Menlo Park Historical Assoc.

Bo Crane leads MPHA tour of Holy Cross Cemetery on October 12

by Linda Hubbard Gulker on October 7, 2019

This year the Menlo Park Historical Association (MPHA) annually sponsored tour of Holy Cross Cemetery will be led by MPHA secretary, Bo Crane (pictured), on Saturday, October 12, from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 pm. The Cemetery is at 1100 Santa Cruz Avenue in Menlo Park, located at the street’s bend. Limited parking for this event is allowed within the cemetery.

Bo Crane is the author of The Life and Times of Dennis Martin (2015) and the recently released The Streets of Menlo Park (November 2017).

Notable persons interred at Holy Cross include two daughters of Faxon Atherton, namesake of the town; the wife of Maximo Martinez, grantee of Rancho Corte de Madera where Portola Valley is located; Dennis Martin, founder of the first St. Denis Church, now in west Menlo; grandson of John Copinger, grantee of Rancho Cañada, now Woodside; and Juana Briones, an independent woman of means who moved her family in 1844 from the village of Yerba Buena (now San Francisco) to a hilltop above Foothill Expressway in Palo Alto. Plots also visited include that of a father fatally shot by his son and also that of the sheriff shot in pursuit.

The tour is free, and there’s generally space for all who wish to attend but RSVP is required and can be made by emailing [email protected] (Not recommended for children.) A donation to MPHA would be much appreciated. For a $20 donation, donors will be given a free membership in MPHA for the balance of 2019 and all of 2020.

Photo courtesy of Menlo Park Historical Association

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