In 1894, Dr. Welwood Murray and his wife, Elizabeth, were faced with a question no parent wants to ask: Where should they bury their son, Welwood Erskine Murray, who had died from a respiratory illness at 27?
The elder Murray had moved from nearby Banning to Palm Springs on the advice of his friend John McCallum, who in 1884 became the first white settler in Palm Springs. Murray arrived two years after McCallum with Elizabeth and their youngest son, Welwood. He opened The Palm Springs Hotel, a combination sanitarium and inn, the first of its kind in the town, and became one of the desert’s largest landowners.
Among his real estate holdings was a 2-acre triangular parcel of land near the center of town at the base of the San Jacinto Mountains (adjacent to what is now the O’Donnell Golf Club). The younger Welwood was the first white citizen to die in Palm Springs, and became the first person buried in the plot of land that would become Welwood Murray Cemetery.
Following his son’s death, Murray provided burial plots to others, including two unidentified people whose markers read simply “Mexican Woman” and “Unknown.” Today, the Welwood Murray Cemetery provides a sort of walk of fame composed of local legends: E. Stewart Williams, Albert Frey, Charles Farrell, “Cactus Slim” Moorten, Nellie Coffman, Pearl McCallum, Ruth Hardy, Zaddie Bunker, and Cornelia and Florilla White. Today the cemetery is at capacity, with a population of 927 souls.
Coachella Valley Public Cemetery general manager Josh Bonner.
In 1952, as Welwood was filling up, the cemetery district’s board of trustees began to look for additional space. In 1955, they found it: 60 acres near Ramon Road and Da Vall Drive that, on Oct. 31, 1956, would open as Desert Memorial Park.
Among valley graveyards, Desert Memorial Park ranks as the most star-studded, with perhaps no brighter light than Frank Sinatra. He is interred near his parents, his wife Barbara, Barbara’s parents, an uncle, and his irresistibly named friend Jilly Rizzo. Sharing a forever home with the Sinatra clan are showbiz luminaries Sonny Bono, Busby Berkeley, Frederick Loewe, Suzanne Somers, William Powell, and Betty Hutton.
On the eastern end of the valley lies the Coachella Valley Public Cemetery, which was established in 1927 and occupies 60-some acres. Walking from one end to the other offers a clear botanic and subtle demographic timeline of growth. The eastern section has older graves, larger trees, and fewer flowers; the western section has newer graves, shorter trees, and tons of flowers. “For the older graves, you get the Anglo and Japanese names,” says Josh Bonner, general manager of the Coachella Valley Public Cemetery District. To the west, “ you get into more of the Hispanic names. But overall it’s very eclectic.”
With the COVID-19 pandemic came a trial by fire for both Desert Memorial Park and Coachella Valley Public Cemetery. “Our interment shot up from around 500 a year to around 700,” Bonner says. “At one point, we couldn’t get vaults to put the caskets in.” It was a problem shared by Kathleen Jurasky, district manager of the Palm Springs Cemetery District. “We were slammed,” she says. “The graves were going so fast, and everything went on lockdown, even the cemetery. Services weren’t allowed. It was just a direct burial. I never want to see anything like that in my life, ever. It was horrible.”
In contrast, Day of the Dead events routinely draw thousands of visitors for the traditional Mexican holiday in early November. Along with family gatherings and decorated graves, activities at both cemeteries include mariachi bands, traditional folklórico dancers, arts and crafts for kids, face painting, and food vendors.
Kathleen Jurasky, the district manager of the Palm Springs Cemetery District.
Coachella Valley Public Cemetery is looking into building a scattering garden (a site for spreading cremated remains) as well as an indoor mausoleum to join its in-ground interments and outdoor columbarium. Chief among Jurasky’s vision for Desert Memorial is a pet cemetery, an ambition met with resistance from the California Association of Public Cemeteries. On the advice of her district’s attorney, Jurasky found a way around it. “We’re an independent district cemetery,” Jurasky explains, “and under the health and safety codes for the state of California, human cemeteries are not allowed to build pet cemeteries. However, the attorney advised us to form a nonprofit. I brought it to the board of trustees … and we now have Pet Memorial Park Cemetery, a 501(c)(3).” She has engaged an architect, landscape architect, and interior designer to turn this idea into a reality.
Cemeteries might seem to change little over time, leaving little room for innovation. But another treatment of the dead has emerged lately from a concept as old as humankind: the practice of green, or natural, burials, when a body that has not been embalmed is buried in a biodegradable casket or shroud to promote natural decomposition. Although neither Desert Memorial Park nor Coachella Valley Public Cemetery engages in the practice yet, each is getting ready.
“We already have the section set out for the green burials,” says Jurasky, who will pursue a license from the Green Burial Council. “It’s taking root in the younger generation,” Bonner says, “where they don’t want to have a carbon footprint. The only reason we haven’t done it is because we haven’t found a demand for it. But we will get there as part of our 10-year master plan.”
Bonner and Jurasky both love their work. “I view myself, my board, and my team as the caretakers of the community,” Bonner says. “When we do interments, we have to get it right. We get one chance. It’s an important charge to be taking care of this place.”
“You’re dealing with people at one of the most difficult times in their lives,” Jurasky says. “When they’ve lost a loved one, they’re grieving the loss, and my goal is to ease one of the most difficult times of their lives. That’s what’s rewarding for me in my job. I’ve been here for 28 years because I like what I do.”
At Coachella Valley Public Cemetery, one visitor stops by a particular grave every day, a graceful ritual of remembrance and love that illustrates what Bonner calls “that emotional connection of not wanting to let go of a loved one and feeling the need to honor them.” It speaks to the basic necessity of communal burial grounds. Quietly, eloquently, they conclude the story of our valley’s citizens, written in stone, living in memory, and shared by future generations.
