TOWN OF BURKE — Many of the Reindahls are buried here.Their farmland is now covered by East Towne Mall and Reindahl Park along East Washington Avenue.One of them, Knute Reindahl, who in 1867 immigrated to this rural pocket of Dane County from Norway, went on to become a famed violin maker before dying in 1936.
Some of the earliest graves in the Burke Lutheran Cemetery are Bosbens. They began attending church on this ridge in the 1870s and continue to worship on this 39-acre tract hidden from the sprawling American Center Business Park juxtaposed just over the hill to the east but with sweeping western views.
“My parents and grandparents and great-grandparents all were married, and baptized and (had funerals) here,” said Bruce Bosben, 54, whose great-grandfather was baptized on the site. “My mom was married in there in 1959 and she still complains about there not being a center aisle.”
But Mary Ann Bosben is getting her wish.
A $1.7 million upgrade to the church, constructed in 1899 with dead center seating and off-setting aisles, will include a reconfiguration of the sanctuary, adding a center aisle and relocating the pipes for the organ. The biggest and most costly part of the project, however, involves moving the church building about 300 yards out of the center of the cemetery.