Woodman Of The World - Mountain View Cemetery Part 3

Recently I began exploring Mountain View Cemetery 
in Oakland CA on my dog walks. 

 I have written about it in two previous posts. 

This gorgeous and odd, even eerie, place was designed by the same 

man who created Central Park as well as many other 

treasures of American landscape design. 
And right next door is St Mary's Cemetery. 
Photos of these headstones come from both places.

 But on my walks there I kept coming upon one particular style of 

tombstone - a log...or sometimes a half-cut tree...

or two logs in the shape of a cross. But always logs. 

And when I examined them more closely I would see the inscription 

"Here Lies A Woodman Of The World". 

 Well I had no idea what they were about at all!! 

And many times there would be a 3 dimensional carving of a dove 

sitting on or inscribed into the log also. 

 The dates on these "logs" are very old with most of the 
people having died in the early part of the 1900s at the latest. 
So I came home and hit the computer and, sure enough, 
the info came right up in Wikipedia. 

Woodman of The World started as a fraternal organization 

and then became a huge insurance company. 
Go to the link below to read more about them.

 These people earned these "logs" for a lifetime of loyalty to the 

company and its' community involvement. 

I had never heard of them before! 

You can find some pretty cool history in an old cemetery!

Click on Woodman Of The World to learn more.