Evergreen Cemetery

I wish there was Unilocal when my mother passed away. It’s hard enough to be an informed consumer when one isn’t grieving. Being the number one son, and almost all extended kin on the other side of the world, I had to make some tough decisions on behalf of my stunned immediate family while just barely technically adult but really too young to be taking charge of funeral arrangements. We were completely unprepared, and trying to practice ancient but alien traditions far away from where our customs would be recognizable. The funeral home took advantage of us but not the Evergreen Cemetery. The staff did their best to try to understand and respect Japanese Buddhism, long before diversity was considered by any Americans to be a desirable thing. They advised us well, we bought enough plots for the whole family and future spouses, which turned out to be a smart and practical investment, they were nice and trustworthy when I really needed them to be both. That was over thirty years ago, so I’m giving you some dated information, but of course it left a strong impression on me. I still regularly visit, but I have little need to talk to anyone working here. A few years ago, my father became concerned because he couldn’t find the deed to our plots, but he said that the woman he talked to reassured him that all was in order.
The place is well maintained, with a nice balance of trees and bushes, it is peaceful and tasteful. If there was Unilocal back in the 1980s, I would have rated Evergreen a full five stars, but what’s happened since then is that they’ve sold off the surrounding property and now the grounds are surrounded by ugly suburban strip malls. You can’t tell when you’re inside the gates, but it’s jarring and unpleasant approaching the park.

Beautiful cemetery, helpful staff, very professional people. If your looking for a nice place to visit or somewhere to have your family’s legacy laid to rest… this is the place.

I did NOT have a good expierience with the woman that my family dealt with through this cemetery at all! Just this month, My grandmother passed away and we were having the wake on a Tuesday and the Burial on Wednesday. Now I understand there is paper work that needs to be done for funerals and burials and all of that but the woman who was taking care of the arrangements was very harsh and unwelcoming. She would call our home on the day of the wake saying someone had to come sign the papers (in a very condescending tone) we told her that someone would be there and that we were trying to get things ready for the wake. She called again maybe 2 hours later again very cold and harsh saying «I Need someone over here to sign these papers. It doesn’t take long, someone needs to get here»
The day of the burial came and as we proceeded from the Funeral Home to Evergreen Cemetery we got a surprise. It was 10 degrees outside and we were brought to the burial site NOT the chapel. My family who came (who are mostly over the age of 65) had to walk through the snow, sit in the freezing cold while my passed grandmother lay in the cold. My family was furious! We found out AFTER that it was an extra $ 750 just to have it in the chapel which we were NEVER given the option.
The woman who was taking care of the arrangements showed up at the burial site and my father asked her why we were not in the Chapel. She said because you never said you wanted the chapel. My father told her that she was the one who was directing this and that we should have been given the option. She said well why didn’t you call me I could have figured something out.
Needless to say she was still of no help, my family had to mourn the loss of our family member for 10 minutes out in the 10 degree weather because no one was prepared to stand in the cold and she didn’t have the common sense or decency to offer the option of a chapel for our family.
I will not mention her name because of privacy but if a manager or owner sees this her name starts with Ca.

Nice cemetery but unfortunately as a cemetery enthusiast’s just seems so easy to overlook due to just being to «sterile» if I may for lack of a better word. The reason I say that is because most of the grave markers are «floor level» and they do not have what I look for as a cemetery enthusiast and genealogy person. They have no statues of course, but the place is spacious. Not in the grand sense (I mean they certainly aren’t like Graceland on the North Side), but the cemetery boast some beautiful scenery, well sort of.
Its right off the street and some of the flat markers can be hard to spot if your looking for loved ones whom you haven ‘t visited in quite a while, but seriously, its just a very basic cemetery. No flashy Obelisk, no stunning statuary, just plain floor model markers.