Would like to introduce:
The Friends of St. Mary's Cemetery Park & Ventura Cemetery Park
Originally founded on October 03, 1862 and June O3, 1889 respectively
 


We hereby recognize and acknowledge the City of Ventura property, formerly known as St. Mary’s Cemetery and City Cemetery, Cemetery Park and/or Memorial Park as
St. Mary's Cemetery Park & Ventura Cemetery Park

  

We endorse the following:
  • Installing appropriate signage indicating:
    names, historical significance; locations; directions to aforesaid cemeteries
  • Determining the location of the 3,000+ deceased in the cemeteries and acknowledging them accordingly
  • Retrieving, so far as possible, all historic headstones
  • Installing 24 cast iron lamp posts rescued from city salvage

In recognizing the sanctity of this cemetery, we will restore respect, recognition and dignity to those interred within its confines:

  • Ventureño Chumash
  • Spanish & Mexicans of the mission founding and great rancho era
  • European & Asian refugees from religious persecution and political oppression
  • American pioneers searching for economic opportunity
  • Early Ventura County and Ventura City leaders
  • Veterans of the Mexican-American War, The Civil War, The Indian Wars, Spanish-American War, WW I and WW II

all of whom contributed to the formation of our City of San Buenaventura.
                                             Steven Schleder, Friends of St. Mary's Cemetery Park & Ventura Cemetery Park


This park was the City’s first cemetery and was divided among the Protestant, Oriental, Catholics and Jews. In 1968-69, all of the gravestones, except for a few, were removed and the cemetery was converted to a park. The park is, in reality, still a cemetery and has been since the City was incorporated in 1860.
                                                   Judy Triem, Ventura County Cultural Heritage Survey, July, 1983


Eternity lingers in a cemetery, whispering the names of those who once moved and breathed; names now etched in stone or metal in a most lasting form of remembrance. Washed by the rain and brushed by the wind, the names on the markers are never to disappear. Cemeteries are created to be permanent, because life is not.
             Melissa Eastman Wantz, A PLACE FOR ALL TIME: The History of Ivy Lawn Memorial Park
                                                                          VCMHA Quarterly, Volume 41, Number 2

 

back to home

Copyright 2018 - 2019 Restore St. Mary's Cemetery.