In 1948, Robert T. McNerney convinced a group of investors to go in with him on the purchase of 120 acres of empty, hilly land where cows grazed on Western Avenue in an unincorporated county area north of San Pedro and south of Palos Verdes Drive North.

He planned to build a large cemetery on the land at 27501 S. Western, and to name it Green Hills Memorial Park.

The McNerneys already had established themselves in the Harbor Area; Robert’s father, Thomas, had founded McNerney’s Mortuary in San Pedro in 1941.

In 1949, the first full year after the park opened, Green Hills held its first Memorial Day ceremonies, inviting 20 military units and related organizations to participate. (That same year, then-actor Ronald Reagan gave a dramatic reading of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address at Memorial Day ceremonies at the Veterans Administration cemetery in Westwood.)

The annual Memorial Day ceremonies would continue to grow in size and popularity at Green Hills. An estimated 15,000 people attended elaborate ceremonies there in 1966.

550 American flags were placed at 20-foot intervals along Western near the cemetery in an annual tradition called the Avenue of Flags. (The flags also were put in place for Armed Forces Day and Flag Day.) At 11 a.m., a Coast Guard helicopter arrived at Green Hills, picking up several dignitaries who then were flown over the Catalina Channel to drop a memorial wreath in the waters in memory of

military personnel who lost their lives in war.

Green Hills expanded its facilities beginning in 1965, with construction beginning on its Memorial Chapel and additional office facilities. A landmark 70-foot flagpole flying a giant American flag had to be removed in December 1965 to make way for the new buildings, which opened in May 1967.

Early in 1970, Green Hills found itself the object of annexation efforts by three neighboring communities. The incorporated cities of Rolling HIlls Estates and Lomita and the yet-to-be-incorporated Rancho Palos Verdes all were eyeing the site. Though the cemetery had non-profit tax status, the municipalities still stood to gain a  small boost to their budgets from sales taxes from the mortuary and flower shop.

When residents voted in favor of incorporation for Rancho Palos Verdes on Aug. 28, 1973 – the measure won with 82 percent of the vote – Green Hills was part of the new city, the Peninsula’s largest.

With the rise in antiwar sentiment and divisive feeling over the Vietnam War, the formal Memorial Day commemorations were halted at Green Hills after 1970.

When Vietnam War vet John Frew came to Green Hills in the 1980s, he decided to revive the tradition, starting in 1986.

The ceremony drew an immediate response.

Now, every year, Boy Scouts are enlisted to place flags on the graves of the estimated 6,000 to 8,000 veterans at the park, there are airplane flyovers, a Parade of Colors, skydivers, and a keynote speaker during the 90-minute ceremony. It draws approximately 5,000 visitors annually.

In 2008, Frew also played a key role in the preservation of the oldest church building in San Pedro, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church.

The small wooden structure, left empty when its congregants moved to a new structure in 1956, had become the target of squatters and vandals after being moved to Harbor View Cemetery in San Pedro.

The designated historical monument got new life when Frew picked up on an idea he saw in a reader comment on the Daily Breeze website suggesting the structure be saved by moving it to Green Hills.
“The person said, ‘Why not put it at Green Hills?’ and I said to myself, ‘Why not?'” Frew told Daily Breeze reporter Donna LIttlejohn in February 2008.

After more than three years of bureaucratic wrangling between the cities of Los Angeles and Rancho Palos Verdes, St. Peter’s was moved in two pieces on flatbed trucks shortly after midnight on Oct. 25, 2011, to its new location at Green Hills, arriving there shortly before 2 a.m..

The cemetery spent about $300,000 on the move, finding a location for the church in its historical area on a hill at the southern end of the cemetery. The church building officially opened to the public on Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012.

According to the Find A Grave website, Green Hills has more than 97,000 interments. Concerns about running out of burial space led to an increasing amount of construction of above-ground crypts and mausoleums at the cemetery over the years.

The construction of the Pacific Terrace Mausoleum on the northwestern edge of the cemetery just 8 feet away from the neighboring Vista Verde condominiums, in apparent violation of city setback ordinances, led to complaints from condo residents when funerals began to be conducted there in 2013.

The Rancho Palos Verdes Planning Commission imposed a moratorium on funerals there in November 2014. In March 2015, condo residents filed claims for damages against the city. The matter remains in dispute pending further action by the city of Rancho Palos Verdes.

Later this month, Green Hills again will hold its annual Memorial Day observance, which will begin with the installation of the Vietnam Combat Veterans Moving Wall on May 21. The wall be open to those who attend the official Memorial Day ceremony scheduled for Monday, May 25, 2015, at 10 a.m.

For more information, visit the cemetery’s website or call its Event Line at 310-521-4460.

Famous people buried at Green Hills Memorial Park:

George Allen, former NFL coach of the Rams and Redskins.
Glenn Anderson, veteran South Bay congressman.
D. Boon, Member of pioneer San Pedro punk band the Minutemen.
Charles Bukowski, author and poet.
Paul Conrad, Los Angeles Times poliical cartoonist.
Adele Davis, nutritionist and author.
Glen Glenn, motion picture and television sound man.

Note: For a complete list, consult the Find A Grave website.

Sources:

Daily Breeze files.

City of Rancho Palos Verdes website.

Find A Grave website.

Green Hills Memorial Park website.

Los Angeles Times files.

Torrance Herald files.