White Haven Memorial Park

White Haven Memorial Park is a 170 acre cemetery that was founded in 1929 in a suburb of Rochester, NY. Its founders had recently visited Forest Lawn Cemetery in Los Angeles, California, which was the nation’s first park plan cemetery. In a park plan cemetery, towering tombstones are replaced by flat bronze memorials in an effort to focus on the uplifting beauty of nature rather than the somber symbols of death. White Haven’s founders were favorably impressed with this new design and wanted to bring it to the Rochester area.White Haven’s first president, John B. Mullan, captured this intent in a 1931 report to the cemetery’s lot owners that stated, in part, “we resolved to build a cemetery filled with beautiful trees, sweeping lawns and pools of water . . . to express our belief (in eternal life) and educate and uplift our community.” As a park plan cemetery, White Haven is a magnificent setting for a great variety of trees, from venerable Oaks that pre-date the cemetery to more recent plantings of Bradford Pears and Star Magnolias. An effort has been made to spread colors and blooming times throughout the Park, making the Park vibrant and attractive in any season.Over the years, White Haven has accumulated data and photographs of the more than 100 different species of trees that adorn the cemetery. It is available to the public now in a binder in the cemetery’s office. Now that the cemetery is a certified Arboretum, there are plans to share this information online and with area schools and universities. According to current White Haven president Andrea Vittum, “as was originally envisioned by our founders, White Haven will continue to use its living library of trees to educate and uplift our community.”