Our digital guide features:

-Four introductory walking tours, including one meditative audio-tour.
-Ability to explore points of interest by area of the Cemetery.
-Extensive information on notable figures, landmarks, significant trees and monuments.

How to access the app: On your smart phone's App Store download the free Bloomberg Connects Arts + Culture app. Once the app is downloaded, search "Mount Auburn Cemetery" to get started. No login is required to access our guide.

Learn More: buff.ly/gDnnmbt

As we walk Mount Auburn’s paths today, we honor the enduring presence of the Massachusett, Pequossette, Wampanoag, Nipmuc, and Pawtucket peoples.

The body was treated as sacred—a vessel that carried the spirit through life—and laid to rest with care. These customs reflect a worldview in which all beings are interconnected and the land itself holds memory.

Even though Mount Auburn is credited with establishing American views on burial and commemoration, Indigenous communities practiced burial traditions grounded in reverence for life, death, and the natural world.

For the Massachusett, Massachuseuck means “At the Great Hill.” Generations traveled footpaths through what is now Mount Auburn and along the Quinobequin—“the meandering river,” later renamed the Charles.

Today, Joyce Chen Foods, run by her son, continues her legacy. In 2014, she was honored on a U.S. postage stamp.

Her popular Joyce Chen Cook Book (1962), PBS show Joyce Chen Cooks (1968), and line of cookware and sauces helped bring authentic Northern Chinese cuisine into American homes.

After moving to Cambridge in 1949, she began teaching cooking and in 1958 opened New England’s first Mandarin Chinese restaurant, introducing dishes like Peking Duck, Moo Shi Pork, and her famous “Peking Ravioli” (potstickers).

Here at Mount Auburn, a Peggy Martin rose thrives at our Pond Avenue signpost. Each spring, it bursts with pink blooms, feeding pollinators and reminding us that life can persist — and even flourish — after unthinkable loss.

Propagated and shared across the country, the rose now bears her name, honoring both her loss and her love of gardening. It has since been planted in gardens and landscapes nationwide as a living emblem of endurance.

Peggy Martin was an avid gardener in Louisiana whose home and beloved collection of 450 antique varieties of flowers were destroyed by the floodwaters. After two weeks under 20 feet of salt water, only one plant in her garden survived — a thornless climbing rose.

Homer is buried on Lily Path in Mount Auburn Cemetery