The Preservation Dallas 2021 Cemetery Tour
by Suzan Younger
It’s been a long year and a half during which we followed social distancing requirements, and we’ve met by Zoom, Go to Meeting, Facebook, and other online applications. It was therefore a unique opportunity for DGS volunteers to have their first in-person activity in 2021 as a part of the Preservation Dallas 2021 Cemetery Tour on Saturday, October 30.
Preservation Dallas is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving and revitalizing Dallas’s historic buildings, neighborhoods, and places. They do this by championing initiatives that value the history and culture of places in the Dallas community, enhancing Dallas’s quality of life and economic development. Until the current pandemic, they held an annual tour of homes and buildings, but they put these tours on hold in response to the efforts to control Covid-19. The alternative for 2021 was a tour of Dallas cemeteries in which participants visited seven different cemeteries in their vehicles.
October 30, the Saturday before Halloween, was set as an appropriate date for a cemetery tour. The day’s activities began with a panel discussion held in the beautiful 1937 Anton Korn-designed Hillcrest Mausoleum in the Sparkman/Hillcrest Memorial Park. Guests listened to a discussion highlighting cemetery history, evolution, and the built environment. John Slate, Dallas Municipal Archivist, moderated the symposium panel, including the DGS past president Tony Hanson, Sparkman/Hillcrest vice president Teresa Schnur, and Versar Cultural lead Michelle Wurtz. Preservation Dallas provided maps that sent guests off in different directions to the seven highlighted cemeteries – Freedman’s Memorial Cemetery, Greenwood Cemetery, McCree Cemetery, Oak Cliff Cemetery, Oakland Cemetery, Temple Emanu-E Cemetery, and Western Heights Cemetery.
In partnership with the Friends of Oakland Cemetery Dallas and the Oakland Cemetery Lot Owners Association, the Dallas Genealogical Society sponsored Oakland Cemetery located at 3900 Oakland Circle (Malcolm X Blvd.), Dallas, Texas. You can read more about the cemetery on the DGS website here.
The DGS Cemetery Database indexes entries for thousands of Oakland interment records, along with index records for about thirty-five more Dallas County cemeteries. This database reflects years of work by DGS volunteers to index burials in Dallas County cemeteries. This is an ongoing project, and we welcome volunteer help.
Volunteers from all three groups worked hard to present the cemetery at its best. The cemetery covers about 48 acres, and it is a monumental effort by the Friends of Oakland Cemetery to keep the lawns mowed and trees and bushes trimmed. Thirty-six hours before the tour day, strong winds in the Dallas area took down one large tree and split another in half in the same area we were highlighting. The tree fell between two significant monuments, missing both and doing no damage, but we had to remove the Ott family monument from our list of highlighted monuments. Flexibility prevailed, and volunteers cut up and removed the split tree before the guests arrived Saturday morning. Volunteers continued to work cutting up the downed tree at the Ott monument during the tour – a live demonstration of what it takes to maintain a cemetery.
The Oakland tour highlighted twenty-five (minus one) monuments. Guests received a map locating the monuments and a list with limited biographical information for the families and individuals represented by the monuments. Volunteers decked out in bright orange shirts provided additional biographical information. Signs pointed the way to the monuments. Volunteers staffed tables in the central circle, answering questions and giving directions. The Friends of Oakland Cemetery offered home-baked cookies and cakes and cold drinks for a donation to help fund cemetery maintenance expenses. DGS volunteers provided a demo of how to add material to BillionGraves.com. The Friends demonstrated the tools they use to up-right fallen monuments. It was a beautiful day with blue skies and perfect weather.
The multi-layered activities helped create a festive mood for guests and volunteers. We received many compliments from the guests on-site. The Preservation Dallas organizers received more comments and compliments about how well volunteers presented the Oakland Cemetery. It was a labor of love by the many volunteers, and it was a great success because of the volunteers’ time, effort, and talents to show off this grand lady of Dallas County cemeteries. Thank you to all of the volunteers. We could not have done it without you.
The Dallas Genealogical Society volunteers included Leslie Ashley, Samantha Barnes, Ann Broihier, Tony Hanson, Kamdan, Jean Larson, Patti Huff Smith, Jim Thornhill, Barbara Ware, and Suzan Younger. Please visit the Dallas Genealogical Society’s Facebook page.
Lynn McBee represented the Oakland Cemetery Lot Owners Association.
Friends of the Oakland Cemetery Dallas included, but were not limited to Daniel Linarez, Jeff Martin, Jeff Mount, Monica Newbury, Becky Todd, and Tom White. Please check out the Friends of Oakland Cemetery Dallas Facebook page.
