Searching for Sanjo at Mount Olivet

The location of the Mount Olivet Cemetery in Salt Lake City appears to be a paradox. On one side of the road is a quiet graveyard, sacred to those whose loved ones and ancestors are buried here. On the other side is Rice-Eccles Stadium, home turf to the University of Utah football team. The venue holds over 45,000 people, and on Saturday night can become a raucous madhouse.
 
But on a Tuesday morning all was peaceful when I paid my visit.
 
The cemetery is a welcome contrast to the hustle and bustle of the city. Located on the foothills of Salt Lake, there are many gentle flowing grassy slopes. A small herd of deer, including some scraggly bucks, make this their home year-round. The mausoleums, angel statues, and crosses are in variance with most cemeteries in the state, which have a predominantly Mormon flavor. That's what makes Mount Olivet so unique.
 

The cemetery was created in 1874 by an act of congress during the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant. It is the only public cemetery in the country to be created from such an act. Until then, the non-Mormon population was served by the Salt Lake City Cemetery, which had existed since the city's founding in 1847. Although it was all-inclusive, some felt those from other faiths were excluded from the better plots.
 
Property from Fort Douglas was used, and by 1877 the first burial took place. Many people transferred family members, including headstones, to the new cemetery. For this reason, there may be grave markers with older dates. The area to the south was left open for workers to graze their horses.
 

I was by myself during my visit, which is how I prefer it. I had plenty of time to wander through rows of memorials. Some leaned forward and others backward in imperfect rows. I found Celtic crosses and masonic headstones—but most were just rectangular slabs of granite. One in particular caught my attention: “EMILY PEARSALL 1834 – 1872 EPISCOPAL MISSIONARY HELPED SICK, POOR, STRANGERS. RESPECTED AND LOVED”
 
Part of my quest was to find the grave of a distant ancestor. Guglielmo Giosue Rossetti Sangiovanni, more commonly known as Sanjo, was the half-brother to my third-great-grandfather, Horatio Pickett. As I wandered among the graves, I hoped to stumble across Sanjo, although I knew this was unlikely considering there are over 32,000 people buried here. I carried a piece of paper with plot number “R-298-10.” This reference didn't seem to help much.
 

Sanjo on left, with his half-brother, Horatio Pickett.

Sanjo was born in London in 1835 to an American mother and Italian father. Although his father came from nobility, he was a drunkard and abusive to his wife, Susanna.
 
One evening Susanna had a dream where she came upon a number of people gathered around a speaker who held a book. The speaker looked directly at her, telling her that he had come to help, and if she followed him, she would be saved. He reassured her that all would be well.
 

In August the following year, she was walking the streets of London when she came upon a group of people listening intently to a man with an open book. As she drew closer she was astonished to see the men and setting of her dream. The two preachers were Wilford Woodruff and Heber C. Kimball, missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The words they spoke pierced her soul. She then began correspondence with the missionaries and was eventually baptized into the church against the will of her husband.
 
After a particularly difficult period with her husband, Susanna made the decision to leave him and join the Saints in the United States. Susanna and Sanjo left with only a suitcase, aboard a ship from Liverpool. They made their way to Nauvoo, Illinois, and eventually to Utah in1852, where Susanna would spend the rest of her life. (They also came to Utah with another child, Horatio—another story for another time.)
 

I will admit that I don't know much about Sanjo's life. I came to the cemetery at Mount Olivet to perhaps gain a small connection with him. Most of what I know comes from Susanna's biography.
 
Upon entering the Salt Lake Valley, they lived in a small home on Fourth West and Emigration Street, which they initially shared with Susanna's sister, Caroline. Sanjo took an active part excavating the foundation for the Salt Lake Temple and taking guard duty at night to protect the city from Indians. 

Survival in those early days was difficult. Sanjo gave an account of what life was like in the Salt Lake Valley: “The crops of '52 had been rather poor and in '53 the grass-hopper war commenced. They laid lots of eggs that hatched in the spring, and a big army devoured everything but weeds. We were four weeks without flour. I'd go out in the morning with a sack and fill it with pig weeds, sego roots, and thistle roots to make our three meals straight. Once in a while I would catch a few fish. When somebody would kill a steer nothing was thrown away. Even the hide was eaten. After it is well boiled it resembles tripe in flavor—very glutenous and nourishing.”
 

In 1865 he was called on a mission to Italy and Switzerland. When he returned two years later he moved south to the area of St. George, where his mother now lived. He published a newspaper called The Cactus. He also helped, on one occasion, to fight the Navajo, who had raided some stables and drove off 29 horses.
 
After teaching school in Dixie for a year he moved to Salt Lake in 1869 where he married Mary Ann Brown, an English convert to the church. Two years later they moved to Deadwood, South Dakota where they ran a saloon. At this time the gold rush was in full swing.
 
He lived in Deadwood for 30 years. While there he had two daughters, Mamie and Maude. In 1894 a fire swept through the business section of town and destroyed the saloon. His wife died in 1886 at the age of 36. After working for other people and battling the pain of rheumatism, Sanjo returned to Salt Lake City in 1908. He passed away on December 23, 1916.
 

As I wandered aimlessly about the cemetery, I noticed the grounds keeper walking about, checking on sprinklers. He was a grisly old man with a weathered face and gray beard. I showed him my piece of paper and he pointed to the southeast, to the “R” section. He was friendly, but said if I had any problems to ask the guy in the office.
 
I wouldn't have known for sure which was the “R” section had I not found a small cement disc on the corner with the letter R on it. I began counting 10 rows from the road, then from there walked along every headstone to read the names. Nothing. After half an hour of fruitless searching, I decided to ask the man in the office.
 

The office is located in the northwest corner of the cemetery. The man inside was very nice and helpful. I never asked his name. I showed him the plot number and he pulled a large old book from the shelf. He flipped through several pages filled with grids and names. Finally he found Guiseppe (*) Giosue Rossetti Sangiovanni. It was hand-written in very neat penmanship. I wondered if it was recorded in that book in 1916, the year that he died. He showed me exactly where in the cemetery it was located and eventually drove to the location to help me pinpoint it.
 
So there we were in section R, and my new friend from the office was counting headstones from the road and comparing those we found with what was in the book. In this section, all the grave markers were flat and flush with the lawn. After several minutes of assessment, we found the space where Sanjo was buried and found that there was no headstone at all.
 

Grave of George Dern, sixth Governor of Utah.

The office-man grabbed a spade from his truck and poked it into the ground where the headstone should have been, just in case the grass had overgrown. Nothing. The adjacent headstone was Mamie Forbes, who is Sanjo's daughter. She is buried with her husband and son-in-law, John Sanders, and other members of her husband's family. They all died after Sanjo.
 
I will admit that the conclusion of my quest was anti-climatic. I was happy to find his grave, but sad that no one chose to commemorate his life by placing a headstone at his burial spot. It was as if he had been forgotten.
 
About this time we could hear music blaring from over the trees on the east side of the cemetery. Then came the yelling and whooping. I knew at once what it was. “Isn't that where Utes have their football practices?” I asked the office-keeper.  “Yep. But you won't get a look. They've got the view blocked by walls and tarp. Once in a while we'll find a few stray balls that fly over the fence.” ♠ 

(*) It is interesting that the records show two conflicting first names for Sanjo. In Jane Topham's autobiography of Susanna entitled In Search of Living Water, he is referred to Guglielmo. However, the cemetery records at Mount Olivet Cemetery lists him as Giuseppe. The rest of his names, by both accounts, are identical, including the death date. Mount Olivet adds that he was buried on December 26, 1916. Guglielmo is the Italian equivalent of William, and Giuseppe for Joseph.