- - - - HISTORY OF ROSE HILL BURIAL PARK - - - -

OKLAHOMA COUNTY OK

The cemetery is owned and managed by the Service Corporation International in the name of Rose Hill Burial Park and Trust. The cemetery itself is still the original 86 acres; however the total property now covers 127 acres including the cemetery office and Hahn-Cook Street & Draper Funeral Home across the street. On December 14, 1917, Edna D. {Ella} Classen, widow of one of Oklahoma City's pioneers, deeded 86 acres more or less to a state-sanctioned 999-year property trust for use as a public burial park or cemetery, recorded in county deed book 196, page 395. She chose John J. Harden to develop and manage the cemetery just north of the historic Belle Isle Lake.

A Greek cross-shaped mausoleum was constructed in 1919. By 1937, a large abbey-type mausoleum was constructed facing Grand Blvd. at the east entrance to the cemetery property. It was advertised as a "Westminster Abbey for the people of Oklahoma." The crowning achievement of the mausoleum was its great chapel, patterned after King Tut's Tomb, with marble and terrazzo floors and a pipe organ that rises majestically above the rostrum. There are now two organs in the chapel. Services are held there almost weekly. A patio mausoleum and several private family mausoleums are also on the property.

The cemetery is divided into two sections, some of numbered but others are aptly named, such as Love, Rose Lawn, Babyland, Memories, Shepherd, and others. The cemetery is well kept and the sections are well marked. Upright headstones are interspersed among flat markers. Many markers are very interesting and very beautiful. There are benches throughout the grounds for resting and reflecting. The shore of the small lake is reserved for private estates, many with above ground crypts. The lake was once part of Belle Isle Lake.

On the right side of the main road is a large upright marker that would be of interest to historians and genealogists. It is a marker for "Joseph Bradfield Thoburn, 1866 - 1941, Oklahoma's Pioneer Historian. Born Bellaire, Ohio, reared and educated in Kansas, Secretary Oklahoma Territorial Board of Agriculture, Director of Oklahoma Historical Society 38 years, admitted to Oklahoma Hall of Fame in 1932, active in religious educational and civil works. Research among the Indians and early settlers inspired his authorship of the first school history of Oklahoma in 1908."

One-half of Section 3 is filled with the victims of the 1918 flu epidemic. Some days as many as 80-100 people were buried in long trenches. There was no time to open individual graves or to install markers. A few markers were installed later. At different times over the years graves were moved here from other cemeteries. For example, those interred in a cemetery near Wiley Post Airport were moved to Rose Hill in the early years of Oklahoma City when a road was scheduled to go through the cemetery. Forty-eight interments from the cemetery at NW 63rd and N. Villa, known as Mary Lyons, Methodist, or NW 63rd Street Cemetery, were moved to Rose Hill in 1968. Rose Hill management does not have records designating which graves were moved from other cemeteries. Records are carried by individual names. However, there is a monument "Dedicated to the Memory of Mary Lyons and Other Oklahoma Pioneers." It lists surnames of Beadner, Buck, Finley, Greenhaw, Martin, Mott, Stevens and West.

The main entrance is located on Grand Blvd. on the east side of the cemetery. Another entrance with several sections of burials is on Pennsylvania on the west. The two entrances accent the large amount of undeveloped land that will be available for final resting places for generations to come. Several Oklahoma Governors, Oklahoma Supreme Court Judges, Oklahoma City Mayors, and owners of many large businesses are buried here as well as many of the city fathers for whom many of Oklahoma City streets are named. Forty two Civil War Veterans are buried at Rose Hill as well as many Spanish American War veterans and veterans from later wars.

{Information obtained from OK County Cemetery Index - compiled by OK County HCE Genealogy Group, pages 94-95.}