Overlooked cemeteries

Thankyou for the thoughtful, moving pieces profiling cemeteries in the Travel section on Memorial Dayweekend [“Monuments to Life,” May 24].

Whenever I visit Boston, I take time to walk around the Granary Burying Ground where John Hancock, Sam Adams and many others central to the founding of our nation are buried. I believe it to be a particularly sacred spot and feel that when I am there, I am paying tribute to their courage and sacrifice.

When I amin Israel, I visit the cemetery in Tiberias, which overlooks the Sea of Galilee. Ona recent visit, a friend and I joined several Israelis sitting by the graves of the poet Rachel and composer Naomi Shemer; they were singing the music of these women in loving tribute to their memories. May all of their memories continue to be for a blessing.

JEFF BERN HARDT Valley Glen

I love old, interesting cemeteries, and I enjoyed this selection immensely. However, you missed Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia ( www.thelaurelhillcemetery.org). Iwould rate it amongthe most interesting and beautiful cemeteries in the country. It is a National Historic Landmark and boasts great beauty inits location, its horticulture and its history.

Itwas truly not just a cemetery but a memorial park where people bought plots whose costs depended on the view or the placement, based on the beauty visitors would see as they strolled through the park.

ELLEN KLEIN Los Angeles

Iwas sorry to see that in all the stories about cemeteries and the one listing of Los Angeles’ famous ones, the Travel section was unable to finda single Jewish cemetery of note to include.

There are many Jewish cemeteries in our area, including Eden Memorial Park, where Groucho Marx is buried. And many other luminaries fromthe entertainment industry— Louis B. Mayer, Carl Laemmle, three Warner brothers— are at Home of Peace Memorial Park. Shame on you. Nonetheless, as incomplete as itwas, I enjoyed the issue. JIM BISHOFF Northridge

Someof the articles on cemeteries were quite interesting, but a couple missed themark, especially considering that some of the most notable in the country weren’t included.

Graceland in Chicago is as famous for its architectural monuments as for its famous internments: Cyrus McCormick, Allan Pinkerton, Marshall Field, Louis Sullivan and Philip Armour, among others.

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Tarrytown, N.Y., has equally impressive monuments to Washington Irving, Samuel Gompers, Walter Chrysler, Andrew Carnegie, Elizabeth Arden and the grand Greek temple to the Helmsleys.

Then there’s the other Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Mass., with sculptures by Daniel Chester French, aswell as his own resting place.

And what is as remarkable as this cemetery’s Authors Ridge, with the burial places of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Louisa May Alcott? KENN MORRIS Los Angeles