A cemetery may not be one’s first thought to stop when
researching the history of Toledo’s early movers and shakers.
But two local women may help change that with the release of their new book,
“Toledo’s Woodlawn Cemetery.”
Rebecca Deck Visser and Renee Ciminillo Jayne, who have worked as docents at the 1502 W. Central Ave. cemetery founded in 1876 for the past several years, teamed up to write the book, published this month as part of Arcadia Publishing’s Images of America series.
“There’s over 70,000 people buried here,” Jayne said. “Everybody knows somebody that’s here.”
Visser said the duo wanted the book to serve as a guide to local history — a history many people are not familiar with.
“There’s so much history here,” Visser said. “People have no clue. … You have names like Laskey, Upton, Secor. That’s Toledo.”
Through the use of more than 200 images of both the people buried in the cemetery as well as their (often elaborate, building-like) monuments, the book gives insights into Toledo history using names such as Libbey, Flower, Browning, DeVilbiss, Swayne and Ford.
Baseball Hall of Famers are buried at Woodlawn. A survivor of the Titanic is there. The man credited with establishing professional baseball in Toledo is on its grounds. The man who invented roller skates is within its gates.
“I’d like people to understand that everybody — it doesn’t matter if they’re a big name like Libbey or just a regular everyday person — everybody has made a contribution to Toledo’s culture in one way or another,” Jayne said. “The people we highlighted in the book, all of those people had something happen to them in life, either through hard work or some special skill or talent, that they were able to utilize to make Toledo a better place.”
The authors each have their favorite parts of the book.
Visser’s favorite part is the last chapter in the book, dedicated to the Lloyd
brothers, Toledo stone cutters who created some of the most elaborate monuments
in the cemetery, making it an outdoor art museum of sorts.
“People don’t really look at the art that’s in the stones,” she said. “That’s my passion.”
Jayne’s favorite part of the book was highlighting John Gunckel, whose stone pyramid memorial ranks as among the most unique, impressive monuments in Woodlawn Cemetery. Sometimes referred to as the “Father of the fatherless,” Gunckel dedicated his life to guiding the most undisciplined boys of Toledo onto the right path through his program, the Toledo Newsboys Association.
““He’s a person who, for a whole generation, saved these young boys from becoming societal dropouts. If it wasn’t for him, so many of these young men would not have been the responsible citizens they turned into,” Jayne said.
A photograph of some of these boys standing beside his memorial was given to the authors by a granddaughter of Gunckell for use on the cover of the book.
The 128-page, softcover book is available at Woodlawn Cemetery, area bookstores as well as major book outlets, including Barnes & Noble and Amazon. Its list price is $21.99.
