Kelly Haines

Kelly and Robert frequently visited historic cemeteries throughout their 27 years together. This was often for doing genealogical research, but also because both were interested in historic funerary monuments and mausoleums. The Bolinas Cemetery was one that they had often enjoyed visiting, especially while they lived in Marin. Kelly had stated that she wanted her final resting place to be an old-fashioned country cemetery "where the loudest sound would be birdsong", but she did not say specifically where she wished to be. After her death, Robert, with the help of their friend Sorrel, visited most of the rural cemeteries of Marin and Sonoma Counties. After much careful deliberation, Robert selected Bolinas Cemetery as her place of interment. There was an additional connection: Kelly had spent much happy time in Bolinas during her girlhood, as a guest in the home of a friend who lived out on the Big Mesa. There was just one plot still available in the Cemetery's historic section, and propitiously, it lay beneath two large Monterey cypress trees*. In accordance with Kelly's wishes, there was no graveside ceremony, but a group of their friends acted as pallbearers while another played "Going Home" on the bagpipes while she was laid to rest. The Bolinas Cemetery is the oldest in Marin County, having been founded in 1853. Its wooded and rolling grounds include a quaint chapel, views of the Bolinas Lagoon to the east, and Mount San Bruno -- south of San Francisco -- may be seen to the south. The area is home to abundant wildlife including quail, owls, foxes, coyote, raccoons and deer. And most of the time, the only sounds to be heard are the wind in the treetops, and birdsong. *The presence of the two trees is significant because the Greek legend of Baucis and Philemon was one of Kelly and Robert's favorite Classical myths, in which a devoted husband and wife are transformed after their deaths into two intertwined trees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baucis_and_Philemon