Greenwood Memory Lawn Mortuary & Cemetery is the name of a cemetery located at 2300 West Van Buren Street in Phoenix, Arizona owned by Dignity Memorial. The cemetery, which resulted as a merger of two historical cemeteries, Greenwood Memorial Park and Memory Lawn Memorial Park, is the final resting place of many famous residents of Arizona. Pioneers, governors, congressman, government officials, journalists, race car drivers, soldiers, actors and actresses are among the decedents who are interred in the cemetery.

History Greenwood Memorial Park

Greenwood Memorial Park, the first of the two cemeteries which make up Greenwood/Memory Lawn Mortuary & Cemetery, was established in 1906, by the Arizona Lodge No. 2 of the Free and Accepted Masons. The first early structures in the cemetery were a crematorium, a columbarium and a mausoleum.

PFC Thomas C. Reed incident According to the book "History and Memory in African American Culture"; by Genevieve Fabres and Robert O'Meally, the Greenwood Memorial Park cemetery had a racial policy and was involved in a controversy. In November 1951, the body of PFC Thomas C. Reed, a 19 year old African-American soldier who was killed in the Korean War, remained unburied in a mortuary owned by Lincoln Ragsdale because the Greenwood Memorial Park cemetery officials requested letters of petition from 3 veterans' organizations accepting the body. The American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Disabled American Veterans organizations wanted to put an end to this procedure and to the discriminatory practices of the cemetery and therefore, did not provide the requested letters. Ragsdale worked with the Greater Phoenix Council for Civic Unity (GPCCU) with the intention of publicizing the controversy in the media, both locally and nationally. His actions caught the attention of Thomasena Grigsby, a fellow activist, who then published an editorial in The Chicago Defender. After a three-month standoff the Board of Trustees of the cemetery voted on January 8, 1952, to admit African-American veterans on the same terms as those of the "White" race. Reed was finally buried in the veterans' section of the cemetery."History and Memory in African-American Culture"; by: Genevieve Fabres and Robert O'Meally; .

Memory Lawn Memorial Park The Shumway family established another cemetery to the west of the Greenwood Memorial Park in 1947, named Memory Lawn Memorial Park. A fence separated the cemetery from the Greenwood Memorial Park. This cemetery added a mortuary, memory mausoleum and chapel in 1957.

In 1989, the cemeteries merged and became the Greenwood/Memory Lawn Mortuary & Cemetery. The cemetery joined the Dignity Memorial network which provides funeral, cremation and cemetery services.

Greenwood/Memory Lawn Mortuary & Cemetery with its is the largest cemetery in Arizona. The cemetery has 59 sections, including a front lawn section, a veterans garden and various other cultural and religious gardens. The cemetery has a monument, which was organized in 1885 and erected in 1910, dedicated to the memory of the deceased members of the Phoenix Volunteer Fire Department.

Mausoleums 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. In Greenwood/Memory Lawn Mortuary & Cemetery there are three mausoleums, they are: Encanto Mausoleum – The Encanto Mausoleum is divided into The sections are called "Gardenia", "Palms", "Roses", "Evergreen", "Acacia", "Lillies", "Camellia", "Original Mausoleum" and 'Veranda". Memory Mausoleum Serenity Mausoleum – On the grounds of the Serenity Mausoleum there is a chapel, The Mausoleum is divided into three sections. The sections are called "Faith", "Hope" and "Peace"

Notable Interments

Among the notable people interred in the cemetery are three Arizona Territory Governors, six Arizona State Governors, a Secretary of Arizona Territory, a U.S. Congressman, a Mayor of Phoenix, two recipients of the Medal of Honor, the founders of the cities of Glendale, Arizona and Chandler, race-car drivers, including the winner of the 1958 Indianapolis 500, journalists and the mother and step-father of a former First Lady. Frederick A. Tritle – Tritle served as the sixth Governor of the Arizona Territory from 1882 to 1885. Joseph Henry Kibbey – Kibbey served as the Associate Justice of the Arizona Territorial Supreme Court from 1889 to 1893 and as the 16th Governor of the Arizona Territory from 1905 to 1909. As governor, Kibbey was a leader in the effort to prevent Arizona and New Mexico territories from being combined into a single U.S. state. Richard Elihu Sloan – Sloan was the 17th and last Governor of the Arizona Territory. He served from 1909 to 1912. John Calhoun Phillips – Phillips was the third Governor of the State of Arizona (1929–1931).*Goff, John F. Arizona Biographical Dictionary. Black Mountain Press. Cave Creek, Arizona 1983. p. 263 Richard F. Harless – was Representative for Arizona in several Congresses in the 1940s. Rawghlie Clement Stanford – Stanford was the fifth Governor of the State of Arizona (1937–1939). Robert Taylor Jones – Jones served as the sixth Governor of Arizona from 1939 to 1941. Sidney Preston Osborn – Osborn was the first Secretary of State of Arizona, and later the seventh Governor of Arizona and is, as of 2015, the only Governor of Arizona to be elected to four consecutive terms (Governors of Arizona served biennial terms without limits up until 1968, when it was changed to serve quadrennial terms, and changed again in 1992 to a limit of two terms at a time). Osborn is also the second native-born Governor of Arizona. Ernest William McFarland – McFarland served as a U.S. Senator (1941–1953), the tenth Governor of Arizona (1955–1959) and Arizona Supreme Court Justice (1968). Paul Jones Fannin – Fannin served as U.S. Senator from 1965 to 1977 and as the 11th Governor of Arizona from 1959 to 1965. George Ulysses Young – Young served as the Secretary of Arizona Territory (1909–1912) and as the 28th Mayor of Phoenix (1914–1916). As a businessman he invested in railroads and then transitioned his business interests to mining. Robert "Bob" Lee Stump – Stump was a U.S. Congressman who served for the Democratic Party and later switched to the Republican Party. Vernettie O. Ivy – Ivy served in the Arizona House of Representatives for six years and was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in New York City in 1924. Her daughter Elizabeth McCreight Hutchison is buried with her. Wing Foon Ong – Ong, born in Guangdong, China to a Chinese-American father and Chinese mother. His family later resided in the mainland United States where he became the first Chinese-American to be elected to a state House (twice) in the United States and later to the Arizona Senate. Jack Walters – In 1872, Walters became the first District Attorney in Maricopa County, Arizona. That same year he and his partner Johnny George had a new two-story adobe building built which served as a restaurant, saloon and hotel. This was the first two-story building to be erected in Phoenix. Lorna Elizabeth Lockwood – Lockwood served as Chief Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court from 1965 to 1966 and again from 1970 to 1971. She was the first woman to become Chief Justice of a state supreme court. John Taylor Dunlap – Dr. Dunlap served as Mayor of Phoenix from December 9, 1904, to May 4, 1905. Dunlap Avenue in Phoenix is named after him. John Nicholas Udall – Udall (a.k.a. Nick Udall) served as the mayor of Phoenix from 1948 to 1952. Madge E. Copeland – Copeland opened the first beauty parlor for African-American women in Phoenix and went on to become the first African-American appointed as Deputy Maricopa County Recorder in 1947, which at the time was the highest political office any African American had held in Arizona. She served as Deputy County Recorder until she retired in 1961. She was active in the fight against segregation in Arizona and was an important leader in the Democratic Party. Clinton Campbell – Campbell was a "local prominent builder" who worked in Phoenix. Several of his works have survived and are listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places., part of Alexander John Chandler – Dr. Chandler was the first veterinary surgeon in Arizona Territory. He was also the founder of the City of Chandler. Burguess Almon Hadsell – Hadsell and William J. Murphy, promoted the temperance colony of Glendale, Arizona in the western Salt River Valley.Arizona Republic; p. 107 George Henry Nicholas Luhrs Sr – Luhrs SR., was a pioneer Phoenix hotel man, builder and capitalist. He died in his apartment in the Luhrs Hotel. John Britt Montgomery – Montgomery was an early Phoenix pioneer who owned 280 acres of farmland. He subdivided his holdings and sold it to new Settlers, creating a Phoenix neighborhood known as the Montgomery addition. In 1890, Montgomery ran for sheriff and won the election with 60% of the vote.Arizona History William John Murphy – Murphy was the founder of the City of Glendale, Arizona and of the town of Peoria, Arizona. Dr. James Collier Norton – Dr. Norton and his wife Clara Tufts moved to Phoenix from Iowa and served as the territorial veterinarian. William R. Norton – Norton founded the Sunnyslope subdivision of Phoenix and designed the Carnegie Library, the city's first library, and the Gila County Courthouse in Globe, Arizona."Sunnyslope"; by: Reba Wells Grandrud; p. 14; Publisher: Arcadia Publishing; Floyd Holmes Sine – Sine was a pioneer in Glendale, Arizona who in 1910, expanded the water system by adding a storage tank and supply lines and sold the water back to the city in 1915. He built the Sine Building in 1912, in Glendale. Eleanor Ragsdale – Mrs. Ragsdale was the wife of Lincoln Johnson Ragsdale. She became a leading figure in Phoenix's Civil Rights Movement from the 1940s to the 1960s. By challenging segregation and working through civil rights organizations, she exerted a direct impact on social relations in the Phoenix area, and helped to integrate the city and state. Lincoln Johnson Ragsdale Sr. – Dr. Ragsdale was a former Tuskegee Airman who became a Civil Rights leader in Phoenix. Jean Maddock Clark – Clark was a leader, teacher and mentor to hundreds of Arizona Girl Scouts and students. She founded Girl Scout troops in many of the communities in which she taught school. In 1930, Clark became was the first Arizona woman to be awarded the Golden Eagle, the highest award from the Girl Scouts of the USA. She was the first trained Camp Director for Arizona's Girl Scout Council and served in that capacity for 19 years. From 1937 through 1977, Clark served as a troop leader in Phoenix. James Miller Creighton – Creighton was an architect who practiced in Phoenix from the 1880s to the 1920s. He is considered to be one of Arizona's first architects.Guide to MS 10, James M. Creighton Collection, Photos and Documents. 2009. Web. Ayra E. Hackett – Mrs. Hackett was the wife of Winston C. Hackett, the first African-American physician in Phoenix. In 1919, she founded The Arizona Gleam, the first African-American newspaper in Phoenix, making her the first African-American woman to own a newspaper in Phoenix. Dr. Winston C. Hackett – Hackett was the first African-American physician in Arizona. He founded the Booker T. Washington Memorial Hospital, the first African-American hospital in Phoenix. Dwight Bancroft Heard – Heard was one of the largest landowners in the Salt lake Valley in Arizona. He was also the president of the Arizona Cotton Growers' Association. He owned the Arizona Republican, a newspaper renamed the Arizona Republic. Heard, together with his wife Maie, founded the Heard Museum.