Volunteers help keep the cemetery for the living

Intermountain Catholic

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Mount Calvary Catholic Cemetery benefits from volunteers who help maintain the grounds. IC file photo

SALT LAKE CITY — On Sept. 17, 1897, the growing Catholic presence in Utah was recognized in a significant way: 19.5 acres were donated to the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City for Mount Calvary Catholic Cemetery. 

More than 100 years later, the cemetery has become a place where diverse community members gather to be good stewards.

"Family members of our staff come and help; parishioners of various parishes, the Knights of Columbus, Judge Memorial [Catholic High School] students, Boy Scout troops, the families of the people that rest here, and others come and help," said John Curtis, director of Mount Calvary Catholic Cemetery.

Planting flowers and a small vegetable garden, cleaning graves, helping to maintain the grass, trees, statues and memorials are all part of what the volunteers have helped with in the cemetery.

Curtis welcomes everyone to the cemetery because he thinks that "people need to connect with the cemetery; the cemetery is more about the living than the dead," he said.

Among some of the organizations and groups that have volunteered their time to the cemetery are Saint Joseph the Worker parishioners and confirmation students, Saint Ambrose parishioners and Saint Patrick Parish’s youth group.

Curtis said that part of the importance of volunteering is to help to reduce labor costs at the cemetery.

"For example, in the fall the cemetery had Judge Memorial students helping. They cleaned all the leaves in one day and here [with the staff at the cemetery] with only three guys, it used to take up to a week," he said.

Even on the weekends, Curtis and some members of his staff are at the cemetery, talking with visitors and thanking the volunteers, who sometimes go unannounced to the cemetery and wash windows, weed, clean graves and place flowers on the ones that appear to have been abandoned.

"We invite the community to come and help. … We do that through the relationships that we have established with them," said Curtis.

Among the volunteers is Josefina Jimenez, whose parents are buried in the cemetery. Once in a while, when she is visiting their graves, she walks through the cemetery and picks up the trash that she might find on the roads.

"I enjoy coming here, and I think if we all do something, as minor as it seems, this place that keeps our loved ones will be more and more beautiful," said Jimenez.

"This is a community of souls; the stronger the community the better the cemetery," said Curtis. "We perpetuate the family memorialization."

Mount Calvary Catholic Cemetery is located at 275 U St., Salt Lake City. The offices are open Monday-Friday, 8 a.m. - 4 p.m., but the cemetery is open seven days a week.