This list represents my first efforts at cataloging a cemetery.  I know it’s not much, next to Karen at GOGS effort to catalogue the 10,000+ burials at Graceland here in Omaha, but it was at least a start for me.  The Omaha Public Library also has a copy of a list that was compiled by an early researcher. I’d also like to again thank Karen for asking me to do this, because it was an interesting experience.  I’m now planning on going to some of the other, smaller cemeteries and do the same thing, and I’ll eventually post those lists on this site when I can.

Portal Cemetery is small.  I only counted 72 separate names on the headstones. Once again, the predominance of stones are for babies or small children.

The most interesting part of this cataloging was the Speckels monument.  It’s amazing the amount of information you can get (or misread) from a single marker, and the amount of information you can surmise (or mis-surmise) from that data. Unless it's confirmed it's all only surmise, and so far no one has emailed to let me know if my surmises below are correct; if anyone out there has information on the the George Speckels family I'd love to post it. It seems to have died out when the last son (or at least the last buried in this plot), the only one to make it to adulthood, died at 20 in 1909.  He was one of a set of twins; the other twin having died in 1894 at age 5.  This is the only monument in that plot, which is off by itself in the front north corner and isolated by a lot of open space; I can’t find this surname in any current Omaha directory; I've not tried any old directories yet.  I really feel for the parents of these children, seeing 2 of them die at an extremely young age.  The father, if my surmise is correct, lived another 21 years all by himself, dying right after the stock market crash. It's possible he and his wife had daughters who were married and then buried with their husbands in another city or state, and other sons that left Omaha, and if so, this is something I'd be interested in finding out.

I started at the front, or west edge of the cemetery, closest to the gate.  Walking across in a straight line from north to south I noted each grave/marker in that row.  I then went on to the next row of markers, to the east, walking in the same direction for all, from north to south.