The Builder's Dream
Gardens of Memory Cemetery opened in 1954. At that time, these words were written;
Believe in a happy eternal life.
Believe that those of us who are left behind should be lad in the certain philosophy that those gone before, who believed in Him, have entered into that happier Life.
Believe, most of all, in a Christ that smiles and loves us all.
The cemeteries of the past are not in step with today's generations because they depict an end, not a beginning. They have consequently become unsightly stone yards full of inartistic symbols and depressing customs; places that do nothing for humanity save a practical act, and that not well.
Therefore, Gardens of Memory is being built as different, as unlike other cemeteries as sunshine is unlike darkness, as Eternal Life is unlike Death. Gardens of Memory is being built as a great memorial park, devoid of misshapen monuments and other customary signs of earthly death, but instead, filled with sweeping lawns, singing birds, musical towers, and cheerful flowers.
Believing that these things educate and uplift a community, Gardens of Memory has become a place where people, young and old, love to stroll and watch the sunset's glow, planning for the future or reminiscing of the past; a place where artists study and sketch; where school teachers bring happy children to see the things they read of in books, where chapels invite, triumphant in the knowledge that from their pulpits only words of love can be spoken; where memorialization of loved ones are cast in bronze. A place where the sorrowing will be soothed and strengthened because it will be God's garden. A place that shall be protected by an immense endowment care fund, the principal of which can never be spent - only the income there from used to care for and perpetuate these Gardens of Memory.
