Greenwood/Memory Lawn Mortuary & Cemetery

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Greenwood Memory Lawn Mortuary & Cemetery
Phoenix-Greenwood Memory Lawn-1902.jpg
Greenwood Memory Lawn Mortuary & Cemetery
Greenwood/Memory Lawn Mortuary & Cemetery
Details
Established1906
Location
2300 West Van Buren Street, Phoenix, Arizona
CountryU.S.
Coordinates 33°27′17″N112°06′58″W / 33.4548313°N 112.1162051°W / 33.4548313; -112.1162051 [1]
Owned by Dignity Memorial
Size192 acres
No. of interments>72,000
Website Greenwood Memory Lawn Mortuary
Find a Grave Greenwood Memory Lawn Mortuary & Cemetery

Greenwood Memory Lawn Mortuary & Cemetery is the name of a cemetery located at 2300 West Van Buren Street in Phoenix, Arizona owned by Dignity Memorial. The cemetery, which resulted as a merger of two historical cemeteries, Greenwood Memorial Park and Memory Lawn Memorial Park, is the final resting place of many famous residents of Arizona. Pioneers, governors, congressman, government officials, journalists, race car drivers, soldiers, actors and actresses are among the decedents who are interred in the cemetery.

Contents

History

Greenwood Memorial Park

Phoenix-Cemetery-Greenwood Memory Lawn Cemetery-(A-5)- Greenwood Memory Cemetery Crematorium-1906.jpg
Original Greenwood Memorial Park 1906 crematorium.
Phoenix-Greenwood Memory Lawn Cemetery-Horse-drawn hearse-1.jpg
Late 19th century horse-drawn hearse on display in Greenwood/Memory Lawn Mortuary & Cemetery

Greenwood Memorial Park, the first of the two cemeteries which make up Greenwood/Memory Lawn Mortuary & Cemetery, was established in 1906, by the Arizona Lodge No. 2 of the Free and Accepted Masons. The first early structures in the cemetery were a crematorium, a columbarium and a mausoleum.

PFC Thomas C. Reed incident

According to the book "History and Memory in African American Culture"; by Genevieve Fabres and Robert O'Meally, the Greenwood Memorial Park cemetery had a racial policy and was involved in a controversy. In November 1951, the body of PFC Thomas C. Reed, a 19 year old African-American soldier who was killed in the Korean War, remained unburied in a mortuary owned by Lincoln Ragsdale because the Greenwood Memorial Park cemetery officials requested letters of petition from 3 veterans' organizations accepting the body. The American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Disabled American Veterans organizations wanted to put an end to this procedure and to the discriminatory practices of the cemetery and therefore, did not provide the requested letters. Ragsdale worked with the Greater Phoenix Council for Civic Unity (GPCCU) with the intention of publicizing the controversy in the media, both locally and nationally. His actions caught the attention of Thomasena Grigsby, a fellow activist, who then published an editorial in The Chicago Defender . [2] [3] After a three-month standoff the Board of Trustees of the cemetery voted on January 8, 1952, to admit African-American veterans on the same terms as those of the "White" race. Reed was finally buried in the veterans' section of the cemetery. [4]

Memory Lawn Memorial Park

The Shumway family established another cemetery to the west of the Greenwood Memorial Park in 1947, named Memory Lawn Memorial Park. A fence separated the cemetery from the Greenwood Memorial Park. This cemetery added a mortuary, memory mausoleum and chapel in 1957.

In 1989, the cemeteries merged and became the Greenwood/Memory Lawn Mortuary & Cemetery. The cemetery joined the Dignity Memorial network which provides funeral, cremation and cemetery services.

Greenwood/Memory Lawn Mortuary & Cemetery with its 192 acres (78 ha) is the largest cemetery in Arizona. [5] The cemetery has 59 sections, including a front lawn section, a veterans garden and various other cultural and religious gardens. [6] The cemetery has a monument, which was organized in 1885 and erected in 1910, dedicated to the memory of the deceased members of the Phoenix Volunteer Fire Department.

Mausoleums

A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or people. In Greenwood/Memory Lawn Mortuary & Cemetery there are three mausoleums, they are: [7]

Notable Interments

John H. Kibbey (c. 1913) Joseph Henry Kibbey-left profile.jpg
John H. Kibbey (c. 1913)
William John Murphy (c.1905) William John Murphy.jpg
William John Murphy (c.1905)
George Ulysses Young George Ulysses Young.jpg
George Ulysses Young
Walter Winchell (1960) Walter Winchell 1960.JPG
Walter Winchell (1960)
Oscar Palmer Austin (1969) Austin OP USMC.jpg
Oscar Palmer Austin (1969)
Edith Luckett Davis and daughter Nancy (1931) Formal Photograph of Nancy Davis and Edith Davis.jpg
Edith Luckett Davis and daughter Nancy (1931)
Dwight B. Heard Dwight B. Heard.jpg
Dwight B. Heard
James Miller Creighton James M. Creighton.png
James Miller Creighton

Among the notable people interred in the cemetery are three Arizona Territory Governors, six Arizona State Governors, a Secretary of Arizona Territory, a U.S. Congressman, a Mayor of Phoenix, two recipients of the Medal of Honor, the founders of the cities of Glendale, Arizona and Chandler, race-car drivers, including the winner of the 1958 Indianapolis 500, journalists and the mother and step-father of a former First Lady.

Graves

Associated historic properties

The following historic properties are associated with the notable people interred in the cemetery.

See also

Flag of Arizona.svg Arizonaportal

References

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Works cited