By making a gift to the Friends of Mount Auburn Annual Fund you help to ensure Mount Auburn's future for generations to come.

To have your contribution included in this current tax year, please make your gift before December 31st, 2012. If you have already given to the Annual Fund this year, we thank you.

 

Mount Auburn Cemetery: 

Beauty on the Edge of Eternity

The Friends of Mount Auburn is excited to announce the publication of a long-anticipated photographic portrait of the Cemetery. 

Mount Auburn Cemetery: Beauty on the Edge of Eternity celebrates the mood and spirit of this extraordinary place, as seen through the stunning photographs of Richard Cheek.

A limited supply of books will arrive just in time for the holiday season. Reserve your copy on our website today! 

Richard will also be signing books at the Reception following our Candle Lighting Service on December 18th. Copies of the book will be available for sale during the event.

White-winged Crossbills have a reputation as the most nomadic of the winter finches, and this is their year to be found locally and all over southern New England!  

Here at Mount Auburn you may see them in the Eastern White Pine trees along our Coolidge Street border, the Hemlocks near Swan Avenue and the pines up near the tower.  Crossbills are very noisy in flight and if you are aware of this while walking around the Cemetery - you may be rewarded with some... read more

 

Mount Auburn Candle Lighting Service   

    

Join us at 4PM on Tuesday, December 18th in Story Chapel for our annual Candle Lighting Service.  Speakers this year will include: Reverend Stephen Kendrick, Senior Minister, First Church in Boston and Swami Tyagananda, Hindu Chaplain, MIT and Harvard University.   

Photographer Richard Cheek will be signing his new book Mount Auburn Cemetery: Beauty on the Edge of Eternity at a reception following the service at Bigelow Chapel. 

• Shop 'til You Drop at 1PM on Saturday, December 8th
• Book Club at 10AM on Thursday, December 13th
• Battle of Fredericksburg at 1PM on Saturday, December 15th 

View our entire December calendar of programs online. 

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Horticultural Highlight: Longstalk holly, Ilex pedunculosa

 

The brilliant, bright, red berries of hollies have long been popular, especially during our holiday seasons. This month, we sing the charms of the Longstalk holly, Ilex pedunculosa, an exceedingly attractive, evergreen, large shrub.

 A striking feature of these plants, are their ¼"-diameter, red fruits, which dangle distinctively, on 1 ½"-long stalks. Hence, its common name, and its species name, as well, which alludes to the peduncle, the botanical term for the stem of the flower, which of course, precedes the development of the fruit. 

On your next visit to Mount Auburn Cemetery, look for some of our Longstalk hollies growing on Halcyon Path, Oak Knoll, Birch Avenue, and Meadow Road... read more

 

Person of the Month: Mary Porter Tileston Hemenway (1820 - 1894) 

 

Mary Tileston Hemenway was a philanthropist with interests in history, culture, archaeology, education, health, fitness and nutrition.  

She  supported a number of educational programs after the Civil War, founded the Boston Normal School of Cookery, as well as the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics, launched the effort to save Boston's Old South Meeting House, formed the Old South Work, an organization devoted to promoting history, provided funds to support the research of the United States Bureau of Ethnology and contributed funds to a Southwestern Archaeological Expedition studying the Zuni Pueblo and Hopi Cultures... read more

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The reception house was built in 1870 directly across from Mount Auburn's main gate.  It had a room where visitors could rest and wait for trolleys.  

For a time there was even a refreshment concession.  The superintendent's office was also housed there from the early 1870s until the administration building was completed in 1897...read more