Mt. Calvary Cemetery looks to extend its life

Intermountain Catholic

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Mount Calvary Catholic Cemetery enters its 115th year adjacent to the Salt Lake City Cemetery. IC photo/Marie Mischel

SALT LAKE CITY — As Mt. Calvary Catholic Cemetery enters its 115th year, its caretakers are exploring ways to make the graveyard useful and self-sufficient for years to come.

"We are running out of space," said John Curtice, the cemetery director. "We’re almost in crisis because of the limited number of gravesites."

Historically the graveyard has been listed at 19.5 acres, but a recent survey shows that it actually encompasses 18.9 acres, with a 1,200 foot elevation drop from the north end of the property to the south, Curtice said.

The cemetery’s original graves are located in the southwest corner. About 100 burials a year take place, both full body and cremains. Cremation has increased in popularity and currently make up about a third of the services at Mt. Calvary, said Curtice, who is exploring the possibility of adding at least one new columbarium on the grounds and converting some crypt space to niches for urns.

In addition, the cemetery has reclaimed about an acre of ground by hauling off about 700 tons of dirt from a mound piled as graves were dug through the years; Curtice believes the mound began when the cemetery opened. "We probably have another 500 to 800 tons that we need to haul off in order to landscape it" and make it suitable for gravesites, he said. Once the site is level, it could extend the cemetery’s life by about 25 years, Curtice estimates.

Three years ago, a well was dug to provide irrigation water for the cemetery, providing a yearly savings of about $35,000. Curtice now plans to install solar panels to make the cemetery self-sufficient electrically. Also on the drawing board is an English garden where visitors, for a donation, could cut fresh flowers for the graves.

As the cemetery director, Curtice walks the grounds daily, and has been fascinated by some of the gravestones he’s read, particularly the older ones, such as a veteran of the Civil War and another from the Spanish-American War. Also buried at Mt. Calvary is John Henry Johnston, a member of the Salt Lake City Police Department who was killed in the line of duty on July 8, 1911.

On Memorial Day, Curtice and his staff were troubled to see how few flowers decorated graves in the graveyard’s older section compared to the areas where more recent burials have taken place.

"There are forgotten souls down there," he said, "and we as faithful Catholics should remember them in our prayers."

The annual collection for Mt. Calvary Cemetery will be taken up the weekend of Aug. 26.