Grounds Open Daily:
Summer 7:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. | Winter 7:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Office Hours:
8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
The cemetery offices are closed on New Year’s Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
Gethsemane Cemetery was developed in the early 1970s and was officially dedicated by Archbishop Thomas Connolly, Archbishop of Seattle, in May 1975 to serve the Catholic faith community of South King and North Pierce Counties.
The property was originally purchased in 1888 for use as a Catholic Indian Mission School. When the school closed, the property was deeded to the Diocese (now Archdiocese) of Seattle.
The various immigrant communities who make up our local Church today have prominent features designating various sections of the cemetery. These include Our Lady of Lavang (Vietnamese), and St. Andrew Kim (Korean).
Gethsemane Cemetery also offers a very wide variety of options for the placement of cremated remains of the body in keeping with the Catholic Church’s teaching that the cremated remains must be reverently place in a cemetery. Options include both ground burial and above ground columbarium niches. Cremation columbarium niches are available in prominent locations throughout the cemetery.
The semi-rural setting of Gethsemane offers a peaceful and prayerful space. It includes a panoramic view of Mt. Rainier and the corridor along Hylebos Creek, a salmon-spawning waterway which opens into Commencement Bay in Tacoma. Undeveloped acreage at the cemetery is home to small wildlife.
Gethsemane Catholic Cemetery is a sacred space, a place of prayer and quiet reflection that invites us to remember all those “who have gone now before us marked with the sign of faith.”
Image Gallery
