HERMANTOWN — Two parcels about halfway down Sunnyview Road, a quiet, dead-end gravel street, haven’t been maintained in at least two decades. At first glance, the only thing a passerby might notice is a rotting A-frame shed to the side. But matted-down footpaths through the overgrown lot lead to a line of concrete pavers, one marked with faded and stained artificial flowers.
Others are freshly uncovered or recently removed. The pavers are headstones marking the burial sites of pets. From the 1960s until the early 2000s, the late Jowon “Jo” Brand, of Saginaw, used the property as Brand Pet Cemetery.
ADVERTISEMENT City of Hermantown documents on a recent rezoning proposal estimate “hundreds” of pets are buried there, noting that while some headstones are marked, many are not. However, Brand provided a higher estimate to the Duluth News Tribune in a 2001 story about grieving the loss of pets. “I have way over 1,000 animals buried here,” Brand said.
“People want their pets to have a proper resting place instead of just being thrown away like garbage.” That includes Reven Niaga, a schnauzer buried there since the late 1980s, by Amy Garthus, of Hermantown, and her parents. Garthus said she would visit Reven Niaga’s (the words “never again” spelled backward) burial plot often shortly after he died.
The cemetery was well kept, and graves were marked more often by paint sticks than headstones. She recently returned to the cemetery for the first time in years .