Amy K.
Yelp
I do love a good cemetery, and this one wasn't what I'd expected: I'd only driven past on the Manchester side, which has a dull view of uniform flat headstones. But on the Florence side, the older, more ornate, and more appealing (to me, anyway) stones are visible. Count me in.
I was stunned at how BIG this cemetery is, it just keeps going and going; there are at least two places to hold services, maybe half a dozen mausoleums, and even after walking around for an hour, I had to drive the rest of the grounds. I caught the duck pond and the children's graves section.
The cemetery opened in 1905, and the oldest graves are the ones I like the best; I did find a couple dating to the 1800s, but I assume the bodies aren't there, or had been moved with the headstones from elsewhere. There's a chunk of the cemetery right now that's dirt and occasional weeds, and signs say it's a renovation, but it looks so sad right now, and the tire tracks across headstones creep me out (I guess if someone died in 1929, someone probably doesn't get any visitors to freak out about it). The hands-down saddest grave I found was in the outside mausoleum: attached to it were laminated fliers about the inhabitant, who had been murdered and the perpetrator not caught. The fliers and plaque were covered in lipsticked kisses.
I went in the mausoleum nearest the front gate, and it was pretty and clean, with instrumental music unnecessarily playing, especially "Sunrise, Sunset"; in Inglewood? The halls' lights are activated by motion sensor, so I'd guess some would find it creepy to be looking down darkened hallways.
I definitely want to go back for more exploring.