These California Wine Country tours go beyond the grave

Tourists visit a lot of places in the North Bay. But why stop at a cemetery?

“There are groups that are really fascinated by cemeteries,” said Rebecca Yerger, a Napa-based architectural historian and historic preservation consultant. “Cemeteries are more than a place of rest. They are parks with public art.”

But that allure extends beyond the art. It’s also the stories of the people who are buried there.

Like famous winemakers from the area, such as John Patchett, who built the first commercial winery in Napa in 1858.

“A lot of people who come to areas like Sonoma County and Napa County usually come here because of the wine,” said Yerger, former president and lifelong member of Napa County Landmarks Inc., a nonprofit organization that fosters appreciation and preservation of historic buildings, sites and districts through education and public policy.

So, she talks about the history of winemaking and answers questions.

“They go away with a greater appreciation of our history as a winemaking region,” Yerger said. “So, it’s educational and in a nice outdoor setting for visitors.”

A deeper dive

A couple of times a year, Yerger hosts guided tours at Tulocay Cemetery, the oldest cemetery in Napa. Established in 1859, the private, nonprofit and nonsectarian cemetery has about 75,000 burial sites on approximately 48 acres, she said.

Tourists who visit Tulocay are also interested in learning about the architectural style of the cemetery's mausoleums and the families, Yerger said.

In addition to guided tours, the cemetery offers year-round self-guided walking tours. Maps can be downloaded on Tulocay’s website — developed by Nancy Brennan, the cemetery’s honorary historian who spent about 20 years researching and studying Tulocay’s history. Brennan, now in her late 80s, used to give walking tours to groups of up to 70 people, Yerger said.

For some, a visit to Tulocay is personal.

“They might have a distant ancestor that lived here and they just found out (the relative) is buried at Tulocay and they want to find out more,” Yerger said. “Oftentimes, we can help them find their distant ancestor and maybe help them get to know who that ancestor was.”

Driven by fame

One of the bigger draws for tombstone tourists can be tracking down the final resting place of famous people — like internationally acclaimed American author Jack London, who lived the final years of his short 40-year life on a 1,000-acre ranch in Glen Ellen, in Sonoma County.

Jack London State Historic Park, created in 1959, draws visitors from around the world to learn about his life as they tour the grounds. Although it’s not a highlight of the tour, one of those stops is London’s gravesite.

“We do get a lot of people who revere Jack London to such a level that they really want to go to the gravesite to pay their respects, particularly our foreign visitors,” said Susan St. Marie, the park’s director of program and volunteer management.

“We also occasionally get people who are compelled to … throw flowers on the grave. We can't do that in a state park,” she said. “And sometimes people put ashes of their families on the grave. That is definitely a no-no.”

St. Marie said the park on Nov. 20 will hold an event to mark the anniversary of London’s death, which occurred on Nov. 22, 1916.

“Every year our park historian recites a kind of a eulogy that was said at Jack's death,” St. Marie said. “We also have another volunteer who is a singer-songwriter. He wrote a beautiful song about Jack London. … He sings his song and plays his guitar.”

The event is open to anyone who wants to come.

Theater in the cemetery

Even walking tours aren’t enough for some people who seek out cemeteries. Some are drawn to the idea of having theatrical performances in the places of burial, such as the Lamplight Tour at Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery.

It sells out every year.

“At each location is a cast of characters in costumes with lights and props, and they act out something from the life of somebody that's buried in, or associated with, the cemetery,” said Santa Rosa historian Bill Montgomery. The tour takes place after dark and stops at about eight or nine burial sites. Tickets for the September 2023 event go on sale in February and are expected to sell out by the following July, he said.

Business owners, servants, veterans and politicians are among those buried at the cemetery whose lives are brought back to life through performances.

This past year there was a performance about a young woman who died in the 1970s.

“A lot of her family is still around, all over the country,” Montgomery said. "I think we had 12 members of the family come to see the vignette.”

The cemetery also provides a full slate of free tours scheduled on the second Saturday of the month between April and August, Montgomery said. (See also the self-guided tour map.)

Montgomery, who is one of the actors, oversees the all-volunteer Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery Preservation Committee. The committee operates and maintains the grounds in partnership with the city of Santa Rosa, which owns the 17-acre cemetery with more than 5,100 burial sites.

Santa Rosa Rural Cemetery draws mostly diehard local visitors, but also people from out of state who hear about the tours while they’re in town, he said.

Montgomery said he fields all kinds of questions from tourists. Some want to know the meaning of carvings on tombstones. Others are curious to hear about the fallen from the 1906 earthquake that devastated much of downtown Santa Rosa. And there are those who are intrigued by the lives of the Civil War veterans buried in the cemetery.

Montgomery, 79, is a tombstone tourist in his own right.

“I always had some interest in cemeteries when I was a kid in Pennsylvania,” he said, adding that when he took charge of the Santa Rosa cemetery, he “was sort of thrilled.”

Montgomery considers his volunteer work as a “retirement career” and said he enjoys meeting a lot of people and telling the stories of the dead.

And some are indeed macabre.

“One of the last vigilante hangings in the western United States happened right in our cemetery,” Montgomery said.

Cheryl Sarfaty covers tourism, hospitality, health care and employment. She previously worked for a Gannett daily newspaper in New Jersey and NJBIZ, the state’s business journal. Cheryl has freelanced for business journals in Sacramento, Silicon Valley, San Francisco and Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from California State University, Northridge. Reach her at cheryl.sarfaty@busjrnl.com or 707-521-4259.