Weird under the ground

Gravestones visible at the back of Pioneer Park

in Mission Hills. Many of the tombstones of the

33 Civil War veterans identified as having been

buried at the former Calvary Cemetery are included.

(Photo by Ed Piper)

 

There is a David Crosby song (for us Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young fans) on the Deja Vu album that goes, "...makes me wonder what's goin' on under the ground." (In fact, the song is titled "Deja Vu".) I forget if it's supposedly from some weird philosophy that the former Byrds member was into at the time.

But something that is certifiably weird is what's under the ground at Pioneer Park in Mission Hills, San Diego. I ventured there Saturday morning, July 12, after reading about the former cemetery online earlier in the week in information from the research work by Barbara Palmer, Civil War Veterans of San Diego, CA.

In c. 1969, a California law was passed that made it possible for cities to convert abandoned cemeteries into "pioneer parks". The only requirement was that a memorial to the interred be erected on the grounds. So, in early 1970, according to Palmer, Calvary Cemetery, a Catholic burial ground, was converted into a city park after notice had been given to relatives of the deceased.

What was allowed was to leave the buried caskets in the ground and sod the surface over with grass. If you go to the park now, you wouldn't have any idea people had been buried there--unless you walk to the far southeastern corner and view the 100-or-so gravestones removed to that location.

When I asked a city worker at the site at 9 a.m. Saturday morning if this was where graves of military veterans were, he replied, "There aren't any military graves. It's just local people (whose names are on the tombstones)."

Then I told him about Palmer's book and the fact that 33 or so Civil War veterans were identified as having been buried at the former Calvary Cemetery. (Not all of the 33 vets' gravestones are visible in the memorial area.) He said, "That's interesting. That's good to know." There are sinkholes, he said, where the ground is giving way. We agreed that's probably due to the graves that are sodded over. As we said goodbye, I told him, "Don't fall into any sinkholes."

Upon the conversion of Calvary Cemetery into Pioneer Park, according to Palmer, tombstones from the cemetery were taken to Mt. Hope Cemetery (between Market and Imperial streets) and buried. Some stones were kept at Calvary and placed in the memorial at the back of Pioneer Park--not where the related caskets are buried.

Later, some of the stones taken to Mt. Hope were retrieved and placed into a memorial down a hill near the trolley tracks that cut through the Mt. Hope Cemetery. I walked down there earlier in the week without really knowing what I was seeing. It's dry grass, with some trash, and not identified as items from the former Calvary Cemetery. The location is on the south side of the trolley tracks.

One idea during planning of the conversion was to dump the tombstones into the ocean. There seems to have been a desire to use the untended cemetery property as a park, while honoring the memory of "those who have been interred here" (on a plaque photographed in Palmer's book which I didn't locate at the park).


Copyright 2014 Ed Piper