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For some, the gates themselves are worth the trip: modeled after those at Buckingham Palace, they are 80 ft. wide and 25 ft. high. Necrolatry has also produced a curious sideline: there have been 50,000 weddings in Forest Lawn's seven churches. Eaton foresaw the visitors' need for mementos, provided a convenient gift shop. One of the bestsellers: a large plastic walnut with a mailing label reading "Forest Lawn Memorial-Park—in a Nutshell! Open me like a real nut . . . squeeze my sides or pry me open with a knife." Inside is a miniature booklet illustrated with scenes of Forest Lawn.
Westminster in America. When the palace gates opened this week to receive the original Loved One, Hubert Eaton, who died at the age of 85, it was bound to be a funeral to remember. Eaton's own final instructions were modest: the Lord's Prayer and a rendition of his favorite song, Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life. But the event could not pass that simply. "We know what he would have liked," said Forest Lawn officials, and they gave it to him.
The lying-in-state took place in the Memorial Court of Honor; the service, backed up by the Roger Wagner Chorale, in the massive, Gothic-facaded Hall of the Crucifixion and Resurrection. Among the participants: Tenor Brian Sullivan, singing Softly and Tenderly, and former Republican Governor Goodwin Knight, delivering a "narration." As the organ thundered The Battle Hymn of the Republic, the elaborate casket was placed alongside Wife Anna's, in The Westminster Hall of America, "the only place money cannot buy"; its crypts are "reserved as gifts of honored interment for Americans whose lives shall have been crowned with greatness." The Forest Lawn regents, in solemn conclave, had declared Founder Eaton to assuredly be among "The Immortals."