Sympathy flowers in Providence

The cemeteries carry as much of the city's memory as the churches do. Swan Point Cemetery at 585 Blackstone Boulevard is Providence's great garden cemetery, laid out in 1846 on the bluff above the Seekonk River, and it is the burial place of Ambrose Burnside, Senator Nelson Aldrich, the Dorr Rebellion's Thomas Wilson Dorr and — drawing a steady stream of visitors from all over the world — H.P. Lovecraft. Its internal roads are narrow and winding, so graveside delivery there wants a section and lot reference, not just a name. The North Burial Ground on Branch Avenue has been the city's public burying ground since 1700 and is one of the oldest in the country still in use. The Diocese of Providence runs the Catholic side: St. Francis Cemetery in Pawtucket, the largest of them, plus Gate of Heaven in East Providence, St. Ann in Cranston, Resurrection in Cumberland and Notre Dame in Pawtucket, the last of which reflects the Franco-American communities of Central Falls, Pawtucket and Woonsocket. Grace Church Cemetery on Elmwood Avenue and Pocasset Cemetery in Cranston take non-denominational and Protestant services, and Lincoln Park Cemetery in Warwick is the Jewish burial ground for the Providence-area congregations. One thing to check before ordering: the Rhode Island Veterans Memorial Cemetery is in Exeter, roughly twenty-five miles out on South County Trail, which puts it past the 18-mile search radius — those services need a shop contacted directly rather than a same-day order.

Providence's neighborhoods are specific enough that the tradition usually tells you what the family will expect. Italian-American families out of Federal Hill, Knightsville, Silver Lake and North Providence run the fullest floral funerals on the grid — standing easel sprays, heart and cross forms, and a dense room of arrangements at the wake. Irish-American families from Smith Hill, South Providence and Pawtucket keep to standing sprays and baskets, and increasingly ask for a donation to a named charity in lieu of flowers; when the obituary says that, one modest arrangement from the immediate circle is still welcome and anything larger is not. Portuguese, Azorean and Cape Verdean families — historically Fox Point, now concentrated in East Providence, Pawtucket, Bristol and Warren — hold long, well-attended wakes where flowers matter, and white and cream palettes read as the most correct. French-Canadian Catholic families in Central Falls, Pawtucket and Woonsocket follow the same Mass structure with Notre Dame Cemetery as a common ending. For Jewish families, flowers are not the convention: burial follows quickly, often within a day or two, and the right gesture is a plant, a fruit basket or food sent to the shiva house afterward, or a donation. Cambodian and Lao Buddhist families in the West End, Elmwood and Silver Lake use white as the mourning colour — white chrysanthemum, white orchid, white lily — and red is avoided outright. Dominican, Guatemalan and Colombian families in Olneyville, Elmwood and Central Falls, and the large Liberian and West African community across the city, generally welcome full standing arrangements. When you are not sure, say so on the order; the studio will build to the tradition rather than to a template.