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LAKEVIEW County Rd #47 N. to Old Viking Blvd West Burns Township, Anoka County, MN
(Inscription: “You may break the vase, but the scent of the roses will be around forever”) It is believed that this cemetery saw its first burials about 1880, but there is one grave that is much older than that, a death that occurred in 1869 according to the stone. It is thought that this person was moved here, but no one knows for sure and records do not tell us. The land was donated for the cemetery by Samuel Smith. His farm was across the road on the north east corner of the cemetery. He is buried here as are some members of his family. We’ll visit him a little later in the tour. In the early years, anyone who had a plot in this community cemetery was responsible for taking care if it. If they mowed and planted, that was fine. If they didn’t, there was no one to do anything about it, so that was fine, too. There is a story about cleaning up the cemetery that starts with a lady who didn’t like people to drink. She accused a man in the community of being the one to sell the moonshine, but it was not him. It was a neighbor to him, but the lady accused him anyhow. One spring, she decided to burn off the grass and stuff from her family plot in the cemetery. That was fine until the fire got away from her. All the neighbors came out to help get the fire under control, including the man she had accused of selling the moonshine. He knew she had falsely accused him, so when the fire was out, he said to her that a drink of schnapps would certainly taste good right then, just to antagonize her a little more! The “everybody takes care of (or doesn’t take care of) their own lot went of for many years and the cemetery was overgrown with brush, weeds, untrimmed bushes and trees and filled with poison ivy. It began to change when Edith Greenberg decided it was not going to look like that any longer. She went out and began to clean out the brush and weeds. She was seen out at the cemetery many hours pulling poison ivy out with her gloved hands and cutting weeds with a scythe. There was no committee to care for the cemetery at that time, unless you call Edith a one woman committee. It was after her efforts that the Cemetery Committee was formed and the perpetual care of the grounds began. To pay for the perpetual care, Edith would go out and collect $2.00 from people who had a lot in Lakeview for the care of the cemetery. Sometimes she got the $2.00 and sometimes she didn’t. According to the present caretaker, they are still waiting for some of them to pay! When first started, it is thought the grave sites were probably not charged for. They were also not measured except by “foot”. If you had a big “foot”, then you got a bigger lot than someone with a small “foot”. This does cause problems for present graves as there is a quite a bit of variance in size on the earlier lots. The first records of charging for burials set the price at $5 for one lot that held 8 graves. In the 1960’s, the price went up, the charge was $25 for a lot of 8 graves. The next price increase brought the charge to $25 for a single grave and today, the price stands at $400 for a grave. This is still considered very reasonable as compared to other places in the Twin Cities. What happens with the money paid for a grave is that $200 goes into a perpetual care fund. This $200 is never touched, only the interest is spent to take care of the cemetery. The remaining $200 is available at the discretion of the cemetery committee to use in fixing up the cemetery: putting gravel on the road, buying more land, putting up a fence, or whatever needs to be done to keep the cemetery in good shape. EAST FACING BURIALS Everyone buried in Lakeview is buried with their feet toward the east. This is symbolic of their rising with their faces to the east at the time of the return of Christ. There are over 600 graves in Lakeview at present and it is still an active cemetery with growth anticipated. The cemetery has three sections now, but they have room to grow with land that is not yet used. A full 10% of those buried here are veterans. We will see several veterans from different wars on the tour tonight. Lakeview is fortunate to have had a committed member on their committee who has served for over 30 years and continues to take care of the cemetery and its records yet today. He is Waldo Leistco. ACHS is grateful to him and his wife, Avis, who helps him, not only for their care of the cemetery, but for their dedication to keeping the records and sharing them for history. (Sept. 2005) |
