Today Woodland Cemetery and Arboretum, at 118 Woodland Ave., contains over 3,000 species of trees and 165 specimens of native Midwestern woody plants on 200 acres.
Here are some unique features according to Sean O’Regan, President and CEO of Woodland Cemetery and Arboretum:
1. The Queen of the Gypsies is buried at Woodland. In January 1878, Matilda Stanley, Queen of the Gypsies, died in Mississippi. Her body was brought back to Dayton where it lay in the Receiving Vault until her burial that September. The delay, in part, was required so that the gypsies throughout the world could be notified of her passing. More than 25,000 attended her funeral at Woodland.
2. The Erma Bombeck gravesite. The stone marking Bombeck's gravesite was shipped to Woodland from Arizona. The rock weighs 15 tons, is six feet long and stands over five feet in height. It was carted across the country on a flatbed truck. Two cranes were needed to lift and place the stone. A third of the stone is below ground to provide stability.
3. Tiffany window. A Tiffany window and a mosaic tile floor designed and crafted by the world-famous Tiffany Studios of New York was installed in the chapel in 1904.
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