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Rose Hill Cemetery occupies several acres on the westside of Bloomington's Prospect Hill Neighborhood between Third and Fifth Streets. Originally, the city of Bloomington was about a mile east of the cemetery, but grew to enclose the land within one of its core neighborhoods. The earliest marked graves are in the southeast corner and these date to the first quarter of the nineteenth century.
The cemetery contains the graves and memorials of some of the families that made Bloomington the city it is today. The Wylies, the Rogers, the van Buskirks and many others lent their names to streets, buildings, and institutions to a nascent Bloomington and still exist today. Sculptor Ivan Adams and painter Marion Blaire reside on opposite sides of the cemetery with composer and musician Hoagy Carmichael and human sexuality researcher Alfred Kinsey in between. What makes the permanent residents of Rose Hill special, though, are the countless resting places of generations of average Bloomingtonians. Their nationalities, occupations, and faiths represent a diversity that flourishes in Bloomington to this day.
The cemetery has excellent examples of funereal iconography from the nineteenth century to the present day, and the memorials are excellent examples of the changing practices in grave marker creation. The earliest stones are hand-carved limestone or yellow sandstone (with some of the pieces signed by the carvers) and more recently the trend of machine-carved or etched granite is prevalent. There are also examples of cast zinc monuments in the cemetery.
Rose Hill has abundant flora and fauna with a wide variety of trees, including one of the oldest (if not the oldest) sycamore trees in Bloomington, fruit trees, hemlocks, junipers, and hundreds of peony bushes. Rabbits, woodchucks, squirrels, and recently deer have made the cemetery their home. A few quiet moments spent listening to the birds will result in a complete concert by one of the many resident mocking birds. Residents of Prospect Hill and the Near Westside neighborhood jog, stroll, do yoga, picnic, and walk their dogs in this tranquil space. It is an invaluable asset to these westside neighborhoods.
Rose Hill Cemetery is special in its local historical significance, as an art historical record, and as a natural green lung in an area of Bloomington that has become overdeveloped in recent years. This page will highlight certain stones, people, and concerns about the cemetery with a goal to educate and cultivate appreciation and respect for this overlooked Bloomington treasure.
