00:00 Justin Dang: Two children, a sister and her brother, are shown sitting together on a bench. The sister is joyful, wrapping her arm around her younger brother while petting their dog on her lap. Her brother lovingly leans in and embraces her, while a duck sits on his right side. This sculpture is one of many built in Babyland, a cemetery for infants and small children located in Olivewood Memorial Park, Riverside. What does it all mean? With 91.9 KVCR News, I’m Justin Dang. I sat down to speak with Randy Holland, the cemetery counselor and funeral director of Olivewood Memorial Park. According to Holland, Babyland was founded out of a man’s love for his daughter.
00:39 Randy Holland: So technically from the beginning, Olivewood Memorial Park has been based on founding by a man named Charles Perrine, who the daughter died at a young age and she was laid to rest at another cemetery. And there were some issues there, so he ended up giving part of his own property, his own land, to establish the Olivewood Memorial Park, and then he subsequently brought her here. So Sandy Ross, who is the former cemetery manager here, she was here for 32 plus years. She actually retired in 2022. She brought Babyland to Olivewood because of the story of Charles Perrine and his daughter. Basically wanted to create a beautiful place for children based on a parent’s love for their child and wanting to create a beautiful resting place for them.
01:27 Justin Dang: In Babyland, monuments depict various animals or children playing to give the cemetery a childlike wonder, as if it is from the children’s point of view…