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Forest Park Lawndale was founded on 49 acres of land along the banks of Brays Bayou in 1922. Five years later J. F. Eubank joined the company. Eubank began acquiring additional contiguous acreage and by 1941 the cemetery totaled 314 acres. In the same year the management introduced a “pre-need” sales program that allowed people to purchase their funeral and burial in advance of their deaths. The company started Memorial Arts Inc., a monument works that adjoined the cemetery. The Eubank family managed the property until it was sold to Service Corporation International.
At Forest Park there are two conventional mausoleums, the Abbey and the Catacombs; one of the nation’s largest garden-type above-ground mausoleums, Mausoleum Gardens; three lawn crypts, Garden of Angels, Garden of Love and Garden of Peace; the Rock Garden for cremation memorials; two large lakes and the Lake o’ Woods Chapel. Over the years other Forest Park Cemeteries have opened in a number of different locations in the Houston area. These will be covered in other sections of Historic Houston Cemeteries.
Abbey – This 1922 Gothic Revival mausoleum was designed by Sidney Lovell (1867-1938), a Chicago architect. He began his career designing and remodeling opera houses. However, in 1912 he was commissioned to design a mausoleum for Rosehill Cemetery, a very prestigious burial ground in Chicago. The result was so successful Lovell devoted the rest of his career to creating beautiful mausoleums. He eventually designed 43 of them in 15 states. Lovell is interred in his first great project, Rosehill.
Inside the Abbey are two of Houston’s four Tiffany stained glass windows. Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) was born in New York City. He was the son of Charles Lewis Tiffany, the founder of the famous jewelry store. A painter at first he soon developed an interest in stained glass. In 1879 he started the firm of Louis C. Tiffany & Associated Artists. The following year Tiffany patented his process for producing his world famous iridescent glass. One of the windows is in the Radford family crypt and contains a quote from Rudyard Kipling’s poem, Recessional: “Lord God of hosts be with us yet, lest we forget – lest we forget.” The other graces the Proctor family tomb.
This cemetery is located on 6900 Lawndale Street, Houston, Harris County, Texas.
Forest Park Lawndale Cemetery , Garden of Gethsemane