Cemetery visits prompt prayer, reflections on the past

When I lived a few blocks from Calvary Cemetery in St. Paul, I liked to go on walks there when the late evening sun and the faded monuments cast long shadows on warm summer evenings. The cemetery never felt like a frightening place to be. Instead, I contemplated the lives of the more than 100,000 people buried there. Calvary Cemetery is palpably filled with the presence of generations of Catholics laid to rest there since its founding in 1856.

If the gravestones could talk, some might excitedly tell of one of the most impressive funerals ever to process into the cemetery. On July 31, 1903, Theodore Hamm, president of the Hamm’s Brewing Company, died suddenly of a heart attack brought on by pneumonia. He was 77. As the owner of one of the largest breweries in Minnesota and the nation, Hamm was a wealthy and distinguished member of the community. He also remained a lifelong resident of the Swede Hollow neighborhood, where he established himself as a young German immigrant.

Local newspapers reported that Hamm’s funeral was “one of the largest ever seen in the city,” with over 1,000 attendees at his home, the Church of the Sacred Heart and the cemetery. All of St. Paul’s most prominent citizens came to say their final goodbyes. There were abundant floral offerings, singers from the Mozart Club and members of local German fraternal organizations.

(Then again, the gravestones might take more of an interest in the more personal visits and people who have never been recorded in the news.)

Perhaps the only Catholic in St. Paul who was more prominent at the time was Archbishop John Ireland. Archbishop Ireland liked to walk the cemetery, visiting friends and parishioners who had passed into the next life. He also enjoyed listening to the joyful songs of resident birds. In a homily in November 1897, he meditated on the spiritual practice of visiting a cemetery. “It is indeed for us a holy … thought to remember the dead. The oftener we put ourselves in the society of the dead, the better it is for our souls,” he said.

He went on to explain that the cemetery is an excellent place to gain perspective on what is important in life and to look toward what is true and lasting — immortality with Christ. Archbishop Ireland suggested November, the month of the dead, as an especially good time to visit and pray. He instructed his audience (both in person and in the newspaper the following day) to visit the cemetery and to ask those buried there to pray for them from heaven (if they were indeed with God in heaven) while also agreeing to pray for those waiting in purgatory. Of course, visitors to a cemetery are unable to distinguish the saints from those still waiting for full purification.

You can still take Archbishop Ireland’s advice to walk in the cemetery to pray and gain perspective on life. My favorite people to visit in Calvary Cemetery are the nuns and sisters who are buried near the archbishop himself. But, you might also stumble upon a few Minnesota Catholics whose names are echoed in familiar businesses, parks and street names.

Luiken is a Catholic and a historian with a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. She loves exploring and sharing the hidden histories that touch our lives every day.