Phaedra Trethan

@CP_Phaedra

Linda Lacy is a vibrant, funny, warm woman who exudes life. So it’s a little ironic she runs a cemetery.

On a warm, early autumn day, Lacy gives the Courier-Post a tour of Eglington Cemetery, which bills itself as the nation’s oldest, continually operating, privately-owned cemetery. She makes jokes, points to the many quirky gravesites in the sprawling 70-plus-acre Clarksboro site, and teases her friend and coworker Andrea Boldizar as she navigates a massive black SUV along the cemetery’s small roads.

But for all the lighthearted banter and self-deprecating humor, Lacy is serious about a job she calls “sacred,” overseeing Eglington and three other cemeteries nearby.

“It’s one of the most honorable things you can do,” she says. “You’re helping people at the worst time in their lives,” when they lose a loved one.

BEFORE I DIE: Green burials gain interest

South Jersey is full of old cemeteries, chronicling the lives and cataloging the dead for more than 300 years. The region’s Colonial settlers buried their dead behind churches, at public plots near city neighborhoods and in the fields that dot the Garden State’s southern counties. Quakers and Catholics, African American congregations and Jewish synagogues, the rich, poor and working class — they tell the tale of a region whose landscape is urban, industrial, suburban, sprawling and rural.

Just a few blocks from downtown Mount Holly and the church for which it’s named, St. Andrew’s Cemetery has been the final resting place for its congregants since the mid-1700s. A written history of the congregation — which itself dates to 1742 — traces the cemetery’s caretakers and occupants, from Samuel Clark (the “gravedigger, as well as the clerk” – mentioned in minutes from June 1802) to Thomas F. Bodine, a sexton and gravedigger paid a $75 salary in 1845, as well as the historic Dobbins Chapel, consecrated in 1879 and still used a few times each year, and a spate of vandalism in 1982, when volunteers from McGuire Air Force Base helped re-erect many of the overturned headstones.

Walking through the sun-dappled cemetery on a warm fall day, St. Andrew’s pastor David Snyder said the cemetery is still open to families with a connection to the congregation.

“I understand they have Easter egg hunts for the children here every year, too,” said Snyder, with St. Andrew’s since December.

Often, the size of a cemetery plot and its monuments are a marker of the wealth of the deceased. St. Andrew's includes family plots with a variety of headstone designs: obelisks, cherubs, angels and, of course, crosses.

Eglington, in the Clarksboro section of East Greenwich, was founded in 1776. Chartered in 1869, its grounds were laid out in 1872 and it’s served as the final resting place for some of Gloucester County’s wealthiest and most prominent residents — as well as everyday citizens.

One of its most notable plots is that of David Fowler (died 1926) and his family. Fowler “re-created” the bedroom he shared with his wife, with their side-by-side graves resembling beds on one side and two more on the other for their children — as well as a stone humidor and even an armchair where visitors can sit.

At Harleigh Cemetery in Camden’s Parkside neighborhood, the poet Walt Whitman (along with his parents and siblings) rests in a secluded enclave. His crypt is one of many in the sprawling cemetery, which dates to 1885. Nick Virgilio, a Camden native and world-renowned haiku poet, is also buried at Harleigh.

BEFORE I DIE: Comfort at the end

Before the Victorian era, cemeteries were often next to or near the churches that owned them, explained Bonny Elwell, Camden County Historical Society librarian. Public cemeteries were often located within city neighborhoods, but as the public became more aware of the way diseases are spread, cemeteries were moved to more pastoral settings.

Harleigh, Elwell explained, is a good example of the park-like layout popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries, with its artificial ponds, trees and gravesites that often resemble statuary.

Much of Elwell’s time is spent helping people research their genealogy and find ancestors’ graves in the 150-acre park and other old cemeteries all over Camden County, including Old Camden and New Camden cemeteries nearby, and others like Mount Peace in Lawnside, Friends cemeteries in Haddonfield and more. She’s armed with binders cataloging burial records listing dates, plots and names; maps spread out on tables at Pomona Hall, where the historical society is; and documents dating back generations.

Jesse Pebley has owned Eglington, a for-profit, non-denominational cemetery, since 1970; Lacy has worked for him since 1992. (New Jersey law now requires all cemeteries in the state to be run by nonprofits; Eglington was grandfathered in, Lacy said.)

Its gravesites are as varied and eclectic as South Jersey itself: “The Dog,” where John and Naoma Estell and their family rest, dates to 1854 and is one of several featuring stone canine companions — one of at least two graves where the pups are periodically given festive bandanas to wear around their necks.

“The Angel,” the resting place of the Connor family, has small stones surrounding a massive one with a winged figure, fist raised in the air. Its earliest date is 1884.

BEFORE I DIE: Talk about death with us

Marble monuments like “The Angel,” Lacy explained, require more care than modern ones made of granite. “Marble is porous, and after about 100 years, you can see it starts to erode,” she said, pointing out worn, nearly invisible lettering on one stone.

“The Angel” featured prominently in a scene in the 2004 film “Jersey Girl,” and Lacy recalled how the statue, with the dust and mildew of two centuries, needed to be cleaned — but not too much.

“We used soap and water; the production company offered to pay for chemical cleaning, but it means too much to me,” she said, touching the stone lovingly.

“I didn’t want to see anything happen to it.”

At “The Bell Tower” sits the convergence of two of the cemetery’s roads, and across the corner is Eglington’s oldest section, shaded by a collection of old trees.

It was here, among the faded headstones and rustling leaves, that Lacy reflected on her job.

“It’s all about memorializing someone, noting that they lived and died and were loved,” she said. “Remembering that life. That person lived. They mattered.”

Phaedra Trethan: (856) 486-2417; ptrethan@gannettnj.com

IF YOU GO

#BeforeIDie is a daylong event that aims to change the way we confront our own mortality. The free festival will be held Sunday, Oct. 30 from noon to 6:30 p.m. at Perkins Center for the Arts, 30 Irvin Ave., Collingswood. The event, sponsored by the Courier-Post, Samaritan Healthcare and Hospice and Perkins Center for the Arts, will include: a screening of Bill Moyers' "Being Mortal''; a reading and workshop by award-winning author Paul Lisicky from his memoir "The Narrow Door''; a workshop with Instagram star Nicole Angemi, a pathologist's assistant; meetings with the Camden County surrogate; bucket list challenges; live music; poetry readings; yoga; journaling; funeral directors, living will guidance and estate planning; food from Tortilla Press, The Pop Shop, Bistro di Marino, Constellation Collective, DiBartolo Bakery and Harvest Seasonal Grill & Wine bar; drinks from Flying Fish Brewing, Tonewood Brewing, Sharrott Winery and Revolution Coffee Roasters; door prizes; magic, coloring, face painting and more. Registration recommended at SamaritanNJ.org