Mount Olivet Cemetery is a Catholic cemetery located at 10378 Military Road in

Key West Key West ( es, Cayo Hueso) is an island in the Straits of Florida, within the U.S. state of Florida. Together with all or parts of the separate islands of Dredgers Key, Fleming Key, Sunset Key, and the northern part of Stock Island, it cons ...

, Iowa approximately south of Dubuque. It is one of the two large Catholic cemeteries located in the Dubuque area. The cemetery is located near Saint Joseph's Catholic Church in Key West, but is operated independently. The cemetery offers in-ground burial, as well as columbarium and mausoleum entombment.

History

The cemetery began in 1856 and was known as the ''Key West Burying Ground''. In 1901, the Mt. Olivet Cemetery Association was formed and the cemetery was renamed Mount Olivet. Though a newspaper article from 1901 indicates that the board of 11 trustees planned to relocate graves from the Third Street Cemetery, adjacent to

St. Raphael's Cathedral (Dubuque, Iowa) St. Raphael's Cathedral is a Catholic cathedral and a parish church in the Archdiocese of Dubuque located in Dubuque, Iowa. The parish is the oldest congregation of any Christian denomination in the state of Iowa. The cathedral church, rectory, ...

, to Mt. Olivet, there is no record that these disinterments ever took place. At least 11 graves encountered during development of the Third Street property in the 1940s were moved to the Third Street Cemetery section of Mt. Olivet, as were two sets of remains disturbed in the 1970s and four discovered in 1994. Over 900 graves were archaeologically excavated from the Third Street Cemetery between 2007 and 2011. The remains of these individuals were also reburied in the Third Street Cemetery section of Mt. Olivet."Bioarchaeology and History of Dubuque's Third Street Cemetery, 13DB476, Dubuque County, Iowa," Research Paper Volume 37, Number 1, Office of the State Archaeologist, University of Iowa, 2013 The board then hired

O. C. Simonds Ossian Cole Simonds (November 11, 1855 – November 20, 1931), often known as O. C. Simonds, was an American landscape designer. He preferred the term 'landscape gardener' to that of 'landscape architect'. A number of Simonds' works are listed o ...

to improve the cemetery grounds. Simmonds, who was the superintendent of Graceland Cemetery in Chicago, Illinois and was widely recognized as a landscape gardener, set about to improve the cemetery which was inaccessible to those not on-foot. Former Dubuque Archbishops James Keane and John Keane are both buried in the cemetery. While the men shared the same last name, they were not related. Kenneth Mott, owned a Dubuque music store, was buried at the cemetery following his death in an airplane accident with a marker shaped like a Grand Piano. St Joseph's Chapel

Mausoleum A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be consid ...

is located at the northwest corner of the cemetery. The mausoleum was built in 1989, and was later expanded. This building has crypts for mausoleum entombment, columbarium niches for cremated remains and a small chapel for the final committal ceremonies.

References

External links

* {{Find a Grave cemetery Cemeteries in Iowa Roman Catholic cemeteries in the United States Buildings and structures in Dubuque, Iowa Mausoleums in the United States Protected areas of Dubuque County, Iowa 1856 establishments in Iowa Cemeteries established in the 1850s