Aerial Photo Fun #2

Although it's been a while since I stopped in, I used to scrounge through the photo files of the Lorain Historical Society quite regularly looking for a shot of this or that to accompany a blog post. In one of the file drawers was a sleeve with a stack of aerial photos that were believed to be in Lorain but were marked, "unknown."

Now, anyone who reads this blog for a while knows I love a good mystery (as well as wasting time trying to solve it). So I grabbed some quick hand-held copies of the photos with the hopes that I could figure out where they were.

Back here, I wrote about how one of the photos turned out to be an aerial photo of the Elberta Inn in Vermilion. Well, here are two photos, offering views of another mystery subject (below).

At first glance, I thought, "Aha! That's the old Sanitarium (now Golden Acres). But then I realized that the building in the photo sits too far back from the main road.  Plus, Golden Acres does not have those winding lanes.

My next guess was some kind of housing development in its infancy– or perhaps a park, museum or sports complex. But the erratic layout of the road didn't make sense, and it sure didn't look like anything in Lorain.

Have you figured out what kind of property this is yet? The clue to solving this mystery was in the top photo at far right: a heart-shaped lane.

I had a hunch, and it didn't take long to find what I was looking for–in North Olmsted!

I'm sure you probably guessed already that the aerial photo was of a cemetery. 

But Sunset Memorial Park on Columbia Road in North Olmsted is much more than a cemetery. It also provides funeral planning services, as well as banquet facilities and catering. Their Signature Services include the releasing of white birds at graveside, caisson service and musical tributes utilizing a bagpiper, string trio or harpist.

I happened to be attending a funeral a few doors down from Sunset Memorial Park last summer, so I stopped in for a few shots.

Westwood Abbey, the lone building in the vintage aerial shot, has been enlarged over the years.

Here's a modern aerial courtesy of Bing Maps (below).

As beautiful as Sunset Memorial Park is, though, I'm glad my future resting place is Elmwood Cemetery in Lorain. But like Rooster Cogburn (John Wayne) said to Mattie Hayes at the end of True Grit (after she told him she wanted him buried next to her), "Excuse me if I don't try to move in too soon."