Denver Cemeteries and Mortuary
There are five Jewish cemeteries in the greater (five county) Denver area.
1. Golden Hill Cemetery was founded in the mid-1800s as a burial ground for many of the consumption and tuberculosis patients who came to Colorado for the clean air and exceptional, free treatment from the Jewish Consumptive Relief Society (JCRS) and the National Jewish Hospital of B’nai Brith. It is the western-most Jewish cemetery located in suburban Lakewood.
2. Rose Hill Cemetery was founded in 1892 to serve Jews of all denominations throughout the greater metropolitan area. It is the northern-most Jewish cemetery located in suburban Commerce City.
3. Mount Nebo Cemetery was also founded in the late 1800s as the burial ground for members of the Beit Midrash HaGadol (BMH) Orthodox synagogue. This burial ground is in the northeastern section of the greater Denver area in the city of Aurora. In 1996, BMH (founded 1897) merged with Beth Joseph (founded 1922) also a traditional congregation. The new entity is now called BMH-BJ, an independent orthodox congregation.
4. Temple Sinai Cemetery: In the 1970s, several large sections of Mt. Nebo Cemetery were purchased by my congregation with the stipulation that those deemed Jewish by the senior rabbi of Sinai may be interred there.
5. Congregation Emanuel Cemetery is situated in a significant section of the enormous Fairmount Cemetery. It was founded in 1890 and is the only Jewish cemetery within Denver proper as well as the only one that allows for the burials of non-Jewish relatives.
Feldman Mortuary was founded in 1936, and has been in the Feldman-Cohen family ever since. While there may be other mortuaries in the area that offer Jewish burial services, Feldman is the only one that does only Jewish services.
I mention the above to show that there has been a sizable Jewish community in Denver since the 1850s if not earlier. In 1964 when we arrived, there were about 22,000 Jews in a city of less than 400,000. In 2024, 60 years later, the population of the greater Denver metropolitan area is almost three million, and the Jewish population is approximately 100,000. When my Temple was formed, the members were almost all in their late 20s to mid-30s, thus, from 1967 to the mid-1990s, I had relatively few funerals – five to eight a year, as compared to 20 weddings and 30 baby namings. Fifty years later, the demographics have done a 180 – there are far too many funerals and too few namings and weddings. Yet, some of my relatively few funerals had a bit of drama to them as you shall see in this and future postings.
My First Funeral
My first wedding was for a couple in their late 80s. So, naturally, my first funeral was for an infant. Not the way life is supposed to transition. She was a five-month-old infant who died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome - SIDS. The baby had been the picture of health. She had just had her check-up, and the doctor was very pleased with her health and development. She died a few days thereafter in her crib. The parents and grandparents were inconsolable. The pediatric doctor was beside himself ... did he miss something, was there an underlying cause that he should have noticed? Aunts and uncles and friends of the family were stunned, too, as one can certainly imagine.
I was a first year assistant Rabbi at Temple Emanuel at the time, but for some reason when the family called, they were put through to me. I was at the family home in less than 20 minutes. It was a small, tract house not far from the Temple. There were two police cars parked at the curb, and the limo from Feldman was parked in the narrow driveway. The living room was a sea of bodies taking up every inch of space. My yarmulka gave me immediate access to the parents who were seated on a sofa engulfed by a mixed multitude.
The father, jumped to his feet when he saw me, leaned toward the butt filled ashtray, snuffed out his cigarette, and welcomed my hug. The mother looked as if a building had fallen on her – gray, disheveled, tear stained. I gave hugs and condolences to the grandparents and to several others whom I recognized, then suggested to the parents that we go into one of the other rooms to escape the din and the restiveness.
In the hallway between the main bedroom and the baby’s room, the doctor was in earnest conversation with two policemen and the funeral director. They were awaiting the arrival of the Medical Examiner. We entered the parents’ bedroom and closed the door.
SIDS was not a term in general use at the time. It would be another three years until it became recognized as a specific circumstance that affected infants in their earliest months. The cause of the sudden death of an infant in its crib was at first a patchwork of uncertainty. Some thought is might be a brain anomaly or an environmental condition in the home such as second-hand smoke. It was widely held to be the result of apnea or a bronchial infection or asthma. As similar cases mounted around the country, the most likely cause narrowed down to suffocation in the bedding. From then on, parents were advised to have their infant sleep on its back or side, and not on its stomach. Also recommended were light blankets to avoid overheating. But none of this was known in 1965, not even by the pediatrician.
I suggested a simple funeral done grave side at the Emanuel Cemetery, but it wasn’t the funeral service that I was concerned about. It was the condition of the parents.
Both were guilt ridden. Every sentence had a “we should have,” or a “why didn’t we” guilt-clause attached. “We should have ... looked in on her during the night; it might have been the strained carrots; why did we give her that applesauce; our walk in the park yesterday was too much for her, her stroller was uncomfortable, and the slight breeze ....” The doctor knocked on the door, and entered.
Mother’s eyes suddenly widened as if expecting that he was going to announce it was all a mistake, the baby was fine ... and then the doctor spoke, and her lids drooped. “The police have decided that this was a natural infant event. The Medical Examiner just arrived and is looking at her now. I suspect that he will give the okay to release ...” he choked on the next words ... “the body, and Feldman said they would handle everything from here. If you can find a few minutes tomorrow to drop by the mortuary ....”
Tears and sobs from the parents. The doctor, clearly distraught, gave his hugs, looked at me as if to convey gratitude that it was now in my hands, and left.
With absolutely no experience behind me, never having done a funeral much less grief counseling, I was going on sheer instinct. The parents were standing as the doctor left, so I welcomed them into a group hug, and I said something like ... “there is nothing you can now do to change what has happened, no words you can say, no potion you can take, no magic wand to wave, no wise words you can recite, nothing you can do that will bring her back. Not all of the ‘we should haves’ or the ‘we could haves’ ... none of that will do anything but lead you down a no-exit alley of despair, and make you physically, mentally, and spiritually sick. It will embitter your souls.
You were great parents, loving and caring parents, and you will be great parents again. What happened was no one’s fault. If finding something to blame is soothing, then blame it on the Platte River flood or on the cottonwood trees or on the tornadoes in Kansas or the earthquakes in Turkey. But you don’t get to accept blame or guilt.
Your daughter’s death is simply beyond our immediate understanding. Your job now is to mourn as all of us do when we lose a loved one. The funeral will be the day after tomorrow. After the funeral, you’ll sit shivah [the first week of mourning] with your parents and siblings and your community of friends. I’ll be here each night to conduct services. Then you can observe shloshim for the following three weeks, and I’ll lead you through that, too. Your job is hold hands and to hug away each other’s tears. You will get through this together, and your marriage and your love for one another will grow stronger for having done so.
And while you’re comforting one another, don’t be stingy with your hugs for others. You have parents and siblings here who are also fractured and fragmented by this terrible loss. Reassuring them that you will be okay and that you understand their grief too will help all of you heal ... slowly, slowly, but you all will.”
Fourteen months later, they gave birth to twin girls; they had another daughter two years afterwards. Five years after that, all three girls were thriving in the religious school of our brand new Temple.
That is a sobering first time funeral. The wonderful part about your comforting the family is that you were indeed functioning in the role of a prophet. What a joy that there were more children!
Remind me to take note when you speak of future events 😄