Fingers of early morning sunlight creep across the lawn at
Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena. A squirrel pauses on a cylindrical marble head stone to crack a nut. The purpled San Gabriel Mountains embrace the view north. Birds chirp and sing in the cedars. A browning chestnut leaf drifts down to the grass.
The Mattisons, Szymanskis, Jacksons, Hurlbuts and Spaldings slumber in eternal rest. The more than 14,000 people interned here include congressmen, state legislators, a governor, a Nobel Laureate, a MacArthur Foundation genius, Civil War veterans and Congressional Medal of Honor recipients. You’d instantly recognize the faces of some, like character actor Cy Kendall (1898-1953) or George Reeves (1914-1959), who played Superman in the 1950s TV series.
Some created characters, like Earl Derr Biggers’ (1884-1933) Chinese detective Charlie Chan, or places like the movie sets that George J. Hopkins (1896-1985) designed for “My Fair Lady” (1964), “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1951), “Auntie Mame” (1958) and “The Music Man” (1962).
Some created other worlds like science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler (1947-2006); others tried to change the world like Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver (1935-1998); and still others like physicist Richard Feynman (1918-1988) tried to explain the world.
