Photograph by Robert Scheer
A worker positions a concrete lid which will seal a coffin.
By Mary Ann Cook
John Brown's body may "lie a-mouldering in his grave," but John Brown's widow (wife no. 2) is safely ensconced in Madronia Cemetery at the end of Oak Street, just beyond Sixth, in Saratoga. You enter through the silver-colored archway, and you're on the peaceful hillside acreage that constitutes the final rest for many Saratogans.
The requirement for permanent residence in Madronia is to have lived in or owned property in either Saratoga or Monte Sereno. If you're planning a move out of the area and you want to be buried there, it's best to buy your plot before you leave the Saratoga environs, say officials.
If you do leave the Madronia service area, you can still buy a plot up to 10 years later. The only restriction is that you need to have been a Saratoga/Monte Sereno resident for five of the past 10 years. Plots here are the most reasonable in any Santa Clara County cemetery, says manager Gary Reed.
The cemetery has been in use since 1854, when a body marked with the name Buchman was buried there. The grave may have been that of a boy drowned in a flash flood in Saratoga Creek. History isn't sure on this score, but it is sure that Madronia is considered one of the most tranquil cemetery settings in the county.
Administered by the Saratoga Cemetery District, a district specially formed for that purpose in 1927, it is headed by a five-member board of trustees appointed for four-year terms. Each Santa Clara County supervisor appoints (or, more likely, reappoints) a member of the cemetery board, because it's a job with unusually long tenures. Most members end up serving until they become permanent residents of the cemetery.
Current board chairman John Campbell has been a member for 30 years, and his father served before him. Other trustees are Bob Leonard, Jay Geddes and Andy Bogart of Saratoga, and Mark Beaudoin of Monte Sereno.
The district has three employees: Besides Reed, there's Judy Simpson, administrative assistant, and Ralph Gaiters, Reed's assistant. Simpson and Gaiters work part time. Reed has held the manager's post for more than eight years. He lives on the premises and says the quiet yet varied lifestyle suits his temperament.
In his job he has to be gardener, grief counselor, engineer, businessman, drainage expert and patrolman. Fortunately, he is comfortable fulfilling all those roles. "Cemeteries are for the living, you know. I don't find death depressing. I can see how people might, but I don't think that's the end. I believe in an afterlife."
The most difficult part of the job, he says, is burying children, particularly infants. "It's not in the natural order. Parents don't expect to bury their children." Even so, Reed says he always carries away something positive from each service.
Gravesites of children often get the most attention. The grave of Scottie Summers, who died in 1988 at age 14 of leukemia, draws visitors. "Kids are still leaving tokens on his gravestone eight years later," Reed points out. "One time, a few years ago, a bumper sticker was left on his stone that said, 'Beam Me Up, Scottie,' " an echo from the Star Trek TV series.
Some people are regular Madronia visitors and come every day to tend the graves of their loved ones, Reed reports. Other regulars who may not be personally involved in Madronia are hikers, joggers or bicyclists who appreciate the peace and the rural setting.
Even though it's flanked by residences on either side and the Sisters of Notre Dame convalescent facility in the back, it's still a surprise to many that a memorial park of this size is tucked away here.
"I've had people come up to me and say, 'I've lived in Saratoga for 20 years and never knew this existed,' " Reed says.
Though cemeteries are natural prey for pranksters, particularly at Halloween, Reed says he doesn't have any trouble with overturned headstones or any such disturbances. On Halloween he does patrol the place himself, however, and if any group does come in, he makes sure they clean up after themselves.
A sundial and a flag are the only losses sustained during his tenure, he reports. It's not a popular place for lovers, either, as far as he can tell. Joggers and strollers are a common sight in the cemetery, but skateboarding and rollerblading are outlawed for fear of accidents and possible litigation. Artificial flowers are not allowed on grave sites and real flowers, if no longer healthy looking, are carted away each Thursday.
The name Madronia is a combination of Spanish and English, derived from the madrone trees that were once plentiful on the land, but no longer. The Spanish version was deemed too hard to pronounce so an "i" was added to make it easier on English-speakers. Today the trees are mostly black oak, redwoods and magnolia. Indeed, a drive lined with magnolia trees bisects the park.
But there's hardly a madrone to be found, except right outside the perimeter. Madrones don't survive the watering system the park has to maintain. Being natives, they crave warm-weather drought and won't tolerate wet roots in summer.
A large deciduous redwood, one of the few around, grows out of the side of the asphalt and never fails to fool people, Reed says. When it begins to lose its leaves in the fall, people assume it's dead.
In recent years some international-sounding trees have been added to the natives remaining: Australian bottle, Chinese tallow and Australian swamp myrtle trees. Barry Coate is the consultant arborist for Madronia. Maintenance is done by Industrial Landscape Services, a company owned by Saratogan David Marsh.
As for the history of this particular part of the Quito Grant, a Spanish land grantee, Don Jose Ramon Arguello, held title when it was first used as a cemetery. It was part of his portion, but Arguello promised to dedicate two acres for cemetery use. He was true to his word, but because nothing was in writing, it took the cemetery association quite a while to get clear title.
Until the cemetery district was formed, collecting enough money to maintain the park was a problem. Grave-tending was left up to individual family members, but families had a way of moving away or dying out and untended graves would become overgrown.
Another expense was the cost of fencing throughout to keep out cattle. Today money is raised by district taxes and the sale of plots. And today the interlopers are smaller. Reed has a trap set up in one corner of the cemetery because raccoons continually tear up the ground looking for grubs.
In the past few weeks he has netted nine raccoons, one skunk and one fox. He uncaged the skunk and the fox on site, but took each raccoon up into the Lexington hills area before releasing it into the wild.
Through the years the district has added to Arguello's original two-acre parcel so that Madronia is now 10 1/2 acres, with 3 1/2 acres undeveloped. "There's room for another 75 to 100 years," Reed estimates.
Some 2,500 occupants lie in marked graves, and Reed says he won't hazard a guess as to the number of unmarked graves. "Probably not very many," he adds.
Clara Bell, a trustee for 25 years, whose father was one of the original trustees, conducted considerable research into the old part of Madronia. Thanks to her research and that of others, there are now but 31 graves whose occupants are still unknown. That number may be whittled down further because receipts exist that may help with identification when research is undertaken again, Reed says.
You can see both markers and monuments at Madronia. Markers are flat stones in the ground; monuments are upright. Monument styles have always been popular at Madronia, Reed says. Because monuments make mowing more difficult, some cemeteries discourage their use. Madronia does have height restrictions on its monuments, however.
When the new section of Madronia opened recently, 28 raised monument sites were sold in the first month. In a normal month some eight or nine are sold. As for its yearly burial business, Madronia conducts between 75 and 90 burials a year, including cremation services.
One trend Reed notes is that cremation is becoming more and more popular, compared to full casket burial. Land use and cost certainly play a factor.
Cremation is chosen in 45 percent of deaths nationally. By the year 2010 the industry estimates those choosing cremation will reach 70 percent. Madronia has cremation crypts available, but the actual cremation is done elsewhere.
Each year Memorial Day ceremonies are held in the park, sponsored by the Foothill Club. The Boy Scouts put flags on each veteran's grave; the Girl Scouts help make and distribute laurel sprays for each serviceman.
Since there are 500 veterans in the park, it's quite a sight, Reed says. The high school band plays and the 4-H clubs take part. The event has an old-fashioned, small-town feel, just like the park itself.
The roster of Madronia's occupants reads like a lineup of local street names: Pollard, Stelling, McClellan. Second to that of John Brown's widow, the grave most asked about is "Everlasting" Sunshine's. He was the Reverend Edwin Sidney Williams, a Saratoga minister who originated the Blossom Festival in 1900 to celebrate the end of the preceding years' drought.
"Everlasting," a member of Sempervirens, was also instrumental in preserving Big Basin Redwoods, helping to ensure that it would become the first in the national park system. In fitting tribute, his grave is marked with a large boulder rather than a marble marker.
Another environmentalist buried in Madronia is August T. Dowd, credited with discovering the Calaveras Big Trees. Other illustrious forebears housed here are local hero Septimus Riley Moutrey, one of the Donner Party rescuers; G.W. McGrew, Saratoga's first poet; and George Cross, a Saratoga community leader.
And let us not forget Painless Parker, a town character who lived in an estate near Prospect Road and died comparatively recently, in 1952. A dentist who called himself a "Tooth Plumber," he operated out of a flatbed truck.
He even had his first name, Edgar, legally changed to Painless, although Edgar is the name that appears on his tombstone. Reportedly, the only anesthetic he used was whiskey, and any outcries from patients were drowned out by a band conveniently playing nearby.
As columnist John Baggerly of the Los Gatos Weekly-Times points out, the fact that he could uphold his claim to be painless is quite a testament to the generous amounts of whiskey he must have bestowed.
My favorite resident, though, is Henriette de Saussure Blanding, who is buried under a rectangle of hedges, surrounded by each of her three husbands, who may have all been UC-Berkeley English professors.
When she found an appropriate husband, she stuck with the type. The marriages were of some duration, too: 26 years with Chauncey Shafter Goodrich, 14 years with Willard Higley Durham and 16 years with Benjamin Harrison Lehman. Mr. Lehman outlived his wife, or Madronia might still be adding to the plot.
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, January 22, 1997.
©1997 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.