A Stroll through Lake View Cemetery, Cleveland

It’s rare for me to consider a cemetery one of the top destinations in a city, but that was my impression after a visit to Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio.

Lake View Cemetery is a historic and privately owned cemetery situated on 285 acres in Cleveland Heights, several miles from downtown Cleveland. The cemetery was founded by city fathers in 1869 and was designed as a scenic “rural” cemetery (in contrast to church yard cemeteries that were popular at the time), inspired by the likes of Père Lachaise in Paris.  At that time the location was well outside of Cleveland, but over the years the city has grown to surround the cemetery.  Still, the setting and scenery are park-like, with rolling hills, lake and ponds, lots of lawns, and thousands of trees (so many that it’s a certified Level 2 arboretum).  It was intended to be a place of reflection and tranquility.   And to this day it still is one of the largest garden cemeteries in the USA.

The cemetery has hosted over 110,000 burials and remains active, averaging 2 burials a day (still having room for at least 100 more years).  It’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a local landmark.

The cemetery is best known for some of its elaborate and unusual monuments.  The most famous of these is that of the assassinated 20th President James A. Garfield, which we’ve previously described on this website.

Other notable burials include:

• John D. Rockefeller (oil magnate and philanthropist, marked by a 70 foot tall obelisk crafted from a single piece of Vermont granite)

• Eliot Ness (law enforcement agent famous for pursuing organized crime, especially Al Capone)

• Alan Freed, a DJ who popularized the term “rock ‘n’ roll” and was an ambassador for RnR music:

• Wade Memorial Chapel, dedicated to the memory of Jeptha Wade, founder of The Western Union Telegraph Company and the first president of Lake View Cemetery.
  
  Wade Pond is a highlight of Lake View’s park-like settings

• Haserot family memorial:  One of the most impressive monuments in the cemetery which somehow captured my imagination.

• Harvey Pekar was an American underground comic book writer, music and literary critic, and media figure.  He was born in Cleveland.

• “The Man with the Guitar”. A life-size memorial to Sergey Gaidaenko, a Ukranian immigrant who loved to play the guitar for family and friends.  A rather nice tribute to him, in my opinion.

There are lots of other monuments and tributes, mostly to local politicians and celebrities, too numerous to outline in this blog.

Our visit was in the fall, but in the spring a hillside of blooming daffodils is a popular spot.

I’m including several of the monuments and memorials and that caught my eye, probably most just belonging to “average” citizens.

A section of the cemetery is dedicated to veterans:

I hope you enjoyed this brief tour of Lake View Cemetery.  If your travels ever take you to Cleveland, be sure to take a little time to visit Lake View Cemtery.