This Victorian-style memorial was designed by John Blocher to show the immense guilt he had over his son’s tragedy. Nelson died of a broken heart, the story goes, and the voluptuous marble angel above him in the memorial is in the likeness of the maid.

It’s not a typical park, nor a traditional locale for an afternoon stroll, but Forest Lawn Cemetery has long been one of Buffalo’s hidden gems.

“A lot of people come to see just the man-made structures [within the cemetery],” states Joseph Dispenza, President of the Forest Lawn Group. “They come to see Millard Fillmore, the thirteenth President of the United States, or the Blocher memorial. A lot of couples come to see the memorial because of the romantic story behind it.”

With glorious upright monuments, winding creeks, and forested meadows and hills, cemeteries like Forest Lawn separate themselves from utilitarian graveyards of the past. In 1849, Buffalo took part in the European movement towards monumental, park-like burial grounds outside of the city with the construction of Forest Lawn Cemetery. Cemeteries, before the birth of parks, were beautiful places not only to bury loved ones, but to socialize and picnic on Sundays. The immense popularity of Forest Lawn during the rural cemetery movement, combined with Buffalo being one of the fastest growing cities of the past, made the cemetery what it is today. A walk through Forest Lawn is a walk through an outdoor museum of Buffalo’s culture and history.

The Rural Cemetery Movement

“It’s all about the landscape. It really is a museum that is outdoors—that’s our tradition,” Dispenza says with conviction. “More and more we have people saying, ‘I’m coming to see the landscape of Forest Lawn: the undulating hills, the trees, the curvilinear roads.’ That’s part of the historic cemetery movement. It’s about the landscape and a person’s place within it.”

The rural cemetery movement was a national movement that a lot of major east coast cities of the mid-1800s took part in. These fast-growing cities began locating their cemeteries outside the city boundaries to provide accommodation for urban property and population growth. This, combined with the inspiration of the Romantic Movement, lead to a different attitude towards death and burial. “People were encouraged to walk the grounds, to take comfort in the funerary gardens and to contemplate the meaning of death and life,” according to Forest Lawn Cemetery: Buffalo History Presevere, co-authored by Dr. Albert L. Michaels, history professor at the University at Buffalo.

The first to be made and the prototype to all rural cemeteries was built by the French Government in 1804. Pere Lachaise was established on rural ground overlooking the beautiful city of Paris. It was intended to reflect a new image of the Romantic Movement and a picturesque belief: “balanced art and nature.” Pere Lachaise was beautiful in the way it was put together. Light curved roads, stone pathways, and marble memorials set against vibrant green plants make for attractive scenic vistas and points of inspiration.

“Pere Lachaise is where the most famous of the world’s famous are buried,” Joe Dispenza points out. “Jim Morrison is buried there, for example.”

With Forest Lawn being built on glorious landscape two and a half miles outside of the city, it became the place to go and get away on the weekends. Since there were no parks at the time, Forest Lawn was a pasttime even if one had no family buried there. People simply went there to enjoy forested land. It became so popular and crowded on the weekends that you needed a ticket to get in. A ticket was given to each family who had someone buried in the cemetery, and it allowed them to come in and visit with one vehicle.

History Building

With the birth of parks and the development of Buffalo into a major city, it seems that Forest Lawn lost some popularity. The cemetery’s roads are no longer congested and no more tickets are needed to get in.

“In the past, the wealth of our city helped build the history inside Forest Lawn. Families went to the marketplace and found artists, architects, and sculptors to create their permanent memorial and had it placed at the cemetery,” Dispenza explains. “We were the canvas. They went out and hired the artists to add to it. And then it changed. It changed because of the depression for a lot of people.”

Now, Joseph Dispenza and the Forest Lawn Group find it is their moral and ethical obligation to find ways to continually add history to the cemetery. One of the ways they chose to do so was the building of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Blue Sky Mausoleum. In the past, families brought art to the cemetery. With the Blue Sky Mausoleum, Forest Lawn went out and brought the architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, to the public.

The Blue Sky Mausoleum was originally meant for Darwin D. Martin’s family, a Buffalo industrial magnate and great benefactor of Frank Lloyd Wright. However, Wright procrastinated, never made the design small enough for the piece of land the Martin family purchased, and after the stock market crashed, the Martin family could no longer afford it.

The Blue Sky Mausoleum gets its name from having no roof. The blue summer sky represents its endless roof top. This mausoleum is actually the only Frank Lloyd Wright mausoleum that is open to the public. Only 24 double-tier West Minister-style crypts are available to purchase. This Frank Lloyd Wright structure is an example of the modern history that brings visitors into the cemetery, but it is still the old history that is the major draw.

“The Blue Sky Mausoleum is a great addition to Forest Lawn, but it is still not going to bring back the popularity it once had, and that shouldn’t be fooling anyone,” states Michael Stewart, an UB History and History Education alumnus. “There are too many other sources of entertainment that people would rather indulge in these days over learning some history at Forest Lawn. And it’s sad, because there is a lot there and not a lot of people know about it.”

Cool Things to Know

Only Forest Lawn Cemetery can say they have the thirteenth President buried on their property. Millard Fillmore brought a lot of history to this area besides just being the President of the United States. He was one of the founders of the Historical Society, the First Chancellor of the University at Buffalo, the first President of the Buffalo Club, and the founder of the local SPCA. Fillmore was buried on his family plot, and to honor him a skyward pointing obelisk of pink granite was erected.

There are other strange connections between UB and Forest Lawn. Paul A. Fernbach, an associate professor of surgery at UB and talented vascular surgeon, was one of five individuals that have lost their lives in Forest Lawn Cemetery. At age 56, Friday morning, June 16, 1972, he left behind his wife and six kids when he entered the cemetery’s Delaware Ave. entrance and took his life.

A recent celebrity added to the mix of things at Forest Lawn is Rick James, and no one has a more fitting tombstone then the superfreak himself. “I’ve had it all / I’ve done it all / I’ve seen it all / It’s all about love / God is love,” the stone reads, next to an engraved image of James from his 1981 hit album Street Songs. He became popular for his hits of the ‘80s, such as “Superfreak” and “Mary Jane.”

The popularity of Forest Lawn has gone down from its glory days. Where admission tickets were needed in the past to allow one to visit, their gates are now wide open with no ticket ripper and not half as many people to appreciate what Forest Lawn truly is. “It’s a garden of local history, a tribute to all the people who founded the city,” states Dr. Michaels. “Walking through the cemetery is really a lesson in our regional history. All the people who made this community, for the most part, are buried there.”