Story and photos by David Petry
Fess Parker Jr., who some knew better as either Davey Crockett from the Disney series of the late 1950s, or as Daniel Boone in the popular television series of the 1960s, was interred at the Santa Barbara Cemetery in March of this year. He lies next to his parents, Fess Sr. (1900-1965), who was a liquor control board agent in Texas during the years when that meant something, and his mother, Makie Allen Parker (1898-1985).
People stop by to visit Parker’s grave site. He was an on-screen icon of American maturity and wisdom during a tumultuous period in history. Later, of course, he battled his way through the Santa Barbara City planning process to develop the Fess Parker Red Lion Inn, now the Fess Parker Double Tree Resort, in 1986, and a year later launched the Fess Parker Winery in the Santa Ynez Valley.
Fess has become the latest stop on the Santa Barbara Cemetery Walking Tour. His marker bears a one-of-a-kind emblem, a coonskin cap.
Appropriately, Fess lies in one of the oldest portions of the cemetery and his marker is, except for the cap, a standard one. The cemetery walking tours lead visitors from the oldest through the newest, touching on the evolution of American cemeteries and how that evolution followed how we as a people saw ourselves.
Fess Parker Jr. rests beneath a flat marker, democratic and yet individual. Embodied in that marker is the idea that great individuals do not need great tributes on the landscape. Their lives stand in their memories and their legacies. You come to the grave, the grave does not ‘come to you’ as the great mausoleums of some industrialists and screen stars seem to.
I’ve led the cemetery tours for over ten years. We visit the beautiful chapel designed by George Washington Smith and Lutah Maria Riggs, and traverse the grounds, visiting graves of early Santa Barbarans, industry and film notables, architects, authors and poets, and of course a few of the odd, the murdered, the murderous, and the funny. Tours this Halloween season will take place, rain or shine:
Saturday, October 30, 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Sunday, October 31, 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
The cost is $15 per person, pay at the door. We meet at the cemetery chapel, 901 Channel Drive, Santa Barbara. Bring a hat, water, camera, and umbrella as needed. We walk about 1 mile through the grounds.
My book, The Best Last Place, a History of the Santa Barbara Cemetery, which retails for $30 is available for $15 at the tours.
Why would you take a tour of the cemetery? Seems kind of ghoulish and disrespectful.
Santa Barbara cemetery is one of the most peaceful and scenic walks you can take in Santa Barbara. My son who is disabled and my family have to always make a stops there, even, when we are driven through Santa Barbara to another destination. Try it you won’t be disappointed.
The history of Santa Barbara is contained in its extraordinary cemetery, where so many community leaders and regular citizens are laid to rest. It’s such a peaceful, beautiful place, with so many stories to be told. We’re lucky that the author has taken the time to share this with the community.
The sb cemetery is vintage santa barbara and filled with history. you’d be lucky to get a plot there! Like this thanks! the best time to check a tour is obviously halloween!
I’ve taken the tour in the past and it was very interesting and informative. Well worth doing. Nothing ghoulish about it.
I do have a family plot there, thank you very much, and I still find it ghoulish.