MOUNT CARMEL CEMETERY
900 FORD AVENUE, WYANDOTTE, MICHIGAN 48192
160TH ANNIVERSARY MASS, SATURDAY, AUGUST 23, 2025
The Mass was held outdoors on the cemetery grounds at 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, August 23, 2025. Approximately 80 people attended this 160th Anniversary Mass.
The cemetery was established right after the Civil War and was the first “public” but Catholic cemetery in the city. The cemetery is located on 11 acres of land. There are more than 10,000 burials within the cemetery, including veterans from the Civil War forward.
There are 14 priests of the Archdiocese of Detroit and two deacons buried on these hallowed grounds, along with 19 Felician Sisters, most in their early twenties, who died in the Felician Sisters Tuberculous Sanitorium located in the first rectory of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish on 10th Street.
From sinners to saints and everyone in between, the graves are a cross section of all walks of life. There is a section with unmarked graves of those unable to afford a proper funeral or grave marker.
Some famous people are also buried within the grounds in the 160 years since its founding.
Editor’s Note: Mount Carmel Cemetery was established in 1865. Rev. Canon Walter J. Ptak, whose ancestors have very strong ties to Wyandotte, celebrated the Mass on August 23. He served as pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church (now Our Lady of the Scapular) at 976 Pope John Paul II Avenue in Wyandotte for 21 years, from July of 1992 to July of 2013. He is now pastor of Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church in Farmington.
All photos taken in Mount Carmel Cemetery Wyandotte by Laurie A. Gomulka on April 3, 2010, and October 28, 2011. Reprinted with permission.
