Approximately one third of the more than 1,000 burials at Tolomato Cemetery are those of Minorcans or Minorcan families. The Menorcan Cultural Society, founded to keep alive the traditions and memory of the Minorcan families of St Augustine, has been a great supporter of Tolomato Cemetery for decades, and in fact donated the new signs and plaques at the cemetery and paid a significant amount of the cost of the benches.
Every year, Carol Lopez Bradshaw, Minorcan historian, President of the Minorcan Cultural Society and also a great supporter of Tolomato Cemetery, gets together with other Minorcan families and they decorate a tree with memorabilia, such as photographs and documents relating to St Augustine’s Minorcan families. This year the tree will be on display at the city’s Visitors Information Center on San Marco Avenue. You can see it below in the photo from the St Augustine Record.
The tree is also graced by 400 year-old oyster shells left from Indian and Spanish feasting and dug up just in time for this season at the Fountain of Youth Park by City Archaeologist Carl Halbirt.
The Cemetery will be open to the public again on Dec. 15 from 11-3. Stop at the Visitors Information Center first and see the Minorcan Christmas tree!
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