San Mateo County Cemeteries: Woodlawn

Every cemetery is exciting, but when you are under two finding one with books, water, pictures, statues, waving birds and more is very exciting.  Woodlawn can provide an hour or so of fun for even the youngest cemetery walker.  

Sweeping views of the area make it a pleasant walk for everyone.  There are a large number of Chinese burials, many with pictures on the tombstones. Perhaps because I am unable to read them, they seem more like works of art than burial monuments.  



Located at 1000 El Camino Real, Woodlawn was established in 1904 as the replacement for San Francisco's Masonic Cemetery, which had been in existence since 1854.  Woodlawn was the twelfth cemetery in the then town of Lawndale.  

You can read more about the cemetery, it's signature castle and early logistics by clicking on History on the cemetery website's About Us Tab.  You will find a contact form on the same tab if you would like to ask for more information on a particular burial.

Brotherhood of the Sea Memorial

Among the special monuments in the cemetery is that of the  Brotherhood of the Sea and among the famous buried here is Emperor Norton.



 Find A Grave has over 8000 interments listed, many with photographs of the tombstones.  You will also find a map of the cemetery.

Billion Graves lists just under 700 burials at Woodlawn.  As most of these have a picture, you might find a photo or burial missing from Find A Grave.

An early picture of Woodlawn can be found in the SF Library photo collection.

Pictures from Woodlawn and other cemeteries can be found on Art in Stitches.

Just in case you would like to understand some of the many symbols found on tombstones, here and elsewhere,check out Cemetery Symbolism - A Wary Glossary. 

Woodlawn Memorial Park
1000 ElCamino Real, Colma CA 94104
Telephone: (650) 755-1727  
 

 

San Mateo County Places

Belmont- Ralston Hall

                       Gardner Sanitarium                     

On 18 Aug 1900, Dr. Alden Monroe Gardner, medical superintendent for the State Asylum for the Insane at Napa, purchased the Ralston estate in Belmont for $35,000 from the Union Trust Company of San Francisco. This was to be the home of the Gardner Sanitarium, the state’s 1st private mental sanitarium. (RD 87 #181)

 

 As advertised in the  California State Journal of Medicine in 1904, the sanitarium specialized in nervous disorders, including substance abuse and also served those recovering from serious illness.

 The Directory of Physicians and Surgeons in the State of California for 1908 includes a multi-page advertisement with variety of pictures of the facilities.  It is interesting to note that there are only 24 physicians listed for all of San Mateo County that year.  Of those nine had been in practice in California for less than ten years. The Gardner Sanitarium is the only medical institution listed in the county.  

The Report of the Commission of Lunacy v.6 (Sacramento: 1908 California Commission of Lunacy p106) - Gardner Sanitarium- Belmont stated that the minimum rate for care at the sanitarium wass $125 a month.  There were at that time 33 patients with a maximum bed count of 60.  Nurses did not wear uniforms, so patients would not stand out.  The 79 acre estate allowed patients to roam without interacting with the public.

Although Dr. Gardner died as a patient in his own sanitarium in 1913, his son  P.S. (Sherman) Gardner continued to run it until 1922. 

In 1923 the Ralston property was sold to the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur.  They had been looking to relocate their college from San Jose.  Today, ninety years later, Ralston Hall, mainly closed as funding is sought for seismic restoration is still a part of Notre Dame de Namur University.

Patients Playing Billiards - 1922

                              Ralston Hall                               

• About Ralston Hall
• Wikipedia - Ralston Hall
• Library of Congress - Photographs of Ralston Hall
• Name highlights history of Belmont's Notre Dame

                                  Dr. Alden Gardner (1849 NY - 1913 CA)                         

• The Journal of the American Medical Association, Volume 61, Part 1 p210
• Obit City  reported the death of Dr. Gardner on 28 Jun 1913.

                                           Some residents of Gardner Sanitorium                            

• Wallace Coburn
• Lorna Fosberg

                                            San Mateo County Hospitals                                          

• City of Belmont - The Sanitariums 

San Mateo County Places

St Matthew - San Mateo

                      Red Cross Hospital                                              

Is Red Cross Hospital in San Mateo familiar to you?  It wasn't to me,  or the other indexers that were working in the San Mateo County Record Repository, a few weeks ago either.  Yet many San Mateo County births took place there.  Barry went home and did a little research coming back with the fact that the Red Cross Hospital was the beginning of what is now Mills-Peninsula Hospital.

At the time of the Great Earthquake, there were no hospitals in San Mateo County.  The need became evident and St. Matthew Parish in San Mateo with the support and funding of Mrs. Elizabeth Mills Reid first started a "nurses" home with six beds in 1908.  Rather than try to tell a story that is so much better told in the records of the times, the intention of this post is to help you find some of the many articles that told the tale as it unfolded.

Start with  Nursing in Mission Stations: How a Small Hospital Was Started (American Journal of Nursing 1908 Vol 8, Issues 7-17 p705) where you will read about the installation of Beatrice Woodward, a trained nurse, as parish nurse at St. Matthews.

The American Red Cross Bulletin (Vol 4 pg 89) gives an account of the beginning of the cottage and the updated modern hospital that was opened in Feb of 1909.  You'll also find pictures of the dining room, the Red Cross Guild Ward and the operating room.

In their statistical report, Benevolent Institutions 1910 the Department of Commerce: Bureau of the Census (1913 Washington DC: Government Printing Office, p262) lists only Red Cross Hospital on the Peninsula as a benevolent hospital or sanitarium.

The Directory of San Mateo, Burlingame and Hillsborough for 1912  (p5) reported that the hospital was planning to expand at a cost of $100,000.

The American Red Cross Bulletin expands on that in Vol 8-9 page 193.  That volume has the picture of the hospital above as well as a picture of the sun room that was added to speed patient recovery.

On 31 Oct 1913 the Daly City Record reported that the Troy Laundry Machinery Co. agrees to install a laundry system in St. Matthew’s Red Cross Hospital at San Mateo in 60 days for $3285.

In 1916 The Modern Hospital (vol 7 p34) reported that Red Cross Hospital, San Mateo, CA was planning the addition of a maternity ward.

By 1921 the American Medical Journal (vol 76 p1088) reported five hospitals with 25 or more beds in San Mateo County.  In addition to Red Cross Hospital (45 beds) there was San Mateo County Hospital (60) in San Mateo, Canyon Sanitarium (36) in Redwood City, California Sanitarium (with 100 beds dedicated to TB,  the largest in the county) in Belmont, and South San Francisco Hospital (35).

While some sources state that the name changed to Mills Hospital in the "mid-teens," directories and vital statistic certificates show the name as Red Cross Hospital to about mid 1921.

The Red Cross hospital is just one of many institutions supported by St. Matthew in the early twentieth century.  The parish was also responsible for Bishop Armitage Orphanage, the Maria Kip Orphanage, the Church Divinity School of the Pacific Coast, St. Matthew's School for Boys and St. Dorothy's Rest.

   Links to further information on Red Cross Hospital   

• Beginnings of Mills Hospital in San Mateo  The Daily Journal 12 Sep 2011
• Caring for Generations at Mills-Peninsula

   Links to further information about Elizabeth Mills Reid  

• Peninsula Royalty: The Founding Families of Burlingame-Hillsborough: Elizabeth Mills Reid
• Historic Sarnac Lake Wiki - Elizabeth Mills Reid

   Links to further information about St. Matthew Parish   

• History of the Parish of St. Matthew
• The Churchman 24 Aug 1909 pg 603