A Small Rural Cemetery

The Tremont Street Cemetery lies about five miles southeast of Davis in the middle of the farmlands that grow wheat all winter and tomatoes all summer. It’s the burial ground for the Presbyterian church in that same spot. The church is no longer used but is well cared-for, as is the tiny cemetery.

Mostly German names are listed on the stones. There was a significant German migration to this part of California in the late nineteenth century. After the opening of the trans-continental railroad in 1869 which obviated the need for covered wagons or perilous trips round the Horn, California must once again have seemed a land of gold, though the gold rush was long over

Walking through a cemetery allows me to picture family life a hundred years ago—these people worked hard, were modest in their aspirations and lives, and often lost many members to illness or hardship—at a young age. It seems they were not untouched by the flu epidemic of 1918. Though this cemetery is small, it is a lovely place to sit in the heat of the summer with its mature, tall trees providing a good nesting site for red-shouldered hawks and great-horned owls as well as blue grosbeaks and northern mockingbirds.

I have a secret hankering to live in a cemetery, to be a “caretaker.” I find them restful places of memory, not morbid or frightening—and the birds are almost always in abundance. My hopes were raised when the caretakers’ trailer was moved from this cemetery recently, but it’s been replaced by a new one.

We’re considering doing a census of this cemetery for the online genealogy project so that relatives of the people buried here but perhaps living far away can get the data they need to find a “missing link,” the eureka moment of every genealogist.