Pensive Beauty: Visions of Forest Lawn, Buffalo’s First Rural Cemetery” Published for Forest Lawn’s 175th Anniversary

A commemorative new hardcover book, which comprehensively tells the story of Forest Lawn Cemetery, will be released August 12, 2024.

"Pensive Beauty: Visions of Forest Lawn, Buffalo's First Rural Cemetery" is part historical narrative, part pictorial experience. It presents readers with a unique opportunity to explore the cemetery's rich history, and that of the City of Buffalo. Its release comes as Forest Lawn begins the yearlong celebration of its 175th anniversary.

"I can't think of a better way to launch the 175th anniversary celebration than with the release of Pensive Beauty," said Julie R. Snyder, chief executive officer of the Forest Lawn Cemetery Group and the Forest Lawn Heritage Foundation. "The book is a triumph - thoughtfully researched and compellingly written, vibrantly photographed and creatively presented."

Pensive Beauty was written by Melissa Banta, a Buffalo native who is a writer and consulting curator at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge and Watertown, Massachusetts, and at Harvard University. Her publications include The Art of Commemoration and America's First Rural Cemetery: Mount Auburn's Significant Monument Collection, with Meg L. Winslow.

Banta's efforts were supported by Forest Lawn's Archivist John A. Edens, the publication's editor. Edens joined the cemetery in 2013 after a nearly 50-year career in academic research libraries. He oversees the cemetery's collection of more than 1.2 million documents and images relating to the history of Forest Lawn. Edens is a recipient of the Buffalo History Museum's Owen B. Augspurger Award for outstanding service to the cause of local history.

Pensive Beauty includes more than 100 stunning photographs captured by renowned photographer Andy Olenick. Devoted to capturing the beauty of historic architecture, gardens, and the natural world, Olenick's work is nationally known and appears in numerous books on historic architecture and landscape design including Classic Buffalo: A Heritage of Distinguished Architecture and Historic New York: Architectural Journeys in the Empire State.

Pensive Beauty will go on sale to the public on August 12 on the Forest Lawn website (forest-lawn.com) and during normal business hours at the Margaret L. Wendt Archive & Resource Center, 1990 Main St. in Buffalo. It will also be available at Talking Leaves…Books at 951 Elmwood Avenue in Buffalo.

All proceeds from the book's $75 price will benefit the Forest Lawn Heritage Foundation, the charitable organization established to assure the ongoing preservation and care of Forest Lawn.

Scholars who have had the opportunity to review Pensive Beauty prior to its public release have shared their impressions:

"Originally lying beyond the City of Buffalo and now enveloped and embraced by it, Forest Lawn is a necropolis, a place of contemplation, and itself a profoundly complex organic work of art," said Bruce Jackson, SUNY Distinguished Professor & James Agee Professor of American Culture, University at Buffalo, and author of The Life and Death of Buffalo's Great Northern Grain Elevator, 1897-2023. "Pensive Beauty, wonderfully written by Melissa Banta and illustrated by Andy Olenick, is a beautiful and insightful work in its own right. The buildings, parkways, and parks of Buffalo have been well documented. In its sensitive exploration of Forest Lawn, Pensive Beauty completes the chronicle of the city's magnificent cultural landscapes."

"This gorgeous book, like Forest Lawn itself, manages to be both a repository of history and a delight to experience," said Aaron Sachs, Professor of History and American Studies, Cornell University, and author of Arcadian America: The Death and Life of an Environmental Tradition. "It is also a compelling reminder that cemeteries are for the living and that American cities are eternally in debt to the nineteenth-century social movement that created places like Forest Lawn. May the people of Buffalo forever celebrate and preserve this extraordinary landscape of repose!"

"When Forest Lawn was founded in Buffalo in 1849, providing burials outside of the city in a beautiful landscaped setting was a new idea that would come to inspire the establishment of other rural cemeteries and early public parks in the country's growing metropolises," said Meg L. Winslow, Curator of Historical Collections & Archives, Mount Auburn Cemetery, and co-author of The Art of Commemoration and America's First Rural Cemetery: Mount Auburn's Significant Monument Collection. "Andy Olenick's exquisite images and Melissa Banta's thoughtful recounting of Forest Lawn's evolving landscape, commemorative art, and human stories remind us how important the stewardship of this beloved cultural and natural resource was, and is, to the life of American cities."