Linden Grove Cemetery

It seems strange to rate a cemetery with «stars» but for several years now, I’ve been spending my «where to go, what to do?» lunch hours walking around the Historic Linden Grove Cemetery which is located near the new St. Elizabeth Hospital, in Covington. The area used to be what I’d call… sketchy, but I never gave it a second thought. Most often, I was the only person in the cemetery and now and again, it was me and mowers, But since the widening and beautification of 12^th Street, the neighborhood is taking on a new pride, and the access to the cemetery is much easier to find. Still, I was the only person walking on this lovely, breezy Monday.

The cemetery itself was incorporated about 1843, on land donated by the Western Baptist Theological Institute which was located near Robbins Street, in Covington. The cemetery comprises 22 acres of gorgeous land – manicured and lovingly maintained, but not «sterile» like other cemeteries. There is still clover and in the spring, carpets of sweet violets blanket the grass. The land gently slopes in some parts, which makes me think that, at one time, there was probably a water feature that has been filled in over a hundred years or so. Apparently, like the neighborhood, the cemetery fell on hard times and in 1948 was put into receivership. In 1998, the Kenton County fiscal court and the City of Covington established a fund for its care, recognizing the importance of some of the people buried there, some of Covington and Northern Kentucky’s earliest citizens and prolific members of society, including an early African American physician, Senator John G. Carlisle, Civil War era Brigadier General John Finnell and countless other early German and Irish settlers. Some of the earliest stones are engraved in German and there are soldiers buried there from the War of 1812, along with Civil War and World War I and II. Unlike Spring Grove Cemetery, where you find some rather unique tombstones, the majority of the stones in Linden Grove are modest, though there are some elegantly crafted early obelisks and monuments (my favorite being erected to the memory of a beloved wife and daughter, who both died as a result of childbirth in the mid 1800’s, the words few but the impact great). But, the earliest stones (to me) are the show stoppers – tall and thin, limestone, engraved with weeping willow trees or clasped hands, things you would see in early settlement cemeteries like Concord, Massachusetts. There seems to be a distinct very old «German» section that lies near Section Z, by the road to the hospital. New in the last year is the addition of interactive reading boxes on the large, mature trees, some of which probably date back to the beginning of the cemetery. The boxes provide species and description information, which is a nice thing for people like me, visiting as opposed to having someone buried there.
Having spent a great deal of time doing geneolical research for my husband’s family, visiting cemeteries on the West Side of Cincinnati, I find the care taken to restore and maintain the old markers at Linden Grove far better than any cemetery I’ve been in, save Spring Grove. And these aren’t just stones of the «notable». Every where I looked today, old stones had been reinforced, repaired, cleaned, and restored, even if the print was no longer very legible. Though I’m certain not many relatives come to «visit» these folks any longer, it very much matters to me that the stones erected to their memories are preserved as a piece of our history.