At Colma’s Pet’s Rest Cemetery, beloved pets get a worthy send-off

Drivers speeding down Colma’s Hillside Boulevard might see Carlos Yuen loading a dead horse into a large crematorium if they happened to look up the Pet’s Rest Cemetery and Crematory driveway at just the right moment, but Yuen works so quickly that most people have no idea what’s happening just a few yards up from the road.

Most of us who’ve been to Colma have passed by the sky blue house nestled between the city’s large human-focused cemeteries that’s home to Pet’s Rest. A 1950s-style unlit neon sign sits on a post above the chain-link fence that protects the adjacent pet cemetery, but even that sign, with its old-school charm, is easy to miss. Still, for the devoted clients who return time and time again to Pet’s Rest, this 72-year-old family business offers a vital service.

Opened in 1947 by Earl and Julia Taylor, Pet’s Rest is now run by their son-in-law, Philip C’de Baca, who lives in the residence above the Pet’s Rest reception area and office. Most days, Teresa Hernandez sits behind the reception desk at the office, which has low ceilings and a massive aquarium. Each day Hernandez greets any number of unannounced clients in the midst of their grief.

“We don’t know what we’re doing from one day to another,” said Hernandez from the desk she’s helmed for 20 years.

During my visit, Hernandez had just handed a tearful woman a wooden box containing a cat’s remains and listened intently as the woman wondered aloud whether her new pet was the reincarnated spirit of the dead one.

“Sometimes it’s really hard to talk to people because they’re grieving,” Hernandez continued. “Some people can’t have kids and these (animals) become their kids.”

There’s a bowl of candy on the counter between Hernandez and me, and the back wall of the office is covered in team photos of the...