Mountain View Cemetery is the final resting place of many people important in the history of the Bay Area including the pioneer coffee producer James A. Folger (1835-1889), the founding president of the University of California Rev. Henry Durant (1802-1875), and the father of hydraulic mining who founded the first Chabot Observatory Anthony Chabot (1813-1888).  Here are some of the photographs I took today in the cemetery.

Francis Marion “Borax” Smith

Francis Marion “Borax” Smith (1846-1931) made his fortune in “Twenty Mule Team Borax”, Key Route trains, streetcars, ferries; he built the Claremont Hotel.

Charles Crocker

Charles Crocker (1822-1888) was one of the “Big Four” builders of the Central Pacific Railroad.

Julia Morgan

Julia Morgan (1872-1957) was California’s first woman architect; she designed nearly 800 buildings in California including Hearst Castle.

Domingo Ghirardelli

Domingo Ghirardelli (1817-1894) was the San Francisco chocolate king; he moved his family graves from St. Mary’s Cemetery to Mountain View Cemetery.

Overview of the Cemetery in the Fog

Today, the fog never burned off of San Francisco, although in Oakland, where the Mountain View Cemetery is located, the fog cleared for a bit.  The trees here are turning color and this photograph of the trees, the cemetery, and the fog provides a little glimpse of autumn in the Bay Area.

There is an online index of the tombstones at the Mountain View Cemetery, complements of the California Tombstone Project.  The Mountain View Cemetery website has a detailed online map in PDF format.

Copyright © 2006 by Stephen J. Danko

In line with this addition, my images of the day are the death certificate, grave marker, and obituary for Harry J. Meleski.  Harry was the half-nephew of my grandmother, Helen (Chmieleska) Niedzialkowski.  In Lithuania, my grandmother’s family name was Chmielewski / Chmielewska (men used the ending “i” at the end of the surname, while women used “a”).  After arriving in the US, the family shortened their name to Meleski, and, by that, I mean the family changed the name – it wasn’t changed at Ellis Island or by someone else.

The Grave Marker for Harry and Margaret Meleski

Click on the links to see a PDF image of Harry Meleski’s Death Record or  Harry Meleski’s Obituary.  Click on the thumbnail to see a larger version of the marker on his grave in Hope Cemetery, Worcester, Massachusetts.  Harry and his wife died childless and it appeared that nobody had visited their grave in quite a while when I took this picture last summer.  I had to dig quite a bit of dirt and crabgrass off the marker in order to see it.  Harry was buried in Section 95, Lot RF1 on January 12, 1981.  His wife Margaret was buried next to him in Section 95, Lot RF2 on April 25, 1983.

As a final note, Harry was a lawyer and served for many years as the city solicitor of Worcester, Massachusetts.  He was once interviewed by the Worcester Telegram and told the newspaper that his most memorable case was one he argued before the Supreme Court of the United States to decide liability in a motor vehicle accident when one of the people involved was not a resident of the state in which the accident occurred.  This case and the decision are still important today, nearly 80 years after Harry won the case.

Copyright © 2006 by Stephen J. Danko