In 2012, strong winds unearthed long-forgotten headstones on Ocean Beach in San Francisco. But who was Delia Oliver, and why was her headstone on the beach? The answer dates back to the early 20th century, when San Francisco ran out of space and disinterred thousands of graves, moving them to the nearby town of Colma, CA.
In the early 1900s, the land-starved city of San Francisco had a problem. It was running out of space for the living. An 1897 law prevented new burials except in specially designated cemeteries. By 1900, all interments in the city were outlawed, and officials started looking for ways to reclaim the prime real estate where cemeteries were located.
At the time, San Francisco had four major cemeteries: Laurel Hill, Calvary, Odd Fellows, and Masonic, and many smaller cemeteries. The cemeteries were close to capacity and falling into disrepair. Some even argued that the cemeteries had become a public health hazard. In 1912, San Francisco decided to evict cemeteries and declared them a public nuisance. The cemeteries, except San Francisco National Cemetery(Presidio Cemetery) and Mission Dolores, were required to reinter the dead. The remains were to be moved 11 miles away to a town called Lawndale, later renamed Colma.
Relocating more than 150,000 burials was complicated. Officials attempted to contact the families of the deceased, who were required to pay around $10 to move their loved one’s grave and marker to Colma. If they couldn’t locate the next of kin, or if the family could not afford the relocation fee, remains were often reinterred in mass graves. Old headstones were either destroyed or recycled for other projects.
Cemeteries began disintering remains in the 1920s, and the last graves were moved in 1942. Occasionally, however, the city still finds 19th-century graves left behind during the move. In those cases, they try to identify the remains and notify the next of kin.
Colma became known as the City of Souls. Though only 2.2 square miles, it has 17 cemeteries and a pet cemetery. The cemeteries contain approximately 1.5 million graves, and the city has fewer than 2,000 living residents. Colma is the final resting place for many notable figures, including William Randolph Hearst, Wyatt Earp, Levi Strauss, and Joe DiMaggio.
As for Delia Presby Shattuck Oliver, whose headstone was found on the beach in 2012, she was one of many whose remains were moved out of Laurel Hill Cemetery. Just 26 when she died in 1890, Delia’s remains were reinterred in a family plot at Mount Tamalpais Cemetery in Marin County. Her old headstone was abandoned, and the city later used it to prevent beach erosion at Ocean Beach, where it remained for decades until uncovered in 2012.
Take a virtual tour of Colma’s cemeteries here, or help members of our Find a Grave community fulfill more than 3,600 photo requests by visiting the Colma cemeteries in person.
How very sad to have to move all those people. I do not care about “valuable real estate”, seems disrespectful to say the least. I’m glad Delia had been moved prior and I’m guessing they had a new stone for her. It is good to recycle old unneeded headstones. I have always felt cemetaries, no matter how old, were a place to be respected and preserved. Thank you to all who care for them, keep them maintained.
I studied Archaeology and read Archaeology Magazine. We do this to First People all the time. There are museums full of bones and artifacts of the dead. It is shameful. They say they do it to study the culture. If they cared about the culture, they would dig up one for information and leave the rest in the ground.
I feel like this about the ancient Egyptians that keep getting removed from their tombs. On the other hand I appreciate seeing Egyptian artefacts in museums…while still feeling sad for the humans involved.
My town in Maine has a similar cemetery relocation story. Several hundred bodies moved to several other cemeteries and no notes to be found anywhere, only brief newspaper articles stating that the work is being planned, and later that the land is being sold.
My great great grandfather met this removal fate. He died in 1881. His widow died in 1932 and son in 1947. All the while living in San Francisco. He’s now in a mass grave, an indignity that shocks me.
Disgusting! I’m so sorry for your family.
Curious why her headstone wasn’t reunified with her remains. Even if there’s a new one I would think this beautiful and historic stone is preferable!
Probably because she was one of the many whose families didn’t or couldn’t pay the $10 fee to move it
Many times in a family plot situation, the memorial doesn’t match the other existing memorials or the new cemetery doesn’t allow upright memorials. Many memorial parks require flat bronze markers the maintains a park like atmosphere.
Cemeteries are reclaimed all over the world. Sometimes the people are remembered, sometimes not, which is sad. Go through the catacombs in Paris. There are the bones of millions in there
Cities all over the US claimed cemeteries for government use and for selling to developers.
If one thinks about it, all these deceased people had relatives that purchased plots & caskets & headstones for them. Then years later, greedy politicians during that time period allowed the destruction of these sacred plots of land. Years ago, I read that the last hold out was the Catholic Church until they were pain a substantial amount of money and finally sold out. Another sad chapter in San Francisco’s history. FYI, the mass graves are deplorable. I went to the one where a great grandfather was buried, it looked like a forgotten dump.
Joy, this happened to my ancestors in San Francisco. Their remains suffered the same fate and the result, no paid for grave sites to visit. Very upsetting.
I agree with you Joy. My exact feelings upon reading this!!! They wanted the land and had the audacity to ask family members for money of any amount when these family members paid for plots, burials & head stones!!!! Mass graves are an abomination!
That’s exactly why I’m getting cremated
Don’t cave in. Buy a plot, save that amount of green space and make sure your plot agreement protects the land for eternity.
My great-aunt who died in 1980 is on find-a-grave shown at Colma. However, her ashes are at San Francisco Memorial Columbarium (Neptune Society), 1 Loraine Court. Every time I go through San Francisco, I check to see if she is still there along with her husband and father. All are are in this beautiful domed setting.
All my Downey Relatives buried at Calvary are in the mass grave at Holy Cross. Believe a lot of headstones were used at the foundation of the San Mateo Bridge. I keep hoping one day their headstones will appear from the sea so I can find out their actual birthdays
The same happened in other cities as well. We went looking for a grave in Fort Collins, Colorado a few years ago, but the cemetery had been moved because they were building a new section of the city. We never could find the grave we wanted – stories abound of families in the new area digging up the backyard for a pool and finding bodies – whether all the bodies were actually moved or not is a question. I would certainly not want a house on an old graveyard. I saw Poltergeist as a kid !
They are just digging up old friends
My great-grandfather, Peter Biebesheimer, was initially buried at the IOOF (International Order of Odd Fellows) Cemetery in San Francisco on 28 Jun 1896. In 1903 he was transferred to Olivet Cemetery in Colma, and reburied in the current plot on 17 July 1903. Peter’s son Gustave was also buried at Olivet on 17 July 1903 following his death on 14 July 1903; cemetery records indicate it is a double-deep burial.
It is common knowledge among the people of San Francisco who follow the city’s history that old headstones no longer in use were used as ocean breakwaters
So where is this headstone now? Does it stay on the beach or has it been moved to her grave even if it’s got another headstone? I have a great uncle who died in 1937, someone we did not even know kindly gave him a brand new headstone since his old one was badly cracked, but they left the cracked one in place. I wish I could find who did that to thank them! And it was so nice that they left the old one!
In Germany a grave rest 25 Years. You must remove the stone on your own costs.
I am forever grateful for those cemetery removal records. I found my great-grandmother and a previously unknown infant child in those records.
What they didn’t mention or incorporate into this story what’s the fact of the 1906 earthquake results. That was sort of the straw that broke the camel’s back about the cemeteries. So much of the city was demolished and so many people died that they couldn’t handle it within San Francisco, so everybody started heading for Colma.
And so now my strange questions as a child are coming to light now. Going to my great grandfather’s funeral in a huge old cemetery in Detroit I wondered in 1967 at 7 years old “where are they going to put me when I die, there’s not going to be any more room.” Here we are, folks, 2025nd we’re running out of room in our cemeteries just as our landfills. I was married 43 years ago. And I was thinking the other day about the nearly 200 people that attended my wedding. I counted out that over 50 of my guests had died since that time .
I visit cemeteries of people I knew that have passed and see so many unkept grave sites. It makes me want to take a bucket of soapy water and a cloth and clean them all. Isn’t that disrespectful to leave them dirty with weeds and grass overgrown over their names? I understand if you’re out of town, the family is gone, what’s left of the family is elderly, so who may be there for these graves, these caskets, these stones with names and dates, whether they were popular in life on earth or not? Eventually the owners of the cemetery runs out of plots. No more to sell, no money for upkeep and the deteriorating starts.
Someday you will die and if someone moves your grave and stone, will you care? My faith tells me I won’t. Our souls are gone, that’s what I believe, they’re not there to be disrespected anymore, I’m not there to disrespect or be disrespectful. So what’s a stone sitting in the dirt with your name, date of birth, date of death and who loved you doing for you and basically anyone else? It’s all so very sad still that someone died and now their name on a stone and their shell has disappeared to make room for more people to live and die in their place, a child, a baby, a sweet old man and wonderful young soldier. Who has the right to make the decisions to move these bodies, these memories, these stones? How do I know that the house I’m living in now didn’t have a body that had turned to dust in the dirt and then dug up to lay the basement foundation for my home? Did the developer have the responsibility to check out the history of the land back to the pioneer days? Perhaps it was a log cabin with an entire family lost in the 1700s. My mother does genealogy, and has for years. She has many pictures of grave sites, obituaries, birth certificates, death certificates, and the list goes on. It’s all on computer. Yes, to see the actual gravestone of my great great great grandmother in really quite extraordinary and it’s all on computer for me to see. But imagine the amount of people that have absolutely no idea who their own mother is… And then we have loved ones missing, presumed dead, and would do anything to have their bodies to bury them. If found and buried, again, unfortunately ages will pass and those graves will be forgotten also.
So many thoughts and questions about this topic, and I don’t think anything will ever come from it because the one person that matters the most isn’t here anymore, so people just forget about it. There’s nothing we could do about the fact that they died, and there’s nothing we can do about the fact that we’re running out of room to bury the people we love in the way we want to. What are we going to do? We have urns in homes all over the world, when the holders of those urns are gone, where will the urns go? If you believe in Christ, as I do, His grave was opened by His own Father with His Angels and His body is gone now also. It was a joyous occasion and still is every Easter morning. I guess we just have to keep the faith, if we have it, and remember what was loved and in our hearts is never really lost to us and no one can ever erase our souls.
Kentucky and Tennessee’s shared borderlands are home to the Dale Hollow Lake Reservoir created in the 1940’s, with the creation of the Dale Holow Dam. In certain shallow depths of this beautiful massive lake the empty graves of the region’s beloved/lost, bear errie witness to those family members who had to reinter them elsewhere to accommodate progress. Gary Norris published a book of at least 1000 of these graves. Nothing I know of, explains the fate of no doubt, countless others that for untold reasons were eventually inundated under the 600 ft deep reservoir. WWIi was in full progress and men went to war was one to consider. I can only imagine the nightmare effects of having to dig up one’s family.
Thanks to dedicated volunteers who take on the grim task to list cemetery names, and God bless all those caused to suffer the insufferable of digging one’s own out of their graves.
We must speak for the dead, and say, “ leave me be, for this hallowed ground.”
It demeans a community and humanity to dishonor the dead. No cause should demand it, nor no one should be required to do so.
I am reminded of the final scenes in “Deliverance” (the best movie scenes ever in my opinion), where town buildings and cemetery are being relocated because a dam would create a new man-made lake. Spooky and sad.
We have that here…Quabbin Reservoir in Western Massachusetts. Five towns were demolished along with their cemeteries for Boston.
Several cemeteries and unmarked graves were moved by the Army Corp of Engineers in the 1950s during the construction of Folsom Lake. For the unknown individuals of Negro Hill, the Army Corp had grave markers listing Unknown N****r Hill, horrible racial epithet. Fortunately, the racist grave markers were replaced with the proper name in approximately 2012.
Let me leave a positive report of the Bethel Methodist Church cemetery next to Indianapolis Indiana Metropolitan Airport. In a very careful process 500 graves were disinterred snd re-interred in concordia cemetery in Indianapolis. During the process they added to history by the various items and artifacts that were identified and matched With some unmarked Graves. This included finding several unmarked graves that through careful archaeology were able to identify those remains. I discovered I had several relatives who were buried in this very cemetery.
They even had internment with military honors for any who had served in any of the wars during that period of time. That was the way to move the remains for any cemetery with respect and honor. The airport paid for all these expenses, and several schools had their students involved in the process as both a learning experience and a practical experience.
I remember them moving a cemetery at the end of the runway of the Allegheny County Airport when I was a child. They needed a longer runway for jet planes. I am glad they moved the old graves out of respect for the dead rather than paving over the graveyard. The people buried there had long since been turned to the dust from which we all come, but it was a historic graveyard from the early days of Pittsburgh. The ones buried there deserved to be remembered and respected.
(family story) I have an ancestor who is buried under the runway at what was once Wohld Chamberlin airport in Minneapolis Minnesota. It was also called Soldiers Field in that it was the parade ground for Fort Snelling. When they expanded the airport they put a notice in the newspaper that they were expanding. Anyone who wanted to move their relative could contact the folks who were in charge of this and some arrangement could be made to move the graves. At the time I was in college and not reading local newpapers, did not catch the notice.. Plus I had other things to worry about. Many years later (I m now 80 and living in Harrisburg Pa) and wish that I had paid attention then.) However I am a genealogy nut and follow every clue I can find on burial places. My ancestry in Hessian and my wife’s is Alsacian. and she is part Mohawk buried in Schenectady from up state New York and I am part African American Tennessee. It is a maddening puzzle to figure out where we come from and where we end up.
I’m confused at what was written because it sounded like the Masonic Cemetery in San Fransisco had to be moved but I looked on Find A Grave and it is listed as still in San Fransisco. (I believe my 3rd great grandfather is buried there. )
I have found at least some of my ancestors are located in abandoned graveyards. There is one in RI that the church my ancestors helped build up sold the gravesite to a company in the 1970s. Now the town can’t figure out who even has the deed. I went there a few years ago and couldn’t find my 2nd great grandparent’s grave. There was some medical waste in there and most of the stones were not standing. Poor William is rolling in his grave. (Ha!) I did see the church did place an ad in the 70s telling people of the plans but I may have not been born yet and my dad’s family had no idea. The surname had changed a few times over so if the church had even tried to look for next of kin they wouldn’t have known where to start. Although the family had been active in that church for over 120 years I believe the last kin left/ died around 1930.
The big picture is that many other countries have been dealing with lack of land for burying for many years now. My great grandfather came over from Greece. In Greece where his parents were buried you rent the plot and after a few years after the body has decomposed they bring it up and take the ashes and place in drawers that families can rent out. If you don’t rent a space then all the remains are placed in a big pile. (that is my understanding. ) Some families have 1 plot for all their family members. As an American I don’t like this way of burial because if I ever return to my 2nd great grandfather’s I want a place to pay my respects. I do understand the necessity of having to do burial the way they do it there. Their village is in a mountain range. Burial spots are at a premium.