Location Name
Oakdale Cemetery, Hendersonville NC

Street Address
Highway 64 West and Valley St.

City
Hendersonville, NC

Type of Prayer Place
Other

capture-hendersonville-oakdale-2Description
Oakdale Cemetery in Hendersonville, NC is on the map for those seeking a place of contemplation because of an Italian marble statue of an angel standing guard over the Johnson family plot. This angel once stood on the property of writer Thomas Wolfe’s home in Asheville,NC as an advertisement for his father’s monument company. This angel is alluded to in Wolfe’s classic novel “Look Homeward Angel” published in 1929.

The angel stands larger than life on a pedestal amongst the otherwise traditional slab headstones in the small city owned cemetery.

How I used this place of prayer
I had seen the angel from Highway 64 many times before stopping to make it a destination for meditation. The angel’s facial expression and grand hand gestures had me giving thought to the mysteries of God’s strength and active part in life here on earth.

The cemetery itself is a quiet setting with one or two magnificent trees and views off into the distance of a mountain.

Contact Information / Sponsoring Organization
City of Hendersonville

Personal Tips
I found it extremely difficult to figure out where to park inside the cemetery. The roads between sections are extremely narrow and grave footings seem to come to the edge of the road everywhere. Also, the lanes are so narrow I wasn’t sure I could make a turn. I ended up parking on the grass across a corner at an intersection where there didn’t seem to be any graves and walking back up to see the angel. Fortunately, there is little or no traffic in the cemetery.

Added by Karen Barber on October 7, 2014