Erected about 1910
This mausoleum stands at the intersection of four sections and the chapel. With the modern layout of the cemetery, it’s probably a more prestigious location than it was originally erected and it is highly visible and hard to miss. It’s a fairly large mausoleum – not as big as the massive, under-occupied Ludewing Mausoleum which is in sight to the east of this one – but it holds (probably) ten people.
The doors are adorned with beautiful inverted torches which symbolize death or the soul moving on to the afterlife.
Inside, has inscriptions for ten people, only six of whom have death dates inscribed. From various records, obituaries, etc., it seems as if all the inscribed are interred but it’s confusing as to why their death dates were never inscribed. This is especially odd as the most recent inscription was added in 1991.
Papa George Conrad Johnson started as a tinsmith found success as a hardware merchant (it appears with a side of real estate investment). Inscriptions for his wife Rosetta, son Milton, daughters Hattie, Nora, and Georgia, sons-in-law Robert (George) Bassett and Frank (Nora) Canfield, grandson George Bassett, and granddaughter Mildred (Hattie) Maier are also interred.
George Conrad Johnson started as a tinsmith found success as a hardware merchant (it appears with a side of real estate investment). It was he who was first interred in the mausoleum. The 1991 inscription is for his youngest daughter Georgia who died just shy of her 88th birthday. His other, much older daughters Nora and Hattie also seem to have been entombed here many years before Georgia, but their death dates were not added.
George’s wife Rosetta outlived him by many years, and perhaps she was the one who handled all of the business of getting dates inscribed. All of the death dates that are inscribed, except Georgia’s, predate Rosetta’s death and the information I can find for those without inscriptions indicate they passed after Rosetta. Aside from their three daughters, two of their husbands, a granddaughter, and a grandson, the tenth person interred is George and Rosetta’s only son Milton who has no spouse interred or placeholdered.
The youngest resident in the mausoleum is Mildred Maier who died at only eight years old. She is Hattie’s daughter from her first marriage to Charles Maier. Perhaps that marriage ended in divorce, though the couple shows up in 1910, 1920, and 1930 censuses together. They had no other children, but it seems odd for there to be no berth for him while Georgia’s husband Robert Bassett and and Nora’s first husband Frank Canfield both have spots.
I suspect some family drama played a role in the missing death dates. If, once Rosetta passed, no one was left to just see to it getting done, or held back on taking care of it due to unresolved conflicts, that would explain a lot.
RIP Johnsons
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