Buckingham Slate: Hollywood Cemetery
Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia c. 1900
In 1898, the Mortuary Chapel at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia was completed. The beautiful building was topped with a roof of slate quarried in Buckingham County. An announcement in The Richmond Dispatch, which ran on May 22, 1898, described the Gothic architecture and proclaimed:
“It is a beautiful portal, well suited to the beautiful city of our dead.”
My aunt, Evelyn Baber Agee, lived in a residential facility near Hollywood Cemetery for several years before her death. While waiting to visit her, we strolled through the cemetery to pass the time. We were not familiar with this beautiful cemetery and had no idea that so many historic figures were laid to rest there. It was a memorable day.
Carole, I can visit again and again.
My gg-grandfather Joseph Cornelius Davidson and his wife Vitula Monroe Sandridge left Buckingham and came to “Manchester City” (the Richmond, VA area, south of the James River) before 1880. Joseph is buried in Hollywood Cemetery….but his wife Vitula went back to Buckingham, and she is buried in the front yard of “Cherry Hill” there. Several of the descendants of Joseph are also buried in Hollywood Cemetery, including one of my father’s brothers.
Thanks, Bill. Hollywood Cemetery is one of the country’s most beautiful park-like cemeteries.