Earliest Memory of a Memorial

When I was in second grade, my history class was focused primarily on the history of Cleveland. Over the year we traveled to various attractions of the city, such as the Cleveland Museum of Art, Severance Hall, Downtown Cleveland, and Lake View Cemetery. Though it was many years ago, I remember my first visit to Lake View relatively clearly. Lake View is the final resting place of James A. Garfield, and it is also home to the monument in his honor. The cemetery also contains the graves of John D. Rockefeller, Eliot Ness, and Carl B. Stokes as well as members of Lincoln’s cabinet and Revolutionary and Civil war soldiers and generals. While on a field trip to the cemetery, we visited Wade Memorial Chapel, which was built in honor of Jeptha Wade, the founder of the Western Union Telegraph Company. Inside the chapel is a huge Tiffany stained-glass window, as well as a mosaic of the prophecy and law of the Old Testament. I remember walking through and being mesmerized at the ethereal lighting of the chapel on a sunny day. Another thing that sticks out vividly in my mind is the angel statue on the Haserot graves. The angel sits above the stone graves, large wings spread out wide, holding an upside-down extinguished torch. The creepiest part of the statue, though, is the effect that acid rain has had on the bronze sculpture. Over time, black lines have dripped down the face of the angel, as if he were crying black tears. This was particularly disturbing as a child to witness, but I have to admit I still feel chills when I look at it now. Lake View was recently on my mind again this past summer when I drove my grandmother to a funeral service being held in Wade Chapel. Upon returning home, my mother informed me that my parents had already purchased plots in the cemetery for my entire family, including me. This took my breath away for a minute as I considered what that truly entailed; I had just returned from visiting the place where whatever is left of me at the very end is going to stay until the end of time. Lake View is an enormous cemetery; people have been buried there for hundreds of years, and hopefully people will continue to be buried there for hundreds more. The fact that I am one of those people blows my mind, along with the knowledge that my parents have had plots purchased at the cemetery for years before I was born, so on that fateful day in second grade on which I made my first excursion to the cemetery, my parents knew (but were wise enough not to tell me) that that would certainly not be my last visit to Lake View, and that my remains would end up spending a long time there in the future.

Pauline Marting