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Blog Entry 35 of 80 Grave Concerns: Inside Grand View Memorial Park

News you can use regarding Grand View Memorial Park, Glendale, CA's oldest cemetery, which has been closed for regular business since June 13, 2006, due to legal and financial problems. Lisa Burks also runs the website GrandViewMemorialPark.info.

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Groundbreaking burial completed at Grand View

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Contributed by: Lisa Burks on 4/2/2007

Late last month, Esther Lohr became the second person to be interred, and first person buried in the ground, at Grand View Memorial Park since normal operations ceased there in June 2006.

But Esther was much more than a statistic.

According to her obituary in the Smith Mountain Eagle, a Virginia newspaper, Esther was also a lifetime member of the Lutheran Church, a longtime member of the Loyal Order of the Moose, a practical nurse, homemaker, wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, friend and more.

She loved to travel, play bingo, and help other people, too.

In a way, she's still helping people. By being a pioneer interment case that just may open the gates of Grand View to more burials in the future, as other legal matters pertaining to other aspects of its business get straightened out.

It's been a long road to Grand View for Mrs. Lohr, who died on November 10, 2006. After her memorial service, held in Roanoke (where in lieu of flowers her family suggested donations to a church or charity) she was temporarily placed at Forest Lawn Glendale until a court order was signed this spring that allowed her to be buried next to her husband, Lee, who passed away in 2001.

Esther was interred on March 20. She would have turned 95 this week, on April 6.

I visited the Lohr grave during the March 18 limited visitation, just days prior to Esther's arrival, and found grass and wildflowers covering the area. I visited it again this past Sunday, April 1, to pay respects. I did not know Esther nor have I spoken to her family, who do not wish to be interviewed according to their attorney, Paul Ayers.

Among the hardened soil that now covers the place where the vegetation once grew, I found many stones of different sizes. I chose a smallish one to place on Esther's headstone. This is an age-old Jewish tradition that I think is a symbolically appropriate custom to follow at Grand View these days.

It signifies that a person has visited the gravesite. It also represents permanence in contrast to the custom of leaving fresh flowers that eventually wither and die. It's also a callback to Biblical times when graves were marked with mounds of rocks. By placing or replacing the stones, one perpetuates the existence of the site.

A stone for Esther. A stone for Grand View.

Rest in peace, Mrs. Lohr, and welcome home.

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