Mass is celebrated every Memorial Day and All Souls Day at Mount Olivet. 

If you need information about anyone buried in Mount Olivet, please call
269-968-6645 or email [email protected]. 

Online giving: Click here to make your secure online gift to support Mt. Olivet Cemetery.

Mount Olivet Cemetery, owned by St. Philip Catholic Church, is located on South Avenue across from Oak Hill. It has been an integral part of the local Catholic community since 1875. On Wednesday, March 1 of that year, The Battle Creek Journal announced:

The Catholic congregation has purchased five acres of ground opposite the Oak Hill Cemetery, on the Fonda farm, for a Catholic burying ground.

The purchase of the cemetery property was unpopular with some because they felt the site was too far from the church. On Wednesday, May 16, 1877, The Battle Creek Journal reported the following:

The religious ceremonies incident to the consecration of the Catholic burying-ground in this city were celebrated at the Catholic Church, at the corner of Maple and Van Buren streets, Tuesday a. m. The services were conducted by Rev. Father Hanerdt, Vicar General of the Diocese, assisted Father Buoyse of Jackson, Father Callaert of Marshall and Father Seybold of this city. The attendance was large and the ceremonies imposing. 

The cemetery thus consecrated is located just west of Oak Hill cemetery and is a very pleasant spot. It has already been considerably improved and when completed will be a very appropriate burial place for the dead.

Currently it is unclear exactly when the first burials took place at Mount Olivet, but on Friday, January 3, 1890, The Battle Creek Daily Moon printed:

A number of the remains that were originally buried by our Catholic fellow citizens in Oak Hill are being removed to the cemetery of St. Philip's parish, across the road. Today the remains of Thomas A. Browning's mother that have been buried twenty years were thus removed.

Five priests are buried in Mount Olivet. Their grave sites are marked on the map below.

Father Richard Sadlier's grave is the most prominent in Mount Olivet, being marked by the large crucifix in the center of the grounds. He died from Bright's Disease in 1908 while still pastor of St. Philip. Because of the previous day's blizzard, a large brigade of Battle Creek city workers plowed and shoveled a path from the church all the way to Mount Olivet so the horse-drawn hearse could carry Father Sadlier's body to its final resting place. Father Sadlier grew up in Detroit. The other four priests buried in Mount Olivet are all former St. Philip school students.


Father Joseph Brokaw was the first Battle Creek boy ordained to the priesthood. His ordination was held in St. Philip in November of 1898. Father Brokaw died in 1940. This picture shows Father Brokaw as a young choir boy at St. Phillip.




Father John Dowdle studied at Assumption College in Sandwich, Ontario, and graduated from St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore, Maryland. He sang his first Mass at St. Philip on Sunday, July 5, 1908. Father Dowdle died in 1938 as pastor of St. Paul's in Grosse Point Farms.




Father Leo Renkes was ordained on June 2, 1917, after attending Assumption College in Sandwich. He completed his studies in Detroit and Baltimore. Father Renkes died in 1944.


Father Adolph W. Nadrach attended Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit and Mount St. Mary Seminary in Cincinnati. His ordination took place in Lansing on May 30, 1942. He was the founding pastor of St. Monica Parish in Kalamazoo. Father Nadrach died in 1997.
 

Father Richard Sadlier Father Joseph Brokaw Father John Dowdle Father Leo Renkes Father Adolph Nadrach

2018 All Souls Day Mass at the Cemetery 
Fr. John Fleckenstein and Fr. Chris Ankley concelebrants