Evergreen Cemetery Association Directory of the Dead

Added new Maps section, below, explaining where to find online cemetery block layout maps

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 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.

Data reliability

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.

The data have been checked for 1885 and later. If you find errors or duplications for burials in that range, please contact us (see the link in the page footer, below).

Data contained 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.

How these pages were created

The database is exported to tab-delimited text file, then 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.

Links to memorials at Find-A-Grave

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.)

Maps showing layout of blocks

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).
   
  

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 © 2008-2010  Evergreen Cemetery Association  |  Directory of the Dead  |  Contact Us

Last Updated: Sep 2, 2010