Picture from the Past
A longtime Los Gatan recalls the history of memorial park
By John S. Baggerly
This longtime Los Gatan and columnist offers this week's space to another longtime resident--Margaret Ross--with memories to share of a prominent town landmark:
This Memorial Day seems an appropriate time to fulfill my promise to write up some early history of the Los Gatos Cemetery, as we knew it.
I once asked my aunt, Mary Yocco Rugh, to tell me the history of this cemetery. It seems that the Odd Fellows Lodge, back in the later 1880s, decided the old burial ground on the southeast corner of N. Santa Cruz and Saratoga avenues was much too close to downtown Los Gatos. A notable group of 16 town trustees organized the Los Gatos Cemetery Association in December 1889 and purchased 14 acres far out on what's now known as Los Gatos-Almaden Road. The above sketch shows the basic design, with a central circle surrounded by six sections. The first burial was in February 1890.
It seems Edward C. Yocco became the secretary-treasurer of the cemetery, which really was not established as a profit-making business, but rather an essential community service. A younger man, he was already in business as owner of Los Gatos Meat Market and was also on the Los Gatos school board. Unfortunately, E. C. Yocco (my grandfather) died in the typhoid epidemic of 1902. His widow, Ella Knowles Yocco, had the responsibility of secretary, and eventually secretary-treasurer.
Her son, Edward S. Yocco, had finished college and had just gotten married when, in 1921, he received a letter saying the cemetery caretaker was ill and unable to continue. Ed and wife Ruth returned, and he became the superintendent of the cemetery for the next 41 years.
Apparently the older stockholders had left the scene by that time. I guess the Yocco family had bought up the remaining shares of cemetery stock. I do remember mention of a Mr. Watkins, who was manager of Los Gatos Telephone Co. in the 1920s.
As a child, I spent many sunny days at the cemetery. In those days, there were paved driveways and concrete sidewalks between each of the small sections. Daddy provided a "kiddie-car" (with rubber tires--to keep it quiet) and I pedaled around studying the large tombstones with such prominent names as Lyndon, Tait and Bean--earlier settlers of Los Gatos. Big trees were plentiful, including pepper trees (sticky sap!), sycamores, redwoods and even a fig tree in the central circle, along with stately palms. Many songbirds lived there.
Two large wooden tanks at the rear of the cemetery provided water to keep the lawns green. Standing underneath the tankhouse, one could hear the water gurgling overhead. In my later teenage years, I practiced driving in the cemetery before I got my driver's license. I know other people did the same.
Our Yocco family tombstone bears the names of earlier relatives, including grandfather, E. C. Yocco, born in San Jose in 1857. There is my widowed great-grandmother, Mary C. Knowles, who came here from Illinois in 1882 with her son Dr. Frank Knowles, who became the second doctor in Los Gatos. Also, there's his 18-year-old sister Ella, youngest of the eight Knowles children, and blind Cynthia, their older sister. Dr. Knowles died in 1936, Ella Yocco in 1947.
In 1962, Los Gatos Cemetery was sold and eventually renamed Los Gatos Memorial Park. The burial ground was expanded to the east, thanks to the purchase, more than 60 years ago, of a 16-acre prune ranch east of the cemetery. Handsome new buildings including mausoleums and crematoriums have been built there since then.
One longtime employee, who continued under the new owners, was Charles Torrey, who now lives at Los Gatos Meadows. He worked there for 43 years. His father was an early-day Los Gatos mail-carrier, who first drove a horse and buggy on a Santa Cruz Mountains mail route.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
