Friday, July 1, 2011

Centerville Pioneer Cemetery - Fremont CA

My post about Holy Ghost Cemetery got me wondering about some of the other local history.  We do have other historical cemeteries here in town - there's one at Mission San Jose, the Ohlone cemetery, and Centerville Pioneer Presbyterian Cemetery.


For this post, I visited the latter.  As a bonus, it was gray and rainy out - the perfect setting for my visit.  Of course, the fact that it was gray and rainy at the end of June is another matter entirely.


This quiet little site can be found at the corner of Post St. and Bonde Way in the Centerville district.  While this is a much smaller site than Holy Ghost, its history of those buried there is much more prominent than I would have expected.

The site is surrounded by a tall black fence, but its door is unlocked allowing easy access to wander around.  Not far from the entrance is a beautiful replica of the little while church that used to stand on the corner of the lot.  On its pedestal are some really nicely done murals showing the various districts that came together to become Fremont, along with several tiles presenting not only the background of those buried here, but also those who helped to keep this site as nice as it is today, and the individuals that created this monument.  There are photos of all the tiles in this album (rather than post all of them here since there's quite a few).

In comparison to my visit at Holy Ghost, the grounds here were well kept up.  It was nice to see that even when a head stone had fallen, someone had taken the time to cement the stone back down onto its grave so it couldn't be moved or taken.  There are a lot of familiar names here as well - Blacow, Eggers and Brier, just to name a few.


The Decoto/Riser Family

The Eggers Family

The Blacow Family
There are those who would argue that this site was maintained because it used to be visible from Fremont Blvd., and it would look bad to have it looking unkempt.  Reading the tiles tells a different story.  They actually wanted to preserve the history here.  I, for one, am glad they did.




1 comment:

  1. Thanks for this little story. I recently discovered through a genealogy search that I have relatives burred in the Holy Ghost (Spirit) cemetery by the name of Silva.

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