A four-month-old baby girl became the very first person laid to rest at Inglewood Park Cemetery back in July 1906, and for 120 years her grave sat without so much as a marker to note she was ever there. That changed this year, when city and cemetery leaders gathered to dedicate a permanent headstone bearing her name, Maytie Raker, closing out a gap in the historical record that outlasted the city of Inglewood itself.
Maytie Raker was buried at the cemetery on July 20, 1906, according to CBS News Los Angeles, making her the cemetery's first interment before Inglewood was even an incorporated city. She was the first child of King D. and Jessie Raker, and a historical records review revealed that her grave had remained unmarked for generations, the station reported. Her new headstone is decorated with butterflies and a flower and reads, “Forever in our hearts, Maytie Raker.”
Maytie's younger sister, Hattie Raker, also died in infancy in 1907, per the same account, and her own grave marker, dedicated alongside her sister's, displays the phrase, “Resting in heaven's garden.” The family line continued through Alexander Raker, who carried forward the Raker family legacy and lived until 1993, the report noted.
Local Leaders Reflect on a Century-Old Debt
Dionne Faulk said Inglewood residents come together to remember important days and times, according to the same CBS Los Angeles report. Inglewood Park Cemetery leadership commissioned the permanent marker for Maytie Raker, and Brendt Stallings said the cemetery is a permanent institution in the community.
Senator Alex Padilla said Inglewood leaders sought to do the Raker family justice, the station reported. Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts said the cemetery will remain standing long after local stadiums and arenas wear out, a comment that speaks to just how much the surrounding city has changed since Maytie Raker's era.
From Farmland Burial Ground to 200-Acre Landmark
When Maytie Raker was buried in 1906, Inglewood was still an unincorporated stretch of farms and small homes, and the newly formed Inglewood Park Cemetery Association had only just organized to establish a designated burial ground in the area, according to the Inglewood Park Cemetery. The city of Inglewood would not formally incorporate until February 14, 1908, nearly two years after Maytie became the cemetery's first resident, according to the City of Inglewood.
Getting to the remote cemetery in those early years required some creativity. Funeral processions arrived from Los Angeles on horse-drawn flat carts when interments began in 1906, and by 1907 mourners were being carried along Redondo Boulevard, now Florence Avenue, aboard a specialized $12,000 electric funeral trolley car, according to Wikipedia. The cemetery recorded just 32 burials in that entire first year, according to CultureNow.
The land itself traces back even further, having been carved out of the 25,000-acre Centinela Ranch, established around the historic 1834 Centinela Adobe built by Ignacio Machado, per the City of Inglewood. In 1913, the cemetery built the Inglewood Mausoleum, becoming the first community mausoleum in California and making crypt entombment affordable to the public rather than just the wealthy, according to Our Weekly.
A Cemetery That Grew Into a Cultural Landmark
The cemetery's growth didn't stop there. Its Sunset Mission Mausoleum, built in the late 1980s, holds space for 30,000 interments, making it the largest mausoleum facility in the United States, according to PBS SoCal. Spanning 200 acres, the cemetery has now accommodated more than 300,000 to 400,000 interments over its 120-year history, making it the single most active burial facility in Southern California, per Wikipedia.
That growth turned the cemetery into the final resting place for major American cultural figures, including music legends Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, and Etta James, according to the Inglewood Park Cemetery. It also holds the graves of prominent Los Angeles civic and political leaders, including former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, civil rights attorney Johnnie Cochran, and boxing champion Sugar Ray Robinson, as noted by Alamy.
None of that scale existed when a grieving family laid a four-month-old baby to rest in a quiet farming community back in 1906. This year's dedication ceremony finally gave Maytie Raker's name a permanent place among the hundreds of thousands who followed her.
