Oakdale Memorial Gardens

Oakdale Memorial Gardens, formerly Oakdale Cemetery, is located in east-central Davenport, Iowa, United States. It was established in 1856 and designed by Captain George F. de la Roche,^[1] who had finished the design of Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington, D.C. five years earlier. It is considered a rural or garden cemetery and covers more than 78 acres (32 ha).^[2] The first burial at Oakdale was that of three-year-old Mary Larned Allen on September 15, 1857.^[3] Some of the graves in the cemetery had been transferred from the overcrowded City Cemetery in the west end. The cemetery is located across Eastern Avenue from the former Iowa Soldiers' Orphans' Home, and it contains the graves of the orphans that died at the home. There is a Soldiers Lot, which is administered by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.^[4] The cemetery also contains a section for the burial of pets.

Notable Burials

• Bix Beiderbecke (1903–1931) jazz musician
• Joseph W. Bettendorf (1864–1933), co-founder of the Bettendorf Axel Company with his brother; Bettendorf, Iowa is named after him
• William P. Bettendorf (1857–1910), inventor and co-founder of the Bettendorf Axel Company with his brother; Bettendorf, Iowa is named after him
• John Parsons Cook (1817–1872), U.S. House of Representatives, 1853–1855
• George Henry Cram (1838–1872), American Civil War Brigadier General
• John Forrest Dillon (1831–1914), Jurist who authored a judicial treatise that is now referred to as "Dillon's Law."
• Alice French (1850–1934), author who wrote under the pseudonym Octave Thanet
• Joseph R. Lane (1858–1931), U.S. House of Representatives, 1899–1901
• Joseph Bloomfield Leake (1828–1918), American Civil War Brevet Brigadier General
• Henry Washington Lee (1815–1874), first bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Iowa 1854-1874
• John Fremont McCullough (1871–1963), co-founded Dairy Queen
• Paul Norton (1909–1984), watercolor artist
• Hiram Price (1814–1901), U.S. House of Representatives, 1863–1869, 1877–1881; United States Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1881–1885
• Addison Hiatt Sanders (1823–1912), American Civil War Brevet Brigadier General
• Phebe Sudlow (1831–1922), first female public school principal and superintendent in the United States; first female professor at the University of Iowa
• James Thorington (1816–1887), U.S. House of Representatives, 1855–1857; Consul at Aspinwall, Colombia, 1873–1882
• John Vale (1835–1909), American Civil War Congressional Medal of Honor recipient
• Charles J. von Maur (1863–1926), co-founder of the Von Maur department store chain
• Henry W. von Maur (1869–1933), co-founder of the Von Maur department store chain

References