Bloomington Yesterday: “The vault” and other grave facts

Walter and Marie Pederson, who lived next door to the City Cemetery at 103rd Street and Lyndale Avenue South, became the cemetery’s first caretakers in 1911. In winter, Walter would chisel out graves by hand to get below the frost line. Hot coals were left overnight in the uncompleted trench to thaw the ground. The brick structure shown here was built by residents and known as “the vault.” Once used to store the dead when the ground became too frozen to dig, it now serves as a tool storage shed.

Before Bloomington’s city clerk took over cemetery records in the 1970s, Marie used her dining room window to identify graves. As she looked out over the cemetery, she would pull down the window shade and write on it the name that corresponded to the grave location.