If you want to know how dry the subsoil is, ask a grave digger. “It’s dry as a bone once you get below 6 inches,” said Carl Thoresen, superintendent at Oak Hill Cemetery in Cedar Rapids. Thomas Higgins of Independence, a grave digger for 28 years, said he’s finding moisture to 2 1/2 feet in [...]
continue »
CEDAR RAPIDS — Nearly 120 years after it was built, the stately red granite mausoleum railroad magnate Charles John “C.J,” Ives had constructed for his late wife, Helen Dale, looks brand new. The restoration process at Oak Hill Cemetery, which began in 2008 but accelerated last year after a wall nearly collapsed, culminated in [...]
continue »The timeline put together by Carl and Jane Thoresen, superintendent and historian of the Oak Hill Cemetery in Cedar Rapids, is a great reference tool. Covering 1840 to 1949, it was conceived because a lot of visitors to the cemetery wanted help in connecting the history of a loved one with the history of the [...]
continue »
