Once, cemeteries in a church's back yard were common. Now, a Largo church is restoring its role in death and burial.
By KEISHA I. PATRICK
Published July 21, 2003
[Times photo: Douglas R. Clifford]
The Rev. Darrell Mayes pulls weeds at Memorial Gardens, the small cemetery behind First Baptist Church of Indian Rocks in Largo. Mayes oversees the church’s Memorial Ministry.
[Times photo: Douglas R. Clifford]
Cynthia McMillen prays with her sons Gabe, 18, left; Isaac, 12, center; and Taylor, 16, right in a gazebo at Memorial Gardens, where Cynthia’s husband and the boys’ father, Dean, was laid to rest.
LARGO - After battling cancer for three years, death seemed imminent last February for Dean McMillen of Largo. He told his wife, Cynthia, where he wanted to be buried.
"He said, "My boys aren't going to come see me in Ohio. I want to be buried in Memorial Gardens,"' Cynthia said.
Memorial Gardens is the small cemetery behind First Baptist Church of Indian Rocks. It's the church Dean and Cynthia had been attending since 1979, where he was a deacon and where their four sons attended school.
"The Lord brought us here, it's our family," Cynthia said.
At Memorial Gardens, mourners can visit their loved ones' graves after Sunday service, before Wednesday Bible study or whenever they're on church grounds. The sense of community continues even at death as congregation members are buried next to one another and survivors mourn together. The church nourishes its families throughout the life cycle, from births to wedding ceremonies to deaths.
There aren't many cemeteries like Memorial Gardens anymore. The state doesn't keep track of private cemeteries, but of the 584 Florida cemeteries listed by the genealogy Web site www.daddezio.com only about 40 are church cemeteries. Many of them were established in the late 1800s or early 1900s. Memorial Gardens opened in 1998.
"Gets us back to the old concept of family in church," said the Rev. Charlie Martin, pastor of the 5,566-member congregation. "Most of our people come from small towns and the country where every church had a cemetery."
Indian Rocks established Memorial Gardens as a part of its Memorial Ministry. The ministry's purpose is to prepare people for death, from estate planning to funeral service to burial. It's also designed to comfort mourners, said Darrell Mayes, a volunteer who oversees the Memorial Ministry.
"We're learning to better comfort families, to be with them, to let them know our phone numbers so we can be there for them," Mayes said. "Then, to follow through after death. After everyone leaves and goes home, that's the hardest time."
Memorial Gardens sits behind the church's worship center. A cream-colored concrete wall with the words "Memorial Gardens" on a small white sign separate the cemetery from the parking lot. The walkway into the gardens has space for about 30 passages of Scripture on stones. Four families have already chosen Scriptures to honor loved ones buried in other cemeteries.
The sidewalk path curves through the gardens and around trees and concrete benches, which also bear messages honoring the deceased. A lake runs the length of the small cemetery. A fountain in the lake's middle adds to the beauty of the many flowers that mourners have left. Instead of a cemetery, it looks more like a small park.
The grave sites are mostly cremation niches but also include mausoleums. A gazebo to the left of the garden entrance provides seating and air conditioning for visitors.
When Jim Mills is teaching at the church's school, he likes to look out the window over to the garden where his son's body rests.
"It gives me a calm, peaceful feeling knowing that's where he is," Mills said.
David Mills, Jim Mills' son, died in 1998 when he was only 5 months old. David's was the first interment at the cemetery. Since David's death, Mills and his wife have bought plots for their interments.
Dean McMillen had space in a family cemetery plot in Ohio where he and his wife, Cynthia, are originally from. They married there in August 1979, but by that September, they were living in Florida. Around the same time, they became members at First Baptist of Indian Rocks. They raised their four sons, ages 12 through 20, at the church. Two of the boys attend the church's private school, and the other two are alumni.
When Dean lost his battle with cancer on April 19, Cynthia called Mayes, who connected her with a funeral director and coordinated Dean's services at the church.
The family goes to Dean's grave once a month. They visited the site on Mother's and Father's Days.
"The boys and Dean were very close. They were his life," McMillen said.
Through his company, McMillen Excavating, Dean McMillen was instrumental in the development of much of the church grounds, including the school and baseball field near his grave. Dean was also a deacon.
"He was always working up here at church building facilities," Mayes said.
Mayes and other church ministers hope their members will get more from the Memorial Ministry than a grave. They want people to prepare and plan for their deaths to help their families focus more on grieving than funeral financing.
"(Death) is a catastrophic event," said the Rev. Eddie Gandy, assistant pastor of the senior adults ministry. "To be able to help lighten the burden is the reason we do this."
"We try to get the family to try and talk to us, hopefully well before death occurs," Mayes said. "We try to stay somewhat aware of expenses. We encourage them to be calm in cases of emergency."
Martin estimates that the ministry can help members cut costs 30 to 40 percent. The church simply stays abreast of current rates for funeral services to keep survivors from rushing into decisions. Funeral services at the church are free. The church also sells its cemetery property for a flat fee without opening or closing prices, Mayes said.
The church provides a checklist to help people remember to select everything needed for their funerals, from the music to the cemetery to the pallbearers. It also helps members leave legacies. Testimonies and tributes to some deceased members are posted on the Memorial Ministry link to the church's Web site at www.indianrocks.org "One thing I was excited about was preserving their testimonies and passing them down to future generations," Mayes said. "Ten years from now, someone may need it testimony. We're trying to be witnesses to people and provide every opportunity to get to know ancestors."
Though Dean McMillen was known to be soft-spoken, his Christian example still speaks loudly after his death. On a Friday morning, his two younger sons, Taylor, 16, and Isaac, 12, could be found painting lines on the church's parking lot. Like their dad, they help keep up the church grounds.
The congregation is still talking about the testimony Dean left behind, Mayes said.
On Father's Day, Martin, the pastor, reread the letters that each of Dean's sons wrote after his death.
"He was always patient, always a good Christian," Taylor recently said of his dad. "He always wanted us to do our best in sports and school."
It's still hard for Cynthia McMillen to grasp the finality of her husband's death. She wears his wedding ring on a gold chain around her neck. She sometimes visits his grave without her sons. They go alone sometimes too.
"It's comforting to me to know that he's there," McMillen said. "A lot of times I'll walk out to the gardens and sit in the gazebo. It feels like he's just here, not far off."
