Oakland Cemetery Assn

Review 1000, who’d have thought. This is the oldest cemetery in St. Paul. Here are some of the big name St. Paul families in their time. Irving, Bigelow, Carpenter, and Griggs to name a few. Throw my name in there too. We have the family plot and the headstone, four names on one. Since this is the East side there is a special area for Orthodox Christians and we all visit once a year for the day of the dead, first Sunday after Easter. There are many Hmong families here, and their headstones are unusual as they are all black and the print is white. There is a handy company across the street that does the headstones. And yes, it’s pretty weird to see your name on one. But I’m glad it won’t be a burden to our sons. It’s not a huge cemetery, so you can’t get too lost. Nothing like thinking of death on my birthday.

A wonderful place for a stroll on an Autumn day with the smell of the fallen leaves mingling with thoughts of the fallen.
Beautiful old mausoleums sporting neoclassical columns that speak to the present of times past.
Be sure to check out the odd, still phallic-​looking stele that closely resembles a circumcised penis. It’s near the fire fighters’ memorial.
An unleashed pitbull accosted me here, running at full-​tilt with his ears back. But he was friendly, warm, and alive.
To stroll here is to be reminded that we spend the vast certitude of existence as but a memory of the living if we are remembered at all.
One wonders what tales the dead here have to tell about our city, when their spirits ascend their tombs in the still of night within this city of their own.
A half block to the east of this venerable burial ground lies the entrance to the stunning Gateway Bike Trail, an 18 mile paved rail trail that takes one from the gang graffitied ghettos of St. Paul’s north end to bucolic farmlands and small forests at the Stillwater terminus.