THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 14, 1996 TAG: 9610140064
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE LENGTH: 28 lines
In the University of Virginia's quaint but crowded historic cemetery, alumni and faculty have found a new way to show allegiance to their beloved school.
They're signing up by the dozens for a space in the Columbarium, an elongated 5-foot-tall granite wall with 180 hollow vaults, each holding up to four urns full of cremated ashes.
``I love the University of Virginia and I want to be as proximate as possible,'' said Charlottesville attorney Leigh B. Middleditch Jr., a U.Va. alumnus who came up with the idea for the monument about a decade ago.
``It was very parochial with me,'' said Middleditch, 67, a former member of the Board of Visitors. ``I wanted to be buried in the university cemetery, and there were no plots left.''
U.Va.'s 3-acre cemetery, tucked behind low stone walls and tall, weeping oak trees near Alderman and McCormick roads, dates back to 1828, three years after the university opened.
One hundred fifty-eight years later, the cemetery is almost filled with hundreds of graves of faculty and their families, some early students and alumni. Any remaining plots already are reserved. by CNB