Evergreen Cemetery Association Directory of the Dead

Source Of This Data – How the directory was assembled and published. Reliability Of This Data – Accuracy and completeness of our records. Data Columns – Descriptions for each column in the directory. Cemetery Block Layout Maps – Online cemetery block layout maps. Find-A-Grave Memorials – Links to corresponding memorials at Find-A-Grave. Obtaining Further Information – Where to find more details about a death/burial. Corrections or Comments – Emailing corrections or comments.

Source Of This Data

The Directory of the Dead is the index of burials for Evergreen Cemetery in northeast Brainerd and for Evergreen Memorial Gardens Cemetery, located just north of Brainerd. Both cemeteries are managed by the Evergreen Cemetery Association of Brainerd, Minnesota.

The former Association Secretary, Barbara Gavin, spent countless hours entering this data into a Microsoft Access database. She consulted various index books and interment records to assemble an index that is as complete and accurate as possible. Without her efforts, this online Directory of the Dead would not be possible.

The transformation of the Directory of the Dead from data in a Microsoft Access database to web pages on the World Wide Web involves three steps. The database is first exported to a tab-delimited text file. Then it is processed by this Perl script to create several dozen web pages grouped as shown at the top of this page. Those pages are then uploaded to the Evergreen Cemetery web site.

Reliability Of This Data

The source of data for the Association records varies. Information for burials before the 1930's was somewhat sparse. But in the 1930's the W.P.A. allocated money to local organizations to augment their local history society activity. One of the projects was to update the cemetery records with information from the county records and from newspaper obituaries. After that, information was gathered from the families and mortuaries and kept on file.

This initial database (2008) has not yet been completely double-checked. Typos need to be found and fixed. Entries for the same burial were sometimes made in more than one record book and duplicates created during data entry need to be found and merged. The Minnesota Historical Society online searchable Birth Certificate Index and Death Certificate Index need to be checked to resolve discrepancies. But since that whole process may take some time, this initial version, warts and all, is being made available to the public.

If you find errors or duplications, please contact us (see the link in the page footer, below).

Data Columns in These Pages

The data are presented in six columns:

1. Name - Lastname, Firstname of person (if applicable).
   
   The names are sorted using only alphabetic characters and commas. All other characters, including spaces and periods, are ignored.
   
   Nicknames are given in double-quotes, like Smith, John "Smitty". Maiden names are in parentheses.
   
   HYPERLINK NOTE: In the "Grouped By Block" lists, the name is hyperlinked to its location in the appropriate "Grouped By Surname" page so you can see who else with that surname is buried here.
   Example: Van Essen family burials by Surname.
   
   
2. Death Date - The date of death of the person in MM-DD-YYYY format.
   
   Sometimes only the year and possibly the month is known (or is estimated). In the rare case that a date of death is not known, the date of burial is used. In the case of transfers into the cemetery, if the date of death or original burial is not known, the date of transfer is used. There is nothing in this data to indicate that a date does not refer to the date of death.
   
   
3. Age - Age at death, if known. Age of -0- means stillborn.
   
   
4. Block - Block number within the cemetery where interment took place.
   
   If the block is "Christus", "Devotion", or "Paradise", it is the superblock by that name in Memorial Gardens. Otherwise it is the number of the block within Evergreen Cemetery.
   
   
5. Lot - Lot number within the block where interment took place.
   
   If there is no lot number, the record is usually from the 1800's and the precise location is not known. This is especially true for the "Public Grounds" burials that occured in what is now block 14 before the Cemetery Association was formally created in 1878.
   
   HYPERLINK NOTE: In the "Grouped By Surname" list, the lot number is hyperlinked to the beginning of that lot section in the appropriate "Grouped By Block" page so you can see who else is buried in that lot. Most lots were not owned entirely by the same family so this feature is not always useful.
   Example: Van Essen family burials in Block 45 Lot 100.
   
   
6. Plot - The plot within the lot where the remains are buried.
   
   This field may also contain additional comments about the burial. If there was a transfer out, there will be no block and lot number and the plot info is a comment regarding the transfer.
   
   

   8 plot lot (two halves - North and South) NWC of N½ NEC of N½ SWC of N½ SEC of N½ NWC of S½ NEC of S½ SWC of S½ SEC of S½	10 plot lot (4 or 5 ft. grave width) NWC NEC 4 or 5 ft. NWC 4 or 5 ft. NEC West Center East Center 4 or 5 ft. SWC 4 or 5 ft. SEC SWC SEC
   Lots oriented North/South. NWC = North West Corner, SEC = South East Corner, etc.

Cemetery Block Layout Maps

When the cemeteries were originally platted (and when they were later expanded), documents were filed with the county surveyor's office. They have made those documents available online. The original 1879 Evergreen map covers the southernmost portion. The later ones cover the middle and the northernmost portions. For the Memorial Gardens maps, Christus has the statue in the middle and is centered on the west gate. Devotion is to the south and Paradise is to the north.

• 1879 Evergreen Cemetery Original Plat Map for blocks 1 - 14 (PDF).
• 1948 Evergreen Cemetery 2nd Add'n Plat Map for blocks 15 - 45 (PDF).
• 1954 Evergreen Cemetery 3rd Add'n Plat Map for block 46 (PDF).
• 1953 Garden of the Christus Plat Map for Memorial Gardens (PDF).
• 1953 Garden of Devotion Plat Map for Memorial Gardens (PDF).
  The lot numbers on this preliminary map are reversed from the lot numbers in actual use.
  Lot number 1 is at the lower right (not lower left) and 194 is at the upper left (not upper right).
• 1996 Garden of Paradise Plat Map for Memorial Gardens (PDF).
   
  

Find-A-Grave Memorials

The Find-A-Grave website is a place where people can create a memorial to a deceased individual that includes photos (of the person or the grave marker), a biography or obituary, "virtual" flowers, and more. Since we do not have this capability on our website, we will link to the corresponding memorials in the Evergreen Cemetery section at Find-A-Grave that people set up for burials in Evergreen Cemetery. The links will be updated (usually once per month) when the web pages are updated from the cemetery database. To see an example, click on the icon for Van Essen, William. (This link to Find-A-Grave feature does not yet exist for Memorial Gardens, but nearly all those burials are already in the Memorial Gardens Cemetery section at Find-A-Grave.)

Obtaining Further Information

A major rationale for putting the Directory of the Dead online is to provide access to this information for genealogists or interested family members. A key feature of this dataset is the "By Block" sorting to show who else is buried in the same lot and block. This can reveal the burial locations of additional family members of interest.

Once you have found a burial of interest, you will notice that the public data about that person on this website is limited.

The Office records will almost always have additional information (which may be in short supply for early burials, say up to 1910 or so). This supplemental information would have been obtained from the mortuary, burial permit, obituary, family members, or gathered by researchers in the 1930s (part of a WPA project) trying to fill in missing information on past burials by examining county death records, coroner's records, newspaper accounts, etc. So please contact the office by phone or email to see what they have. There will be a $1 per page fee ($5 minimum) charged for sending additional information. A credit will be given for any unused portion of the minimum fee for future use.

The Crow Wing County death records are another source of information if and only if that person died in Crow Wing County. Vital Records are handled by the Crow Wing County Treasurer's Office.

Obituaries are often found in the local newspapers (moreso after about 1900). In the early days, there were many weekly newspapers. A list of microfilm resources for all Crow Wing newspapers can be found in the Microfilm section of the Crow Wing County Historical Society Research Library page. Contact them to request an obituary lookup. The Society maintains a card catalog of all the death notices in Crow Wing county newspapers so a lookup is very easy. For more prominent local figures, a separate file may also exist with information about that person and their family.

And finally, the Crow Wing County GenWeb website lists many resources for researching in Crow Wing county.

Corrections or Comments

Please use the "Contact Us" link in the page footer for information on how to contact the website maintainer or the Association. Be aware that this Directory of the Dead is intended to be a faithful reproduction of the cemetery records, including the original spelling in older records.

Copyright © 2008-2011  Evergreen Cemetery Association  |  Directory of the Dead  |  Contact Us

Last Updated: Dec 3, 2011