I know that this probably seems like a very odd and macabre “Trip of the Week”.  But with my love of history and social justice both areas could be fulfilled with a trip to this cemetery.   Evergreen Cemetery is the oldest cemetery in the City of Los Angeles.

Evergreen Cemetery was founded and developed by a private development company after many months of disagreement by the City Council. The argument was whether a private company had the right to engage in the business of Burials. After all the controversy had settled, the City Council agreed and allowed the private development company to engage in the business of Burials and to create a cemetery. Thus on August 23, 1877, Evergreen Cemetery was established.

Within the cemetery, you will find an ethnicity that is as colorful as any that can be found. From pioneering Families such as the Hollenbecks, the Workmans, the Lankershims and the Van Nuyses, to such notable individuals as Eddie "Rochester" Anderson (Jack Benny Program), Matthew "Stymie" Beard, Jr. (Little Rascals), Los Angeles Councilman Gilbert W. Lindsay, to families that bear Armenian, Asian, Black, Anglo and Hispanic surnames. In addition are the first librarian of Los Angeles, Banning, the first African American Aviator, and “Biddy” Mason, a former slave who was the first African American woman to own land in Los Angeles.
This wonderful diversity of people who have helped in the raising of this great city, are laid to rest among the Pines and the Palms, the Willow and the Wisteria, all in the City that is Los Angeles. Some of the ethnic groups to have burials within our Cemetery were the early Russian-Armenians who settled in Los Angeles just after World War I. They brought with them the tradition of pictures on the grave markers, which is just one of the many different ways cultures contribute in some fashion or form to our society, eventually bringing us all closer together in a World not so far apart.

In another part of Evergreen Cemetery is the final resting place for many Nisei-Second Generation Japanese Americans who died in the Pacific, in Italy during World War II, and the Korean Conflict. And among these valiant soldiers lie Sadao Munemori, the first Japanese American Soldier to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.

In another section of the Cemetery, you will find a small set of graves in which are interred veterans of the Civil War. Sometimes just a name or a date, a rank or company division, or just a name and State, is all that provides a simple tribute to those who participated in the making of this Country.

On the Lorena Street side of the Cemetery, you will find an old Chinese Shrine built in 1888. This Shrine was used for the burning of clothes, paper money and incense for the purpose of insuring the decedent had plenty of these items in the next world. To this date, this custom is still practiced by many Chinese as part of the Funeral ritual.
The City of Los Angeles, through the efforts of the Chinese Historical Society have designated this Shrine a Historical Cultural Monument.

Yet still in another part of this Cemetery, you will find the Pacific Coast Showmen's Association and the Women's Auxiliary. This section was founded and dedicated by the Circus and Carnival troupe in 1922, for their members and spouses.

As you walk through the Park, you are walking through Culture and Tradition. You are walking among Men and Women who have built our City. Truly, this is a treasured capsule of time. Thank you for visiting with us! We sincerely hope this has been a small inspiration for you and we hope you will visit us again!

As interesting as all of this rich diversity and history is, my main reason for visiting this cemetery was because it is Los Angeles’ Potters Grave… the final resting place for the city's lost and forgotten. It's a small graveyard of mostly unmarked plots. There are no headstones here and few visitors. Buried here are peple who have no known next of kin or whose next of kin cannot or will not make funeral arrangment for them.  Among them are newborns, elderly, immigrants,  homeless, and even some John and Jane Does, bodies that were never identified.
In speaking with the caretaker, anywhere between 1600 and 2000 unknown, poor, or homeless people are cremated each year and stored at the cemetery in urns for four years.  They are held for four years in case someone wants to claim their ashes.  After four years, all the people cremated that year are buried in a mass grave in December.  Each urn contains a plastic bag of ashes and the only individual item included in this mass burial is a tag marked with an identification number assigned to the body.

After the ashes are buried a small plaque with the “year” is placed on top of the mass burial grave.  Thousands of dead men and women are marked only by small plaques displaying the year they died.
I couldn’t help but leave the cemetery feeling haunted.  Haunted knowing that literally 1000’s of souls are buried there each year.  Each one an individual that was at one time a  child, perhaps a family, he/she had hopes and dreams and in the end ended up lost and nameless in death.