Seattle: Lake View Cemetery & Bruce Lee’s Grave

 My friends and I all enjoy old cemeteries. If that isn’t obvious by some of my other posts. I knew we were visiting a cemetery today, but I did not know until about halfway through that we were specifically looking for Bruce and Brandon Lee’s graves. I didn’t even realize they were buried in Seattle, I would’ve guessed somewhere in California haha. I was never really a Bruce Lee super fan, I appreciate his work of course, but I absolutely loved Brandon Lee. The Crow is probably my all time favorite movie.

This is adjacent to Volunteer Park so it was an easy add on today.

Location: 1554 15th Ave E
Time Needed: If you drive directly to it, 10 -15 minutes. Walking, closer to an hour.
Cost: Free

The sign.

I do love me a good old cemetery.

Not to be disrespectful, but this made us laugh.

I like that tall obelisk.

1913! Wow that is super old.

More stones.

I like all the unique marker designs.

Another obelisk.

More markers. This is a pretty big cemetery.

Couple of statues. I like the angel.

1896 wow. That is pretty old.

Looks like we are definitely in an older section.

If this tree were to go, I fear it would bring a casket up with it. There were actually a few examples of this here.

A stark contrast to the other markers.

Another obelisk.

Cool old marker, and cool sideways cube marker to the right.

Entering the money section.

1894 Again, pretty old.

More money. That cross is definitely taller than me.

The back of Bruce and Brandon Lee’s graves.

There were some people filming here, so we waited patiently for them.

Eventually they concluded and we were able to go down and see the markers.

Nice little bench. “Husband and father, son and brother: you are always with us.” - Linda and Shannon. (Bruce’s Wife, and Daughter)

Vivian P. Hester and Willard H. Dickinson, Linda’s birth mom and stepdad.

“Because we don’t know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.” For Brandon and Eliza, Ever Joined in True Love’s Beauty.

This platform and fencing appears to be pretty new. I stumbled upon a 2020 blog with pictures and they were not there then.

Fun fact: The Lee's graves are a very popular tourist destination, listed in several Seattle tour guides.

Not so fun fact: They are so popular that Lake View Cemetery declined to allow Kurt Cobain to be buried here for fear of even bigger crowds. Instead he was cremated and his ashes were scattered into the Wishkah River, or McLane Creek? Or both. I guess I need to spend more time reading that article.

Still can’t see the lake.

Again, no disrespect intended, but snort.

Another obelisk.

Capt J.D. Howel
Perished at sea
On Steam Ship Pacific
Nov 4th 1875
Aged 34 years.

Not sure if that is date of birth or death. Pretty sure it is the latter which would make this the oldest one we saw today. I don’t think we found any of the 1872’s when the cemetery was established.

The huge cross again. Couple old stones, and a couple more recent ones.

Okay, that was neat. Time to head back.

Oh there’s the lake! Well, a smidge of it right around the statues waist.

Fancy marker.

The neat cube again.

More markers.

The statue again.

A couple more graves precariously close to a tree.

More old markers.

Well that was a really neat old cemetery. I.. have never sought after a celebrity grave before, I mean aside from some of our local urban legend ones, not like modern celebrity's before. That was a little different, but it was neat and it’s clear how much their families loved them, and how much their fans loved them as well. It was kind of a neat experience. Hindsight being 2020, I wish I had looked for Princess Angeline's grave. She was the daughter of Chief Seattle. However, as I mentioned, I did not realize this was on our list of adventures today. Anyway, it was neat.