Evergreen Cemetery (Los Angeles)

Cemetery in Boyle Heights, California

Evergreen Memorial Park & Crematory is a cemetery in the East Side neighborhood of Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, California. Evergreen has several prominent individuals of historical Southern California on its grounds. Many pioneers are interred here, names such as Bixby, Coulter, Hollenbeck, Lankershim, Van Nuys, and Workman. The section near 1st and Lorena streets was at one time a potter's field. Evergreen is notable for never having banned African Americans from being buried at the cemetery. It has sections for Armenians, Japanese, and early white settlers, and a large section of Mexican graves. Biddy Mason, nurse and philanthropist, was one of the well known figures to be buried at the cemetery, in 1891. There is a section called the “Showmen’s Rest” in which 400 carnival workers and circus performers are buried by a memorial that is decorated with a lion. It was established by the Pacific Coast Showmen’s Association in 1922. One presumed serial killer, Bertha Bielstein, at one time lay in Evergreen Cemetery; however she was buried under another name, Olga Miller. Bielstein came from an upper middle class family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She was suspected of killing her parents in their home and moving to Los Angeles after escaping from a mental institution. Later her identity was confirmed and her body was relocated back east.

In return for a zoning variance to permit the cemetery, the founders of Evergreen gave the City of Los Angeles a parcel of the proposed cemetery in 1877 for use as an indigent graveyard, often referred as a "potter's field." Ownership of the indigent cemetery passed from the City to the County of Los Angeles in 1917. At the time, it was clear the potter's field would have burial space for only a few more years. By 1924, burial space in the potter's field was exhausted and the county built a crematorium at the site, on the corner of Lorena and 1st streets, and began to cremate its indigent deceased. Evergreen Cemetery purchased most of the potter's field from the county in 1964. It then prepared the newly recovered parcel for burials by covering it with 8 feet (2 m) of compacted soil. Only the crematorium was retained by the county. In 2007, the cremated remains of over 1700 unclaimed bodies were buried in the cemetery.

Until the Civil Rights era, racism barred the Chinese from burying their dead in most cemeteries, including Evergreen. The only place that allowed burial of Chinese persons was the city's potter's field. Unlike white indigents, who were buried at no charge, the Chinese had to pay US$10 (HK$78) to be interred. Archaeologists working for the agency determined that the excavation site was likely the Chinese section of the potter's field. The majority of the remains were Asian males found along with rice bowls, jade bracelets, Chinese burial bricks, Asian coins and opium pipes. The remains were buried inside Evergreen Cemetery, near the Chinese Shrine, and a memorial was dedicated on March 7, 2010.

Since 1897, Evergreen has held festivities every Memorial Day. Veterans, activist groups and families enter the cemetery grounds. Military organizations are stationed at different places as the Veterans Drum Corps lead the way from the streets, and Medal of Honor wreaths are distributed to the gravesites. Sometimes guest speakers are invited to make speeches.

With only a few open areas in Boyle Heights, the Evergreen Jogging Path Coalition worked with city officials to bring together a fitness area to improve local health. In 2003, a 1.4 mile jogging track was completed, encircling the cemetery. The track has exercise stations, shade, and benches so people from around the metro area can exercise regularly. as part of the Eastside Access Project which assists in building easier paths to the metro stations and accessible tracks for fitness. The path was dedicated in the memory of local activist, Lloyd Monserratt. In 2016 it received new additions and updated facilities.

Tisdale Justin Dow (1888–1940), Silent Film Actor. Pearlretta DuPuy (1871–1939), musician.

In Heaven Can Wait, Joe Pendleton's ashes are scattered in this cemetery following a memorial service. Rod Lane is buried here after Freddy Krueger murders him in his prison cell and makes it look like a suicide in A Nightmare on Elm Street. In American Me, Santana and JD are seen walking into the Stassforth Mausoleum.