It’s hard to think about the holidays without remembering Christmas past and departed loved ones.
If you’d like to decorate a loved one’s grave with some holiday color, Calvary Cemetery is now taking orders for Christmas wreaths. Ordered wreaths will be placed on graves the week of Thanksgiving and will be removed after New Year’s Day (weather permitting).
These 25-inch wreaths are Balsam Fir and feature a red bow with white-tipped pinecones.
To order your wreath for $35, call Terry Miller at 507.995.1010.
As spring blooms over the state, Calvary Caretaker Terry Miller begins the mental shift from snow and frost to grass and trees.
With 40 acres of grass and over 500 trees, there’s a tremendous amount of upkeep every year. Pruning, broken limbs and dead tree removal are par for the course.
Over the last 30 years, Calvary has had a major ally in forestry: Joe Koberoski, owner of Joe Koberoski Tree Service.
“Honestly, Joe is the best friend Calvary has ever had,” said Terry. “He is responsible for every tree that has been placed in Calvary for the last 30 years.”
“He has been there when we didn’t know what direction to go,” Terry said.
“I remember a huge storm – I believe it was in 2010. After the storm we didn’t have one passable road at Calvary. I called Joe. He and his son, Jake, were there quickly. We attached the winter plow on the pickup and pushed the trees off the road, just to get in,” Terry recounted.
According to Terry, once the roads were clear, Joe used his lifetime of knowledge in logging and landscaping and “every piece of equipment known to man” to clean up 22 cedar trees and a vast amount of debris.
Terry said there have been countless times during his tenure at Calvary that he’s relied on Joe’s knowledge, elbow grease and equipment when the job at hand was too much for Calvary’s crew and equipment.
“Many people are wondering what all the young trees planted in the open field in the northeast corner are for,” he said. “Well, Joe and I planted them to use as future replacement trees. Eventually they’ll be moved to areas where damaged or dead trees are removed.”
Some of Joe’s many other contributions:
Designed, built and installed the fencing in front of Resurrection Garden and Wings of Hope.
Boom truck use for repairs and painting on the chapel steeple.
Landscaping design for Resurrection Garden.
“In life, you run across people who you get to know, and you wonder if there is anything that person can’t do or fix or build. Well, Joe is one of them,” Terry said.
“I always tell him for all his work – Joe, if you don’t go to Heaven, no one will. He just laughs,” says Terry.
Calvary Cemetery is looking for one or two volunteers to compile a gravesite registry.
“This is our customer service initiative for 2024” explained Terry Miller, Calvary Caretaker.
“Our goal is to compile the information to enable an online search engine. With that anyone could go online to our website, plug in a name and get the location of a headstone,” he said.
The idea for the project is simply an extension of the cemetery’s successful online blog and Facebook presence. It’s about customer convenience.
“We’ve been online for 10 years now,” said Terry. “That has revolutionized how fast and easily I can provide information to our Calvary families and prospective Calvary families. It’s been a tremendous communication enhancement and now we want to step it up a notch.”
The first step in the project is to transfer the information on paper notecards to a spreadsheet. So, Terry is looking for one or two volunteers to key in the information.
For more information, or to express an interest in volunteering, call Terry at 507.995.1010.
Calvary Cemetery Chapel will be the site for a special All Souls Day Mass to be held on Thursday, November 2nd at 9 a.m.
Father Paul van de Crommert of North Mankato’s Holy Rosary Catholic Church will be the celebrant. Father Paul is also actively serving on the cemetery’s board of directors.
Confused about All Souls Day, All Saints Day and Halloween?
The Catholic Church celebrates All Saints Day, or All Hallows, on the first day of November each year. Therefore the last day of October is All Hallows Eve, or Halloween (a contraction of “All Hallows Evening”). November 2nd is All Souls Day. According to Catholic Online (www.catholiconline.org), here is the difference in the celebrations:
In Western Christian theology, the day [All Saints Day] commemorates all those who have attained the beatific vision in Heaven. It is a national holiday in many historically Catholic countries. In the Roman Catholic Church, the next day, All Souls’ Day, specifically commemorates the departed faithful who have not yet been purified and reached heaven. Catholics celebrate All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day in the fundamental belief that there is a prayerful spiritual communion between those in the state of grace who have died and are either being purified in purgatory or are in heaven (the ‘church penitent’ and the ‘church triumphant’, respectively), and the ‘church militant’ who are the living. Other Christian traditions define, remember and respond to the saints in different ways.
Halloween is not a religious celebration in the Catholic Church. It is a popular celebration revolving around the theme of using humor to confront the power of death.
Taking his expertise on the road, Calvary Caretaker Terry Miller delivered presentations to assemblies in Rochester and Slayton recently.
Over 100 people gathered at these locations to hear about innovative cemetery management, including information on:
Ground maintenance (mowing, spraying, etc.)
Excavating for internment
Monument and marker rules and regulations
Designing cremation gardens
Fundraising
Pricing
For the most part, the audiences consisted of parish cemetery committee members.
“I really enjoy the pricing part, encouraging them to get out of the 1980s price format,” said Terry. “The customer service has to be there, but you can’t deliver perpetual care without the money to back it up.”
Financial issues are important with any endeavor, so information was also shared regarding fundraising using Christmas wreath programs.
Terry found that the audiences were keenly interested in cremation topics as well – a topic that Calvary Cemetery has aggressively advanced because of upward trends in customer demand. Calvary’s innovative Resurrection Garden and Rosary layouts were reviewed.
“It felt good when a lady came up to me and thanked me for the wreath information she received from me when I spoke in Adrian four years ago,” Terry said.
Terry’s Powerpoint presentation also included the video developed to help distant customers get a firm feel for Calvary’s different burial venues and quality care.
Terry noted that these presentations wrapped up his speaking tour for the year as winter is approaching and lots of prep work at Calvary awaits.
“I’m grateful to the parishes that hosted the events and to Larry Dose and Ann Ringlen for organizing,” said Terry.
Newly re-located trees provide shade and eye appeal in once bare areas of Calvary.
Terry Miller, Jake Winch, Joe Koberoski and Jake Koberoski were on a mission: The biggest tree planting in Calvary history.
For the past 20 years, Calvary has been growing trees in the northeast corner of the cemetery for eventual re-location to desired locations in the cemetery. This has provided an inventory of trees for replacement and landscaping enhancement.
And so, a week ago Friday, the foursome, aided by Joe’s tree spade, moved 15 red cedar trees. Most were placed in the older section and some along the new road where the ravine repair was done a couple of years ago.
Moving mature trees is made possible with Joe Koberoski’s tree spade. This heavy piece of equipment can burrow down around a tree and extract the tree with the roots intact.
“We have approximately 500 trees at Calvary, and sometimes I feel more like a lumberjack than a gravedigger,” joked Terry, the Calvary Caretaker. “But honestly, the trees make the place I think.”
Special thanks to the Koberoskis for their critical aid in this project!
The average lawn size is somewhere under 25,000 square feet or roughly one-half acre. Imagine taking care of a 40-acre lawn dotted with thousands of slabs of rock. That’s Calvary Cemetery.
“It’s always a challenge. I like to say it’s like mowing a 40-acre obstacle course,” joked Terry Miller, Calvary Caretaker.
According to Terry, Calvary is in tip-top shape for tomorrow’s Memorial Day Mass (Monday, May 29th at 8:45 a.m.). Father John Kunz of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church will be the celebrant.
“Calvary looks fantastic! I really hope we have a record crowd. It really came together this year,” he said “But not without a ton of effort.”
Terry credited his veteran support team with bringing Calvary to pristine park appearance.
“I can’t say enough about Jake (Winch) and Mike (Miller),” Terry said. “Jake’s been with us for eight years and Mike for five. Those two put heart and soul into all that work.”
If you’re planning to attend Mass, here are some good tips:
Park on Goodyear Avenue in front the cemetery and walk in to avoid being blocked in the cemetery.
Bring lawn chairs in case you cannot get a seat inside the chapel.
Dress appropriately for the weather that morning.
Ground decorations must be removed by Monday, June 5th. (To decorate year round, you must have a cemetery-approved pot stand in a concrete pad — certain areas only. Please check with staff.)
No glass containers are allowed — please anchor flowers well or the wind will take them.
Calvary Cemetery’s biggest event of the year, Memorial Day, is approaching quickly.
This year’s special Memorial Day Mass will be held at 8:45 a.m. on Monday, May 29th. Father John Kunz of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church will be the celebrant.
While the Mass is said within Calvary Chapel, many of the visitors sit outside on lawn chairs and hear the service through the P.A. system.
Military honors will immediately follow the Mass.
Helpful directions for event participants:
Park on Goodyear Avenue in front the cemetery and walk in to avoid being blocked in the cemetery.
Bring lawn chairs in case you cannot get a seat inside the chapel.
Dress appropriately for the weather that morning.
Ground decorations are now allowed to be placed on sites but must be removed by Monday, June 5th. (To decorate year round, you must have a cemetery-approved pot stand in a concrete pad — certain areas only. Please check with staff.)
No glass containers are allowed — please anchor flowers well or the wind will take them.
Calvary Cemetery 