Holiday celebration at Kingston’s Wiltwyck Rural Cemetery

Key of Q, the LGBTQ+ and Allied A Cappella Singers of the Hudson Valley directed by Jennifer Paul performing holiday songs in the mausoleum of Witywyck Rural Cemetery. (Photos by Phyllis McCabe)

Member Jennifer Delora performing sign language for the a cappella group.

The board of trustees of Wiltwyck Rural Cemetery, located at 205 West O’Reilly Street in Kingston, hosted a holiday celebration with musical entertainment and refreshments in its mausoleum on Saturday, December 16.

Founded in 1856, some of its interred notables include mail clerk on the Titantic William Gwynne (1870-1912), actress and playwright Gladys Hurlbut (1898-1988), WWII Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Robert H. Dietz (1921-1945), justice of the NY Supreme Court from 1885 to 1889 Alton Brooks Parker who also ran for president against Theodore Roosevelt in 1904, and artist John Vanderlyn (1775-1852) whose painting “The Landing of Columbus” hangs in the US Capitol rotunda.

Visitors could purchase a personalized tree ornament, the proceeds of which goes to the cemetery’s Tree Planting Fund. Key of Q, the LGBTQ+ and Allied A Cappella Singers of the Hudson Valley sang a medley of holiday songs in the mausoleum.