The Memorial Garden
A quiet garden on the TriUU grounds where the congregation keeps the names of those who have passed.
On June 22, 2014, Robert Ridgard led the dedication of a memorial stone for Charlene. It is the earliest stone in the congregation’s records.
Most Unitarian Universalists are not buried in a churchyard. Many congregations keep a memorial garden instead: a place where names are recorded and lives remembered. As one TriUU sermon put it, “It seems to be a human need to have some tangible place or thing to record our remembrance.”
The Garden
TriUU’s garden sits inside tall clipped hedges near the drive. A Buddhist prayer flag hangs at the entrance, and you walk in under a white arch. A path of flagstones loops in a teardrop around a bed of white shell and a planted circle at its center, and a white pergola stands at the far end. There is also a peace sign set among the plantings. Beyond the garden, a path leads into Melody Meadows; watch for the Gopher Tortoise signs as you go.
It is a place to remember the people named here, or simply to sit in the quiet. In June 2020, when the congregation could not meet indoors, the Board suggested small gatherings in the garden as a way to see each other in person.
The Stones
Each memorial stone carries words chosen for the person it honors, and sometimes by them. Since Charlene’s, more have followed: Ken Loebel in September 2017, Diane LaMontagne in August 2020, Carole Jackson in July 2024. In September 2025, ten volunteers placed five more stones.
Three inscriptions were read aloud in October 2022, when Rev. Cynthia Snavely led a service called “Remembering Our Dead”:
Mike Donato · died January 13, 2021
“Beloved husband, father and grandfather, a Unitarian Universalist who led by example.”
Al Solberg · choir director for eight years · died 2022
“His song lives on.”
Susan Ashley · died 2022
Susan placed her own stone, dated 2020. She outlived the date she had chosen.
“I did it my way.”
How a Stone Is Placed
Memorial stone dedications are a benefit of membership, free to Members and Associate Members. Since May 2023, Board policy has been that the congregation pays for a stone honoring any member in good standing at the time of their death. Families may contribute toward the cost if they wish.
The family first contacts the minister to set a date for placing and consecrating the stone. The wording goes to the congregation’s memorial stone coordinator, today Peggy Roberts, who orders the stone. When it is ready, the Building and Grounds Team collects it, lays it in the garden and lets the minister know.
Care of the Garden
The Building and Grounds Team looks after the garden with help from volunteers. The garden has been renewed more than once. Members rehabilitated it before 2021, and in early 2026 the garden keepers replanted it with native plants: bush daisies, coreopsis, blue daze, ginger, purple queen and lantana.
For years Shirley Loebel, whose husband Ken has a stone here, placed flags on the stones of veterans on the appropriate holidays.
