Alta Mesa Memorial Park

The neighborhood has consisted of 55 homes since the 1960s and boundaries are strictly defined by Alta Mesa Memorial Park, Adobe Creek and Foothill Expressway. Miranda Avenue is the only way in and the only way out, limiting foot traffic and often times confusing UPS and Uber drivers. Moana Court, Arroyo Court and Miranda Green form three spokes, or cul-de-sacs, extending east from Miranda Avenue. The neighborhood's close proximity to Adobe Creek makes the community seem even more remote. Many residents enjoy the dual rural-suburban character of the neighborhood, finding solace in the sounds of the creek while still being a 10-minute drive away from Los Altos and downtown Palo Alto. Wild animals like coyotes and deer also regularly use the creek as their passageway. "This morning when I was walking, I saw two big male deer walking across Miranda Avenue," resident Carla Matlin said. "It's not what you expect to find in Palo Alto. We're big campers so it's almost like camping year round." Matlin, a manager for a service agency, moved to Greater Miranda in 2006. Since then, her expectations for the neighborhood have been exceeded in every way, she said. She's been able to raise her children within an enclosed neighborhood, feeling comfortable to let them hop from house to house to play with other neighbors' children. "I don't worry that the kids go out, because neighbors will let me know if anything is going on or if one of my kids have shown up at their house," Matlin said, "We (neighbors) all look after each other." Don Nielson, the neighborhood association leader, also recalled comfortably raising his four children in Greater Miranda with his wife, Helen. His children, who have all long since graduated from Gunn High School, often played on swings set up over the creek with the neighborhood's aggregation of kids, using the creek as if it were a playground. "My wife, one day, kept track of all the kids who ran through the kitchen door through the garage. It would blow your mind. It was like 100 in and out during ...

Palo Alto, Calif. Late Apple CEO Steve Jobs is buried in Alta Mesa Cemetery. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)This register, dedicated to the memory of late Apple CEO Steve Jobs, shows messages written by visitors to the Alta Mesa Cemetery in Palo Alto, Calif., on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2015. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group)The gallery will resume insecondsPALO ALTO — Simple gravestones dot Alta Mesa Memorial Park, a century-old cemetery in the heart of Silicon Valley. On them are names dating back to Civil War veterans and the area’s early inhabitants, sharing space with technology pioneers. Steve Jobs is here, too, but his name is not. Even as the technology pioneer’s life is splashed across the big screen this week amid the opening of Aaron Sorkin’s “Steve Jobs” biopic, key aspects of the privacy Jobs fought to protect while alive endure four years after his death. At his family’s request, his grave is unmarked and the cemetery has not revealed its location. But that hasn’t stopped people from trying to find it.Fans from all over the world have made pilgrimages to the Palo Alto cemetery and shared their experiences online. A video posted to YouTube by an Italian blog in the days after Jobs’ death purports to show the path and grave site, focusing on a patch of fresh lawn not far from David and Lucile Packard’s graves. A man in the video speaking Italian takes a bite out of an apple, places it on the grass, and kneels to touch the ground. The apple, flowers and notes meant for Jobs, it turned out, were left for someone else. A visit to the cemetery this week revealed that the plot in the video is the resting place of a “beloved mother and grandmother” who died at age 92 on Oct. 11, 2011, six days after Jobs passed. “We had people wandering a lot around the cemetery with the claim they are going to find him. Good luck,” said cemetery general manager Marilyn Talbot. But cemetery staff wanted to offer something to mourners. “So we p...