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News & Events, May 2010
Dear Friend,
The Friends of Mount Auburn is pleased to present the May 2010 edition of our electronic
newsletter. We invite you to join our email list to receive this mailing on a monthly basis. To
address book today.
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 Friends of Mount Auburn Spring Programs
Join us this spring to learn more about the history, horticulture, art, architecture, and wildlife of Mount Auburn Cemetery!
Here are just a few highlights from our May program schedule:
Visit the Mount Auburn Cemetery website for our full list of spring programs and register online today! You can now register for one or several programs in a few easy steps.
And, because you've asked, we're making our online program registration even easier and more efficient. You can now register for multiple programs in one transaction. Click on a month, select the events you plan to attend from the list, enter the number of spaces we should reserve for you at each program, and then proceed to checkout. Register online today and see just how easy it is! ____________________________________________________________________ |
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 National Public Gardens Day & Spring Celebration
Join us on Friday, May 7th for National Public Gardens Day and celebrate the beauty of spring at Mount Auburn with the entire family! Enjoy a stroll through our historic landscape while observing the spring blooming trees and learning about the history of this National Historic Landmark. Throughout the day, complimentary self-guided materials will be available at our Visitors Center. Rain or shine.
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 Birds and Birding at Mount Auburn
By Robert H. Stymeist
Every year during the month of May hundreds of birders come to Mount Auburn from all over New England to witness the spring migration. Many of our song birds are nocturnal migrants and as dawn approaches Mount Auburn's area of green trees and blue ponds will attract those weary migrants flying over the city.
They come to rest and fill up on insects before moving on to their breeding grounds, sometimes they will stay for several days and then again some will only stay for a day. Mount Auburn have recorded 39 different species of warblers; pretty amazing considering that only 43 warbler species has ever been seen in the state of Massachusetts! It's no wonder with all the birders who "flock" here that any bird gets through Mount Auburn undetected.
There are some spring migrants that receive that extra special attention so when a Hooded Warbler is found in the Cemetery it's not long before all birders converge to the spot in hopes of seeing this more southern US migrant. The Hooded Warbler seems to prefer shaded habitats and understory trees similar to its breeding strongholds in southeastern forests. At Mount Auburn, Consecration Dell fits the bill and almost every year one or two Hooded Warblers will be found there. Other good areas are along Indian Ridge and Auburn Lake.
The Hooded Warbler is one of the larger warblers; the adult males have a distinct black hood and a bright yellow face which they maintain throughout the year. The female Hooded is much less strikingly patterned, but has conspicuous white tail spots and flicks her tail like the male by flashing the white tail patches as she moves about. The Hooded Warbler song is a series of loud whistled notes that has been described as "wheeta wheeta whee-tee-oh". It also has a loud chip note which sounds like a metallic "chink".
Check the Bird Chalkboard in the Egyptian Revival Entrance at Mount Auburn the next time you visit!
Birds and Birding at Mount Auburn Cemetery: An Introductory Guide is regularly available for purchase at the Cemetery from 8:30 AM to 4 PM everyday (except holidays). The cost is $8.00. Copies are available by mail order by sending payment to the Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery, ATT: Bird Guide, 580 Mount Auburn Street, Cambridge, MA 02138. Please include the cost $8.00, plus $2.00 for mailing and handling (total $10) for each copy ordered.
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 Horticultural Highlight: Syringa vulgaris By Jim Gorman, Mount Auburn Cemetery Docent ... But now, in spring, the buds,
flock our trees. Ten million exquisite buds
tiny and loud, flaring their petalled wings,
bellowing from ashen branches vibrant
keys, the chords of spring's triumph...
The song is drink, is color. Come. Now. Taste.
-Camille Dungy
With our vibrant orchestra of flora now coming into radiant play perhaps no landscape plant evokes more nostalgia toward spring than the common lilac, Syringa vulgaris. The genus Syringa is comprised of approximately two-dozen shrub and small-tree species. These are all native to Asia or southeastern Europe and are members of the olive family (Oleaceae). Etymologically Syringa is derived from the Greek word syrinx meaning "hollow stem." Syrinx in mythology was a lovely water nymph of Arcadia, pursued by the amorous god Pan. Granted escape at a river's edge from higher deities she was turned into hollow water reeds. Pan then fashioned his musical flute from these reeds and henceforth was seldom seen without it. Coincidentally syrinx is the name of the vocal organ unique to birds which produces their ethereal songs. The common lilac is a shrub from 8-15 (sometimes 20)-feet tall with four to six-inch leaves that have a cordate shape at their base and a pointed apex. While the stems are not truly hollow they do contain soft pith that may be easily removed to create a hollow pipe. The individual tube-shaped flowers occur massed together on a six to ten-inch long panicle.
While many contemporary horticulturists are ready to cite this plant's ornamental limitations; one-season interest, a leggy habit in maturity, powdery mildew on leaves in late summer, etc., the distinctively fragrant, lilac-hued flowers remain beloved by multiple generations. Our forefathers brought the common lilac with them to the American colonies and eventually even George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, among countless others, documented planting these lilacs. Some of the oldest recorded lilacs in New England, planted in 1750, may still be found at the Governor Wentworth estate in Portsmouth, NH.
Often this was a favorite flower of our grandmother's grandmother. Throughout New England descendants of this common lilac can still be found growing ubiquitously. In addition there are now over two-thousand documented forms of this one Syringa species with lilac, purple, pink, white, yellow and blue colors, single and double-flowered and many in between characteristics. Poet Amy Lowell (1874-1925), Bellwort Path, Lot 3401, expresses their quintessential occurrences in her poem titled "Lilacs:"
Lilacs,
False blue,
White,
Purple,
Colour of lilac,
Your great puffs of flowers
Are everywhere in this my New England.
...
Maine knows you,
Has for years and years
New Hampshire knows you,
And Massachusetts
And Vermont.
Cape Cod starts you along the beaches
to Rhode Island;
Connecticut takes you from a river to the sea.
You are brighter than apples,
Sweeter than tulips,
You are the great flood of our souls
Bursting above the leaf-shapes of our hearts,
The love of wives and children,
The recollection of the gardens of little children,
You are State Houses and Charters
And the familiar treading of the foot to
and fro on the road it knows.
May is lilac here in New England.
... There are well over one-hundred lilacs of several different species planted at Mount Auburn and we remind you to stop and smell the flowers on your next visit here.
For those who appreciate the early morning or who are looking for a quick walk before work, join us for Early Risers Horticultural Club - brief excursions highlighting what's in bloom and other horticulturally interesting things throughout the spring - with Mount Auburn's Horticultural Staff. From early bulbs to magnificent flowering trees, we will try to catch them all! Walks begin promptly at 7:00 AM and last approximately one hour. No preregistration. FREE. Fridays, May 7th and 21st, and June 4th.
"Big Trees at Mount Auburn" and "Unusual Trees of Mount Auburn" maps are available for
purchase at the Mount Auburn Entrance Gate and in the Visitors Center.
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 Spotlight On: National Preservation Month
May is such a busy month! In honor of National Preservation Month the Department celebrates preservation throughout May with various Friends of Mount Auburn activities.
We will also participate in two important days of commemoration, Mother's Day, May 9th and Memorial Day, May 31st. During both days, Bigelow Chapel will be open from 1:30-4:30 pm. We welcome you to come visit the exquisite chapel and talk with staff about our preservation work.
Preservation of Mount Auburn's structures and Historical Collections is an essential part of the Cemetery's mission as a place of comfort and inspiration. Mount Auburn Cemetery is a historic designed landscape of national significance, designated a National Historic Landmark by the Secretary of the Interior in 2003.
The monuments and structures are important to the Cemetery for their richness, diversity, interpretive value, and personal associations. In their maintenance and care, Mount Auburn gives priority to protecting the character of the entire landscape by balancing the natural and built elements. The Preservation & Facilities Department serves as steward for the varied collection of structures. The Department is headed by one of five Vice Presidents and has a modest staff focused on maintenance, facilities, conservation, and planning staff along with a curator of historical collections and an archivist.
The maintenance and care of these structures is fundamental to Mount Auburn's mission.
View recent preservation work completed within the last year.
Help us to preserve important historical information by participating in our Monument Inscription Workshops - held monthly throughout the spring, summer and fall! Participants will learn, review and practice techniques for deciphering inscriptions on Mount Auburn's 19th-century monuments - inscriptions that are disappearing as marble wears away and brownstone disintegrates. These workshops will be held outdoors in the afternoon sun. Please wear proper clothing and footwear and plenty of sunscreen. Meet at the Entrance Gate. FREE. Sunday, May 16th at 2:00 PM. Additional workshops will be held June 13th and June 24th.
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 Person of the Month: William Sumner Appleton
May 29th marks the birthday of Preservationist William Sumner Appleton. Appleton was the founder of the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (now Historic New England) which is celebrating their 100th Anniversary this year.
Born in Boston in 1874, Appleton was the only son and second of five children of William Sumner Appleton and Edith Stuart Appleton. His father was a lawyer, antiquarian and an authority in numismatics, (the study and collection of money and medals), heraldry and genealogy. His grandfather was Nathan Appleton (Lot 197 Alder Path), a founder of the New England textile industry.
Deeply influenced by the teachings of Harvard Art History Professor Charles Eliot Norton (Lot 712, Thistle Path) among others, Appleton went on to lead the drive to save the Paul Revere House in Boston in 1905. Five years later he went on to found the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA), the first regional historic preservation organization in the United States. SPNEA's mission from the start was to preserve New England's finest examples of architecture.
The organization acquired its first building in 1911 and 40 more buildings were acquired during Appleton's lifetime, most of which were 17th and 18th century homes - including the Harrison Gray Otis House at 141 Cambridge Street in Boston (acquired 1916). The Otis House, designed by Charles Bulfinch (Lot 2308 Bellwort Path) became the SPNEA headquarters and a museum.
The first professional preservationist in the country, Appleton directed the course of the SPNEA until his death in 1947. He is buried on Ivy Path, overlooking Consecration Dell at Mount Auburn Cemetery with his father and mother. He shares a marble monument with his sister Marjorie Crane Appleton that bears both their names and dates and the inscription: "Brother and Sister."
Appleton's legacy lives on through Historic New England which continues as a leading preservation society. The organization presently owns and operates 36 house museums and several historic landscapes and gardens in five states throughout New England, as well as archiving thousands of architectural drawings, books, manuscripts, prints, photographs, engravings and other ephemera.
In celebration of National Preservation Month, Mount Auburn's Chief of Conservation, David Gallagher and Preservation & Facilities Planner, Natalie Wampler, will give a special behind-the-scenes Preservation on the Grounds tour and presentation at the Cemetery. Join us on Thursday, May 27th at 2:00 PM for this special behind-the-scenes presentation at the site of some current projects - where we will highlight work and demonstrate different materials and techniques used to preserve Mount Auburn's structures. This event will be held outdoors in the afternoon sun. Please wear proper clothing and footwear and plenty of sunscreen. Meet at the Entrance Gate. Limited enrollment. Preregistration required.$5 members; $10 non-members. ____________________________________________________________________________________ |
 May History Highlight: Decoration Day
Decoration Day was first observed on May 30th, 1868 at Arlington National Cemetery. A month earlier, General John Logan, commander in chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, officially designated May 30 for the purpose of "strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion."
The south practiced separate observance days until 1971 when Congress passed an act formally proclaiming the last Monday in May as Memorial Day to honor veterans from all wars.
At Mount Auburn, this day of remembrance has always been a busy day for visitation. The large crowd gathered before Bigelow Chapel on Decoration Day [c. 1870's] in the above historic image illustrates the importance of the holiday in the years following the end of the Civil War (image from a 19th century stereoview, courtesy of Mount Auburn's Historical Collections).
Unfortunately, Mount Auburn does not have a record of all the veterans buried here, so there has been a recent effort to identify as many as possible. Volunteer William McEvoy has undertaken the task of going to the Watertown Historical Society and other institutions in the area that hold veteran records to cross reference them with our interment record. To date he has identified more than 800 Civil War veterans!
The following address was read by Thomas Wentworth Higginson at Mount Auburn on the 5th anniversary of the end of the Civil War. It is a stirring oration honoring the men who served.
DECORATION DAY ADDRESS AT MOUNT AUBURN CEMETERY MAY 30, 1870
WE meet to-day for a purpose that has the dignity and the tenderness of funeral rites without their sadness. It is not a new bereavement, but one which time has softened which brings us here. We meet not around a newly-opened grave, but among those which nature has already decorated with the memorials of her love. Above every tomb her daily sunshine has smiled, her tears have wept; over the humblest she has bidden some grasses nestle, some vines creep, and the butterfly-ancient emblem of immortality-waves his little wings above every sod. To nature's signs of tenderness we add our own. Not "ashes to ashes, dust to dust," but blossoms to blossoms, laurels to the laureled. Continue reading...
Join us on Saturday, May 29th at 1:30 PM for our annual Service of Commemoration. Every year we set aside this time to remember and celebrate the lives of those who have gone before us and to experience the uniqueness of Mount Auburn as a memorial of living beauty and peace. Religious and community representatives will lead the ceremony to be held outdoors on the lawn in front of Bigelow Chapel. Music will be provided by the Brass Consortium. Refreshments will be served following the service. In the case of rain, the service will be held indoors. FREE. * If special assistance is needed, transportation from the Entrance Gate to Bigelow Chapel and seating can be provided. For more information, call 617-547-7105.
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The Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery was established in 1986 as a non-profit educational
Mount Auburn Cemetery is still a unique choice for burial and commemoration. It offers
a wide variety of innovative interment and memorialization options for all. Learn about
Mount Auburn's many burial and memorialization options. |
Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery
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email: friends@mountauburn.org
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