Ghoulish girl

I really don’t have a thing for cemeteries. I prefer to think of it as ‘an interest in history.’ It brings history alive for me, no pun intended.

Turns out, I’m not alone. Lots of people like to tour old cemeteries, read tombstones and ponder the past. I talked my husband into going with me to a guided tour of the Old City Cemetery in downtown Sacramento.

It was free, an education about California history, and a great walk through beautiful gardens – if you don’t mind all the tombstones.

Around Halloween, interest in these tours pick up because volunteer docents offer special evening lantern tours. Because of the popularity of these tours, there is a $30 charge and there are 16 offered this year.

It’s not even October and all 16 tours are already sold out.

We went on a free morning tour called Saloons and Eateries, along with a few dozen other ghoulish sorts.

People jostled for position to hear about the wild Gold Rush days when bars might be nothing more than a tent and full meals were often served free to bring in more drinking customers.

For a time, bordellos were common but as the area became more of a family community, they were less accepted and finally closed for good.

 The cemetery grounds are on a slight hill, and before the region’s levees were built, this was safe ground when the rivers overflowed their banks and flooded the valley. This happened often. Sacramentans would pick up their belongings, trek up the rise to the cemetery grounds and camp out til the water receded.

John Sutter, of Sutter's Fort and Sacramento's founder, donated the first acreage for the cemetery and it grew over the years to 60 acres. Around 25,000 people have been interred here over 150 years.

Tours are led by volunteers, with donations used for repair and maintenance of the cemetery. In fact, virtually all the landscapers are volunteers too.

This is one of those places I had always meant to visit when I lived in California before but never did. Cemeteries aren’t about visiting dead people. They’re about thinking about living people – and so many of the people in this cemetery had fascinating lives.