St Joseph Cemetery - Mogadore, Ohio
N 41° 01.702 W 081° 17.792
17T E 475071 N 4541948
St Joseph Cemetery, at 2643 Waterloo Rd, Mogadore, Ohio, was established in the early 1830s, shortly after the parish was organized. The current church structure, built in 1905, stands immediately to the west of the cemetery.
Waymark Code: WMQZCD
Location: Ohio, United States
Date Posted: 04/18/2016
Views: 1
From (
visit link) : A short time after our parish was organized in 1831, the cemetery was established. As was the custom, parishioners were buried close to the church. The earliest recorded date on a tombstone shows the deaths of the children of Joseph & Odelia Gieb in 1839.
When the cemetery was established, the church was located on the hill above where the grotto is now. After a new church was built in 1866 on the site of our present brick church, the cemetery was expanded. In 1892, under the appointment of Father John Thein, the cemetery lay in the shadows of the church to the east and extended from the road to the north end of the church. From there the steep hill behind the cemetery rose to a sharp peak. The graves were very irregular, so Father Thein set about the job of straightening the tombstones and lining them up. Under his guidance the top of the hill was leveled, steps were built and trees were planted to form an archway over the walk. A large wooden cross with a crucifix made of iron was placed on the summit of the hill.
The original east-west main road through the southern part of the county was located some distance south of the present Waterloo Road. Modern engineering desired to reroute the road to provide a better right of way, however the new road would cut through the old cemetery, forcing the removal of several early graves. In 1919, Father Reber had also thought that the front boundary of the cemetery should be more in line with the front of the church so the project was begun.
Some graves and their markers were moved up the hill or in some cases to what was then called the “new cemetery” behind the school. The remains were carefully collected and, as the story goes, they were encased in a crypt that was placed on the crown of the hill beneath what we now call the Calvary Altar. Six tombstones of some of our earliest parishioners became the base for the altar that was built over this crypt. Then a sandstone altar top was placed over these tombstones and the Calvary scene was placed over it.