Large cemetery is filled with grave markers, monuments and mausoleums
By Garret Ellison
MLive.com
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — The story goes that the man once known as “the Dean” of American furniture designers found an 8-inch oblong stone one day, sketched out a design for a family monument and then gave it to a sculptor 10 years before he died.
Today, the marker sits in stasis at Oak Hill Cemetery in Grand Rapids; a massive hunk of Bedford limestone carved with Celtic symbolism and imagery relevant to the life of David Wolcott Kendall, namesake of Kendall College of Art & Design.
“Kendall wanted something that would reach back to his family’s ancient beginnings in the British Isles,” said Thomas Dilley, a trustee of the Grand Rapids Historical Society and retired local lawyer who is guiding two Oak Hill Cemetery walks on Sept. 8 and 9.
The twin walks will be Dilley’s third society-sponsored guided tour through historic Oak Hill, a 75-acre park-like cemetery located at Hall Street and Eastern Ave SE in Grand Rapids. This walk will cover the cemetery’s larger 40-acre south side.
The large cemetery is filled with grave markers, monuments and mausoleums that provide a tangible link to 175 years of history in the Grand Valley, and the people who built Grand Rapids’ one-time reputation as the Furniture Capital of the World.
“There’s some big shooters buried in the south end,” said Dilley, who gave a well-attended tour of the north half last fall. “Some of the names in there were pretty important people.”
The cemetery’s north half was opened by J. Allen Giddings in 1859 as a private enterprise, and sold to the city in 1885, an arrangement that was fairly typical of the park cemetery movement in other cities at the time, said Dilley.
The land for the southern half, known then as Valley City Cemetery, was acquired by the city and opened in 1859. The two cemeteries were operated by the city as separate entities until 1902 when they were formally joined.
Oak Hill has a different, more serene feel than city graveyards like the older Fulton Street Cemetery. It features a blend of Romanesque, Greek, Gothic and Egyptian revival architecture styles, with some examples being relatively rare.
The majority of burial plots are from the late nineteenth century, although Dilley said there are still modern burials taking place in Oak Hill. Many of the city’s prominent, founding families are located in adjacent plots, a continuation of the friendship and intermixing they experienced during their lives.
The Aldrich, Wonderly and Ledyard family plots stand in a row; a testament to the connection between the families. Moses Aldrich and Joseph Wonderly each married a daughter of William B. Ledyard, a prominent downtown banker and namesake of the historic downtown Grand Rapids Ledyard Block.
Nearby, a massive pyramid-shaped mausoleum marks the final resting place for saddle maker and lumber baron Marcus Brown, who died in 1895, and family. One of only a couple dozen such Egyptian revival pyramid tombs in the country, the structure is inspired by the Pyramid of Cestius in Rome. The tomb is locked because someone broke in about 10 years ago, said Dilley. The massive structure may have cost around $40,000 at the time, which would come to well over $1 million today.
Further east, the tallest marker in the southern portion denotes the grave of Melville Bissell, whose invention of the first carpet sweeper — developed to help him clean excelsior dust from his crockery store — begat the formation of the mammoth Bissell Inc. vacuum cleaner and floor products company.
Atop the market is an aspirational sculpture, a figure looking down but pointing skyward “inviting you to come along,” said Dilley. The obelisk was commissioned by Bissell’s wife and former Bissell Corp. president and board chair, Anna Sutherland Bissell, following her husband’s death in 1889.
Not far from the Bissell plot is a marker for the Blodgett family, the DeVos’ of their era, who made their fortune in lumber and laid the groundwork for a tradition of local philanthropy. The most recent family member to rest in the plot, Edith Bodgett, died earlier this year at age 95.
Giving Kendall a run for his money in the most unique burial marker category is a limestone marker for the largely unknown Marbury family. The Bedford limestone tree marking the grave of Maria Kelsey Marbury, 1843 to 1894, features broken-off tree limbs, signifying a “life ended prematurely.”
The pagan marker is a sign of the mindset of many in the Victorian era, who were enamored with the “cult of the recreated rustic,” said Dilley, characterized by a love of nature and a departure of the Puritanical view that a forest was somehow evil.
“This is the most beautiful of a dozen examples of this kind of architecture in Grand Rapids,” said Dilley. “Sadly, we know nothing about the Marburys.”
