in southeastern Minnesota, so the cemetery is topographically astounding, and a bit of a challenge to explore due to the extreme differences in height, and the angle at which they change. But boy was it worth every minute spent there.

Among the more notable graves are a Governor of North Dakota, a silent film star, a Civil War Congressional Medal of Honor winner, and a couple of Congressmen.

One of the coolest markers is this one. Unfortunately I didn’t get the name or names, nor the name of the artist who created it, but I’ve never seen anything like it in any of my many crawls. I’m guessing that it’s cast bronze construction, and it seems to be a depiction of the Garden of Eden, with Adam and Eve and the Tree of Knowledge in the center (pardon me if I’m a little rusty on my Genesis, it’s been a long time since I read that book), along with all the animals of creation surrounding them. You’ll see elephants, emus, and elk, hippopotamus, sloths, leopards, antelope, monkeys, buffalo, giraffes and zebras!

Woodlawn is one I want to visit again.

Cannon Falls Community Cemetery is a fairly large graveyard with over 4,000 graves, the oldest of which is from 1849. It is adjacent to St. Pius V Catholic Church Cemetery and its 700+ graves and an 1864 start date.

The most famous grave in the Community Cemetery is that of Civil War Union Brevet Brigadier General William Colvill, Jr. (1830-1905), who lead the 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War Battle of Gettysburg. He later became a newspaper publisher, and later as Minnesota Attorney General.

The grave site of Colvill and his family is quite impressive, and was dedicated by President Calvin Coolidge in 1905. Try to imagine what it took to get a guy from Washington, D.C. to very rural Cannon Falls, MN in the age before planes and automobiles.

Then there was this one of one of our Dough-boys from WWI and a fine looking young man, Private Albin N. Mattson, 136 Infantry, Company “D”, Fort Dix, New Jersey. He died way too young at the age of 26.

Evergreen Hills is a larger sized plot with over 5,400 graves, the oldest of which is from 1879. It is a very typical Midwest cemetery in that it is very well organized and carefully laid out. There are no notable markers from an aesthetic point of view, but there is a marker for Civil War Veterans erected in 1918.

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.