Baby Maytie, the first person buried at Inglewood Park Cemetery, gets a headstone after 120 years
-
Click here to listen to this article - Share via
See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search. Set us as preferred
- After 120 years without a grave marker, Baby Maytie Raker, the first person buried at Inglewood Park Cemetery in 1906, finally receives a permanent headstone.
- Cemetery officials and Inglewood city leaders gathered Aug. 13 at the Raker sisters’ graves, unveiling butterfly-engraved markers adorned with white and purple roses, daisies and carnations.
- The long-delayed memorial underscores the cemetery’s push to preserve local history, ensuring the Raker children’s names and stories remain part of Inglewood’s collective memory for generations.
In 1906, 4-month-old Maytie Raker was the first person to be buried at the Inglewood Park Cemetery.
At the time she was laid to rest without a grave marker, but this month officials memorialized Maytie by commissioning a permanent marker at her burial site.
In 1905, the Inglewood Park Cemetery Assn., made up of a group of local businessmen, purchased a 320-acre parcel of land with the goal of creating the largest and finest cemetery in the world, PBS SoCal reported.
A year later, on July 20, 1906, Maytie, the daughter of King D. and Jessie Raker, became the first person to be interred, but it’s unclear why her family left the site unmarked for more than a century.
Maytie’s sister Hattie was buried next to her the following year — the child died in infancy.
The Times reached out to the Inglewood Park Cemetery for comment but did not receive a response before publication.
On Aug. 13, cemetery officials along with members of the Inglewood City Council gathered at the Raker sisters’ burial site to commemorate the newly placed markers, the first for the eldest Raker sister.
The markers were engraved with butterflies, with pairs of butterfly-shaped flower arrangements next to the graves along with bouquets containing a mix of white and purple roses, daisies and carnations.
“It shows why it’s so important to have memorialization here at Inglewood Park Cemetery, or at any cemetery,” said Kevin Brown, vice president of operations and construction at the cemetery, in a post on Instagram.
Norma Rivas, the family service lead concierge and genealogy specialist with Inglewood Park, said, “Even though I never had the opportunity to meet the Raker sisters, over the past couple of years, they have become like family to me.”
“My goal is to ensure that their names are never forgotten here at Inglewood Park Cemetery and that their story continues to be remembered for generations to come,” Rivas added.
More From the Los Angeles Times
Podcasts
The latest effort is coming from the L.A. County Board of Supervisors. They just announced a $3 million program in conjunction with some nonprofits groups to test and clean the soil at homes still standing in the areas impacted by the Eaton Fire.
The Hillside Strangler murders terrorized Los Angeles in the late 1970s. The killers were a pair of sadistic cousins. One confessed. The other was set to stand trial—until L.A. prosecutors flinched.
Hosts Fidel Martínez and Suzy Exposito sit down with Dr. Vanessa J. Díaz, professor of Chicano and Latino Studies at Loyola Marymount University and co-author of P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance.
