Knollwood Cemetery is an almost 100 acre rural/garden cemetery established in Mayfield Heights, OH in 1908. The first burials were bodies transferred from the Erie Cemetery in downtown Cleveland and the first new internment is in 1910. The mausoleum was built in 1926 and has been expanded several times since then.
The day my daughter and I went to visit Knollwood it was rainy and overcast so we decided to spend some time wandering around the mausoleum. The mausoleum is two stories and we decided to go in downstairs, then make our way upstairs. The mausoleum is huge as it has space for over 7,000 full burials and a smaller number of urns for cremains. The first thing we noticed walking in was that it was very dark and all the lights were not on. Lights were on in some hallways and not others. Additionally, there was work being done and there were slabs of marble leaning up against some walls.
There are internments along some of the walls and there are a number of small family spaces. These each have a gate, but some of the gates were open. We also noticed that some spaces had stained-glass, but seemed to have no source of light, so it was impossible to see the images. We spent about 30 minutes wandering around looking at names and dates and admiring the beautiful stained-glass. I will also be honest and say that being in large mausoleums makes me nervous and the less than optimal lighting in Knollwood made me feel a little creeped out. However, the stained-glass more than made up for my slight queasiness. It would take multiple blog posts to do justice to all of the glass, but here are some of our favorites.
