Avon Lake's Lake Shore Cemetery History Preserved

by Mike Hammer, Special to Avon Lake Public Library

The almost 200-year-old history of Avon Lake’s Lake Shore Cemetery and the remarkable and colorful stories of the people buried there are being preserved through Avon Lake Public Library’s online historical collection.

Visitors to Biblioboard.com, which can be accessed directly or through the Library’s website on the home page under Research/Local History Resources, can read a short history, compiled in 2013, of the cemetery, as well as biographies of individuals buried there. Also featured is a comprehensive scrapbook of the cemetery’s history, which includes notes about the cemetery’s operations, a complete list of burials, pictures and newspaper articles from cemetery events and restoration projects, original documents, and much more. The scrapbook was compiled in 2004 by Avon Lake resident John W. Robertson for the Avon Lake Veterans of Foreign Wars, Post 8796 and Avon Lake Historical Society.

Sherry Spenzer, a local historian and author, as well as current vice president of Heritage Avon Lake, has also worked hard to preserve Lake Shore Cemetery’s history. On September 19, she will release a book entitled Images of America: Lake Shore Cemetery of Avon Lake, which is part of the Arcadia Publishing local history series and was written for Heritage Avon Lake.

“This book represents the culmination of over 15 years of research into the history and burials in Avon Lake Cemetery,” Spenzer said. “It is a snapshot of our city’s people and its evolution.”

That evolution spans nearly two centuries, from the earliest burial in 1822 to the most recent, and final, burial in 2014. The cemetery, which was recognized in 2013 as a historic landmark by the Avon Lake Historical Preservation Commission, abuts a cliff on Lake Erie along Lake Road near the Folger Home and covers less than a third of an acre. It is the final resting place of nearly 200 individuals, many of whom were from early local pioneer families with still-recognizable names including Beard, Beck, Curtis, Duff, Dunning, Herrmann, Jaycox, Moore, Payne, and Tomanek. French fur trappers, Native Americans, physicians, veterans from the Revolutionary War to World War II, community leaders, farmers, and those troubled and destitute – all have been brought together for eternity on this historic site.

For more information about Lake Shore Cemetery or if you have local history items that you would like to share with or donate to the Avon Lake Public Library or are interested in volunteering to help with the Library's local history digitization project, please contact Adult Services librarian and local history and genealogy specialist Laura Ploenzke via e-mail at lploenzke@avonlake.lib.oh.us or by phone at 440.933.8127.