By Rebecca Fricke

Wildwood Cemetery is a non-profit, non-denominational, cemetery that allows cremation, vault, and green burials.

A cemetery is a very strange business because it is about death, and death is emotional. Although we are a nonprofit, the products we sell – the lots – and the services we provide – the graves and landscaping – must generate enough income to preserve and protect the grounds forever. Can you think of anything other than death that has a forever guarantee?

From the beginning, Wildwood was formed as a private cemetery with a public mission. Wildwood Cemetery (across Strong Street from the Wildwood School) has transformed itself many times since it was established in 1887. Founding members of the Amherst Cemetery Association, including Austin Dickinson, Emily Dickinson’s brother, thought of the cemetery as a park with a dual purpose. It served as a place for people to be buried and a place for people to come and mourn those who had died, but it was also touted as a place for people to come to take carriage rides and walks around the grounds, including the 35 acres of woods on its eastern side. Austin called on the famous landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted for advice, and, today, we are still burying people within the original burial map Austin and Olmsted’s firm drew up.  

During the 20^th century, the cemetery became more inward facing. But in 2018, with a change in management, the cemetery began to reclaim itself as a “civic cemetery.” In practical terms, this means everyone is welcome. The main purpose of the grounds is for graves and those who come to mourn, but the cemetery is also open for walkers, naturalists, historians, and for quiet contemplation.

This transformation requires a significant effort to preserve the cemetery grounds, the historic farmhouse, and the areas of the cemetery without burials. We are yanking out invasive species choking our edges and woods, we recently received a Town of Amherst Community Preservation grant to replace our farmhouse roof, and we created a pollinator memorial garden thanks to the generosity of Jim and Carol Conlon (see the conceptual drawing below).  This memorial garden space has the capacity for a large tent for public gatherings. 

Our next big project is a new native garden at our front entrance funded by the Lorber Foundation. Intern Kayleigh Lin, a Senior at UMass majoring in Landscape Architecture, is planning the entrance garden, and it will be installed after our front fieldstone wall is rebuilt this spring.

Wildwood has buried thousands of people who led interesting lives, and there are many ways we can recognize our deceased in history programs and tours. We maintain the graves of many people who were artists, musicians, academics, writers, business entrepreneurs, and elected officials. We want to recognize and celebrate the diversity of races, religions, backgrounds, and identities of the community members interred at Wildwood.

Almost every week I learn about another notable person who is buried on our grounds. Yesterday at the Jones Library, I stopped to read a display that included information about Mittie Hall Alexander, an African American woman born to enslaved people in North Carolina who moved to Amherst in the late 1880s. Mittie ran a preschool for Black children and Amherst College professors’ children and she helped found what is now called the Goodwin Memorial Church. Using our database, I learned that Mittie is buried at Wildwood. We are all notable in one way or another, so at this point we have almost 4,000 notable people we can honor.

Wildwood’s grounds are both a built space and a conservation space. Our grounds serve as current burial space, future burial space, and, at the same time, a place where we serve our community, our families, and our animals and plants. As we intentionally plant more varieties of native species, our habitat and biodiversity will expand. As we allow for new kinds of burial, including green burials with no embalming and no burial vault, we will continue to be a space for remembrance and reflection as well as a space for conservation and access to nature.  If you would like more information about Wildwood Cemetery, please give me a call at the Wildwood Cemetery office (413-549-4649), send me an email at amherst.cemetery@verizon.net, or look us up at Wildwood-Cemetery.com.  

Photos: Wildwood Cemetery

Rebecca Fricke is General Manager of Wildwood Cemetery.