‘Abbey’ is in its name, but neither monks, nor nuns lived in this historic KC building

Forest Hill Cemetery at 69th Street and Troost Avenue opened for burials in 1888.

Only twenty-four years earlier, that same plot of land played an important role in the Battle of Westport. Troops led by General Sterling Price were pushed back and defeated by Union forces there. Some 70 Confederate soldiers who died in the fighting are buried in Forest Hill.

So are Tom Pendergast, Harry S Truman’s parents, Buck O’Neil, Satchel Paige and Kate Spade to name just a few.

The cemetery originally included two lakes, and its grounds were designed by George Kessler, the architect of Kansas City’s parks and boulevards system.

But this postcard doesn’t address any of that.

It focuses on one elegant, eye-catching building near the cemetery’s southern end. A Roman Renaissance style structure built in 1931 that looks like something from a college campus, or a library, maybe even an observatory.

It’s called the Forest Hill Abbey. But nuns and monks never occupied it. This abbey is actually a mausoleum, a large one with an ornate interior where numerous Kansas Citians have been interred.

Like many aging cemeteries, Forest Hill Calvary (as its now called) has its challenges. The “botanical garden for the living” that Kessler envisioned is long gone, and the roof of the old “receiving vault” caved in earlier this year.

But the abbey, which was clearly built to last, lives on in remarkably good shape.

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