The American Way of Death Revisited - Jessica Mitford [61]
A deeper purpose for the maintenance of a museum in a cemetery is also explained by Dr. Eaton: “It has long been the custom of museums to sell photographs, post cards, mementos, souvenirs, etc.” The visitor is summoned to the gift shop (“while waiting for the next showing of the ‘Crucifixion’ ”) by one of those soft, deeply sincere voices that often boom out at one unexpectedly from the Forest Lawn loudspeaker system. Among the wares offered are salt and pepper shakers in the shape of some of the Forest Lawn statuary; the Builder’s Creed, printed on a piece of varnished paper and affixed to a rustic-looking piece of wood; paper cutters, cups and saucers, platters decorated with views of the cemetery; view holders with colored views of the main attractions. There is a foldout postcard with a long script message for the visitor rendered inarticulate by the wonders he has seen. It starts: “Dear———, Forest Lawn Memorial-Park has proved an inspiring experience,” and ends: “It was a visit we will long remember.” There is a large plastic walnut with a mailing label on which is printed “Forest Lawn Memorial-Park In A Nut Shell! Open me like a real nut … squeeze my sides or pry me open with a knife.” Inside is a miniature booklet with colored views of Forest Lawn. There is an ashtray of very shiny tin, stamped into the shape of overlapping twin hearts joined by a vermilion arrow. In one of the hearts is a raised picture of the entrance gates, done in brightest bronze and blue. In the other is depicted the Great Mausoleum, in bronze and scarlet with just a suggestion of trees in brilliant green. Atop the hearts is an intricate design of leaves and scrolls, in gold, green, and red; crowning all is a coat of arms, a deer posed against a giant sunflower, and a scroll with the words JAMAIS ARRIÈRE. Never in Arrears, perhaps.
Forest Lawn pioneered the current trend for cemeteries to own their own mortuary and flower shop, for convenient, one-stop shopping. The mortuary “is of English Tudor design, inspired by Compton Wynyates in Warwickshire, England. Its Class I, steel-reinforced concrete construction is finished in stone, half-timber and brick,” the guidebook says. There are twenty-one slumber rooms and a palatial casket room, with wares ranging in price from $325 (gray, cloth-covered wood flattop) to $25,000 (48-ounce bronze, protective lock, plush beige velvet interior).
The Forest Lawn board of trustees says of Hubert Eaton, “Today, Forest Lawn stands as an eloquent witness that the Builder kept faith with his soul.” It is to the official biography of Eaton, and to his own writings, that we must turn for a closer glimpse of that soul.
If a goal of art is the achievement of a synthesis between style and subject matter, it must be conceded that First Step, Up Toward Heaven: The Story of Dr. Eaton and Forest Lawn by Adela Rogers St. Johns is in its own way a work of art. Mrs. St. Johns is best known as one of the original sob sisters, a Hearst reporter in her youth and later editor of Photoplay, the first Hollywood fan magazine.
Dr. Eaton, apparently born under whichever star it is that guides a man to seek his fortune below the earth’s surface rather than above, started life as a mining engineer, and in short order acquired a gold mine in Nevada. He and his cousin Joe organized the Adaven Mining Company and built a company town named Bob. It was here in Bob that Dr. Eaton ran slap-bang into his first miracle—the first of many, it turns out. One night a group of union organizers (or, in Mrs. St. Johns’s words, “a gang of desperadoes bent on murder”) came threateningly up the hill towards the mine—no doubt, Eaton thought, armed with dynamite. “ ‘Unless God takes a hand,’ Hubert Eaton said, his voice cracking, ‘there’ll have to be bloodshed.’ The foreman beside him nodded grimly.”
Just when all seemed lost, the strains of “Home Sweet Home” suddenly filled the night air. This proved to be too much for the desperadoes; silently they slunk away back