It’s Been A While

Memorial Day, 2026

I began my annual preparation for Memorial Day this week. For years, my parents planted the container at Oakwood Cemetery that marks my father’s parents’ graves. After Dad passed away twenty years ago, I helped my mother select and plant

the flowers, usually including geraniums, spikes, and vinca. One year, someone swept through the cemetery at night and stole several planters, including ours, which could not

have been easy since they were waist-high and made of iron. They weren’t easy to replace, but after a long search we found new ones. Mom died two years ago, and I have been carrying on the tradition.

Every few years, the silver paint begins to peel and rust. This was one of those years. I can never quite remember the exact color and shine: metallic gray or silver, glossy or flat? The wall of spray cans at the neighborhood hardware store is daunting until I remember or guess correctly: shiny, rust-proof silver. After wrapping an old sheet around the large rough cut gray granite stone inscribed with our family name PETERSON, I begin brushing each planter with a wire brush.

It was a sunny afternoon, and people were walking along a path on the outside of the cemetery fence, many of them with dogs. A few other people were tending graves. I

have come to think of the cemetery as a gathering place. In another section, my great-grandparents and my husband are buried. So are the founders of Mayo Clinic, former

mayors of the town and other elected officials and dignitaries alongside us regular people. There is also a wide stretch of ground without any markers: Potter’s Field. I had

been coming to this cemetery for decades before I learned that a thousand people are buried in this section in unmarked graves. Among them are Charles Jackson, a young

Black man who died of tuberculosis (TB) in 1897, and an infant, whose unwed mother was accused of causing the child’s death. Some people buried in Potter’s Field died in

accidents, by suicide, as well as from the deadly diseases of the times: dysentery, diphtheria, cholera, influenza, typhoid, and TB. They all have stories. Yet very few people now know they ever lived, or that they are buried in that open, unmarked ground.

My great-grandparents built and ran a greenhouse a few blocks from the cemetery. It was a convenient place for people to stop and buy flowers before visiting family graves. In earlier times, when travel from the surrounding countryside took time by horse and carriage, people often brought food and picnicked at the graves. My daughter, grandchildren, and I have occasionally spread a blanket here ourselves and ate sandwiches while we shared stories.

After brushing the planters, I sprayed them with the fresh silver paint, being careful not to overdo it. The glossy finish can quickly make them appear like the tin man in Wizard of OZ –not the look I am going for.

More stories of those buried in Potter’s Field appear in Rochester: An Urban Biography, the book I wrote after learning they were there.