California
SAVING GRAVES
China
Mission-Chung Wah Chinese Cemetery
Folsom, Sacramento
County, California
The China Mission-Chung Wah Chinese Cemetery was first
established during the 1850s. In 1907, the Folsom Development Company
sought a land exchange with the trustees of the China Mission-Chung Wah Chinese
Cemetery in order to utilize the cemetery's original location for gold
dredging. The company paid for the removal and relocation of all the
Chinese graves in the original cemetery to a new three acre parcel of land west
of and adjacent to the first site.
The last remaining Chinese family in the town of Folsom with ties to the Chinese
of the 19th century was the family of Chan Oak, a Chinese merchant of
Folsom. Since the late 1800s, the Chan family watched over the cemetery
with a sense of duty and obligation that spanned the two generations beyond Chan
Oak himself.
In the late 1960s, the
cemetery was vandalized by local high school boys. The boys were found at
school with Chinese artifacts, including two human skulls which turned out to be
those of Chan Oak and his wife. As a result, the Chan family had their
ancestor's disturbed remains reinterred and had a concrete "capping"
poured over the graves. The set a conventional grave marker within the
concrete.
In 1995, the China
Mission-Chung Wah Chinese Cemetery of Folsom became listed on the National
Register of Historic Places. With an approximated 1500 Chinese graves
remaining in the cemetery, it represents a past Chinese burial practice that was
initially intended to provide for the later removal of the Chinese remains for
respectful shipment home to China for reburial with the deceased's family in a
cemetery of their provincial homeland. This Chinese cemetery of California
illustrates that not all Chinese graves or graveyards were vacated as was
intended.
Today, the China
Mission-Chung Wah Chinese Cemetery Association, a non-profit public benefit
corporation, continues to act as trustee for this cemetery.
The following photos show the March 2003 clean up day where the trustees received welcome assistance in the form of a Boy Scout Eagle project.
China Mission-Chung Wah
Chinese Cemetery
Folsom, Sacramento
County, California
(March 2003, before
clean up)
Chan Oak
Plot
China Mission-Chung
Wah Chinese Cemetery
Folsom, Sacramento County, California
(March 2003, during clean up)
Chan Oak Grave Marker
China Mission-Chung
Wah Chinese Cemetery
Folsom, Sacramento County, California
(March 2003, during clean up)
China
Mission-Chung Wah Chinese Cemetery
Folsom, Sacramento
County, California
(March 2003, during
clean up)