AMONG THE STONES

Chapter Two -- New Digs

Final resting place, my foot! My mother used to add that when something was contrary to fact. So, my foot! People speak of the grave as our final resting place. History indicates that is not always the case. What goes down sometimes comes back up.

Before the current Greenwood Cemetery was established, locals had been buried near where they died. Some were interred on the family homestead. Records indicate that there were loggers killed in the forest and buried beside the stump of the tree that killed them. Even cemeteries in Astoria proved to be temporary locations.

The oldest non-native cemetery was the burial ground for the trading post established by John Jacob Astor, who gave his name to Astoria, even though he never set foot on the West Coast. That cemetery is now firmly established in its place, being beneath the floor of the Astoria Armory Building, and perhaps extending beneath the old Astoria City Hall (now the Heritage Museum), and is thought to extend under 16th Street. This cemetery was used by Astor's people at Fort Astoria. After the panicked Americans, fearing a British takeover during the War of 1812, sold the fort to the Hudson's Bay Company, the gleeful Brits renamed it Fort George. They continued to use the burial ground until they were squeezed out (more on that in a later passage).

Astoria had another cemetery in the mid-nineteenth century, located above the Catholic Church, first known casually as the Astoria Cemetery. When the Astoria City Hall was to be built at 16th and Exchange, the Fort Astoria/George cemetery was in the way. Some of the bodies were dug up and reburied at the Astoria Cemetery, at what is now 14th and Irving.

As Astoria was expanding, city officials decided they needed the land at 14th and Irving for the living rather than for the dead, and in 1867 ordered the bodies removed, and reburied at the newly-deeded cemetery at 15th and Niagara, at the top of the hill. This cemetery has been variously known as Pioneer Cemetery, Hillside Cemetery and Hilltop Cemetery. The order was only partially carried out. That winter, those who could afford it had their departed loved ones dug up and carried up through the mud to Hillside Cemetery to be reinterred. Those unfortunate enough to have no one to pay for their new location were left behind, and the Astoria cemetery became known as the Pauper Cemetery. Indigents continued to be buried there even after the eviction order, and eventually the occupants of the Pauper Cemetery found themselves beneath houses, yards and shrubbery. For a fortunate few from the Fort Astoria Cemetery who made the move to Hillside Cemetery, this was their second move, and their third resting place.

Astoria had another cemetery in Uppertown. At one time, the Holy Innocents Episcopal Church was located in the area of 34th and Grand, on the hill above Leif Erickson Drive. The church had a cemetery in the churchyard, which was customary for some nineteenth-century churches. When the church was gone, the cemetery remained. But, again, the dead were in the way of progress. Cemetery residents were evicted, to be reburied somewhere else. Some made it to Hillside Cemetery. Again, some were left behind.

Since we are again looking at Hillside Cemetery, we find that the cemetery scramble continued. The Astoria city officials were not finished. In 1897, they enacted an ordinance forbidding any further burials within the city limits of Astoria, and ordering bodies to be removed from town to the new municipal cemetery Astoria established that year near the villages of Lexington and Skipanon across Young's Bay from Smith Point in Astoria in the area that would become Warrenton. The new eviction notices served on the dead said in effect, “Take your tombstone and get out of here.” For some, this was move number three, and the fourth resting place.

Unfortunately for those evictees banished to the new Ocean View cemetery, that was not the final move for some of them. That initial portion of the new cemetery would give way to construction. Some of the occupants of the right-of-way were moved again. Others were disinterred by bulldozers, and their bones gathered and then...there is no record of who they were, or where they went. Some guess they are intermingled in a common ossuary in a sandpit somewhere near Ocean View Cemetery.

The old handwritten cemetery record books a Greenwood Cemetery have repeated notations next to the names of some of the arrivals that read, “Removal from Hillside”... “Removal from Uppertown” … “Removal from Ocean View” … “Removal from Holy Innocents.” Greenwood has been mentioned in documents as being the first alternative to Hillside Cemetery. That one word, removal, is inadequate for the details it obscures.

Having done disinterments, I can assure you that it is a daunting task. In opening an old grave, before a shovelful of soil is moved, the worker must probe to determine the bounds of the grave by detecting the softer, disturbed soil. Probing deeper will determine whether a casket remains or has deteriorated along with the body. Probing even deeper will reveal the depth of the grave. If the casket is detected, the digging can begin. The soil is shoveled to one side of the grave, with the digging becoming slow and cautious as the level of the casket is reached. The worker must not put any weight on the casket itself, lest it break under his feet. Once the casket is revealed, a plank over the top, placed lengthwise, will distribute the worker's weight, and give a platform for the next step.

With a narrow shovel, the soil must be dug from around the sides and ends of the casket, to release the grip the earth has on the departed. Then comes the more difficult stage of excavation. Kneeling on the plank, the worker has to reach down with a trowel and dig under each end of the casket, so ropes can be passed under the ends, and the casket lifted out of the grave.

If the casket has deteriorated, as can happen quickly in the coastal climate, the excavation process is similar, but more...intimate. The soil is removed to within six or eight inches of the bottom of the grave. Once bones are detected, each shovelful must be sifted by hand to recover even the smallest bones, usually beginning at the foot of the grave, and working forward. As the bones are recovered, they are placed in a box, along with any scraps of fabric, casket hardware and artifacts, for transport and reburial.

Woe to the worker who must do a removal during the wet season! Rains usually start in earnest in mid-October on the coast. By December, except in the sandy areas of the county, the water table is often within a foot or so of the surface, and by January, may be at the surface. It then stays high through the winter storm season, finally subsiding in April, but leaving moist soil or mud that is difficult to sift. Oddly, the high water table seems to persist on the hill tops, not just in low-lying areas. At the same time, burials seem to have been done on the hilltops. With a “Nearer-My-God-To-Thee” attitude, the departed were carried up to the very areas that stayed the wettest. Imagine the labor involved in the upward movement from the Fort Astoria Cemetery to the 14th and Irving Cemetery, and then again, in the wintertime, from that cemetery to Hillside Cemetery.

Once the evictions began sending residents from Hillside Cemetery to Greenwood and Ocean View, a local mortician was in charge of the removals. In his accounts of the labors, he noted the soggy nature of the work, and mentioned the effects of the “highly mineralized water” in soil a Hillside Cemetery, claiming to have disintered a woman “perfectly preserved in a state of petrification,” whose stone body weighed some eight hundred pounds!

The frequent relocations explain the death dates on monuments and grave markers that predate the establishment of Greenwood Cemetery in 1891. After the establishment of Greenwood Cemetery, transfers from other rural burial sites started. Researchers interviewing old-timers in rural Clatsop County were told of individuals and families removed to Greenwood from family farms, from Simmon's Field out Highway 202 past the Klaskanie Fish Hatchery, and from the Granger Cemetery on Young's Farm between Highway 202 and Young's Bay. Some of the latter group will show up in the Movers and Shakers chapter. For some, it was not their first move.

Not all, however, moved into Greenwood. The records show many notes indicating some were moved within the cemetery. In some cases, the one moved had been buried as an infant or child. Years later, when one or both of the parents were buried here, the little one was moved to be with the family. I have done a few of these removals to reunite families. After decades, there was really nothing to move. The little one had, indeed returned to dust, and the dust of the baby blended perfectly with the dust of the planet. My solution, since the family insisted on the move, was to dig the new grave, setting the sod aside and loading the soil into a wheelbarrow. Then, at the burial site of the baby, I would remove the sod, setting it aside. Then, I would remove all of the disturbed soil that included the dust of the departed little one, and take that to the new grave, and cover it with the reserved sod. The soil removed to make room for the transfer I then used to refill the space where the baby had first been buried.

There are notations in the record books indicating some were moved elsewhere. Some say “Removed to Ocean View.” Some say “Removed for shipment,” with no indication of the destination. Many notes say “Removed to China,” although some accounts indicate that those Chinese removals, destined for repatriation to China, were found in a warehouse in California decades later.

As a personal note, I do not like doing disinterments. I price them high, with a variety of add-ons for complications, attempting to dissuade people who ask. Knowing what removals entail, I can only wonder at the fortitude of those who relocated cemeteries a century and more ago.

AMONG THE STONES

LIFE IN THE CEMETERY -- THE EARLY DAYS

Greenwood Cemetery lies on a knoll overlooking Young's Bay, at milepost 5.5, south of Astoria, Oregon. It is one of more than fifteen pioneer cemeteries in Clatsop County. The cemetery occupies part of the north part of the McCreary Donation Land Claim, signed by President Ulysses Grant.

Greenwood Cemetery was established in 1891, toward the end of the Rural Cemetery Movement, which began in 1831. The movement had several cultural or societal roots. Some of those roots were mundane in nature, put in motion by concerns about crowding in cities, or sanitation. Changing values and views surrounding death focused more on hopeful and positive thoughts, rather than the dark and pessimistic views of the Puritan era. As American literature had shifted to the Romantic Period, with its elevation of things rustic and natural, so the design and decoration of cemeteries in rural settings tended toward the attractive nature settings, with elaborate monuments, statuary and plantings. Before land was set aside for local or national parks, the Rural Cemetery Movement provided outdoor areas set aside for recreation, meditation and rustication. The rural cemetery was at once an art museum, history museum, arboretum, picnic area and, with its meandering pathways, an exercise yard. It provided opportunities for bird watchers, wildlife enthusiasts, botanists and sun seekers. It was the gathering place for friends, writers, artists and gossips. Rural cemeteries were usually located between one and five miles out of town. They were far enough to be away, but close enough to be convenient...usually.

Greenwood Cemetery was established some five miles out of Astoria, Oregon, fronting the tidal waters of Young's Bay. Convenience was questionable in the later parts of the nineteenth century. At that time, most of rural Clatsop County was accessed by water. River steamers carried passengers and goods to the various waterfront points of the Lower Columbia. Docks and landings sat at points where wagon roads reached the rivers and bays.

Greenwood had its own dock that ran on pilings to the low-water channel of Young's River. The steamers would tie up at the dock, with whoever and whatever was destined for the cemetery. If it was a water-borne funeral procession, the casket would be loaded onto a small wagon fitted with rope loops to serve as handles for the pallbearers, who trundled the deceased ashore. From there, the funeral party scrambled up the steep bank to the burial ground, and the casket was hand lined up behind them. The earliest burials were done at the point closest to the bay. Monuments came the same way. Hauling some of the massive blocks of stone up the steep embankment to the cemetery was a daunting task. At one point, a landing was carved out partway up the slope, and a derrick was installed to lift the stones to where they could be carted to their final location.

Highway 202 was not built until 1917. When it was constructed, it followed a series of disjointed wagon roads that were separated by tidal flats, rivers, marshes and streams. Parts of the road were built of planks on beams supported by pilings driven into the mud. When the road came ashore, sections were corduroy roads built by cutting down trees and laying the logs side by side across the direction of travel. Because traveling the new highway threatened to drown the careless traveler, and was a hazard to joints and teeth, the river steamers continued to transport funeral parties to Greenwood. No Pilgrims are buried at the cemetery, even though one of the steamers that served Greenwood was christened the Mayflower.

Imagine, if you will:

Decoration Day brought crowds to Greenwood. The river steamers were packed with families burdened with maintenance tools to clear graves of encroaching brush, as well as picnic hampers stuffed with choice morsels to fuel the workers. Rather than making the trip of some ten miles to Greenwood, then returning for another batch of passengers, some of the steamers towed barges loaded with cemetery goers and their gear. The route took folks down the Columbia from the Astoria waterfront nearly to Warrenton (old-timers still called it Skipanon), then up Young's Bay to the Greenwood dock. Parents would then shepherd children and baggage ashore, and the day's labor would begin.

The coastal climate kept the battle of the brush fairly even. Salal, bracken fern, blackberry vines, alder saplings, and and endless crop of spruce and hemlock seedlings flourished with an annual rainfall that averaged around one hundred inches. The wiry salal had to be cut, but the seedlings and saplings could be uprooted. Teens gathered whatever dry branches they could find for the foundation of the fire that would consume the brush. Children were tasked with carrying the harvest to the burn pile, where the teens would then ration the greenery to the blaze, keeping it fed but not smothered.

While the clearing and burning occupied the labor force, the women and girls arranged the feast. Some families pooled their provisions in a potluck, while others set out a private banquet, meager in abject poverty. Jugs of milk, lemonade and syllabub chilled in wet blankets.

The main cemetery cleanup day was a blend of incongruity. Children's laughter rang over the grounds. Those who labored over older graves shared memories, their grief assuaged by the passing of time. Those with more recent loss knelt over mounds whose blanket of vegetation was young or sprouting. There was no laughter here, but tears. Over tiny graves, slow hands stumbled, paused, then drew back, lest the little one beneath the grassy quilt should be disturbed. Matriarchs with cane batons, seated upon or leaning against monuments, orchestrated the tidying up of plots that held multiple generations, while grandchildren dodged the flailing cane. A young husband with contorted face harumphed over a pair of graves, one long, one tiny, clearing his throat again and again to stifle sobs, recoiling from an elderly arm around his shoulder, then giving way as a gravely voice in his ear asked, “Are you man enough to weep with me?”

Teen-aged couples tried, some successfully, to escape into the timbered paths up the hill. Others heard and heeded the sharp “You two get back down here!” Fugitives who reached the forest-shaded paths got no more than a quick kiss, as parents, hearing the call, scanned the sea of workers for their own love-smitten teens, then sent a shrill “Hooo-EEEEE!” ringing up the slope, reminiscent of the Finnish housewife's husband hollering. The youngsters, sensing trouble, split up and regrouped, a knot of boys emerging from one path, and a gaggle of girls from another. The parents, recalling their own use of the deception, excused their kids by pointing and saying, “The outhouse is over there.”

The fire burned down to a sprawling bed of hot coals. Some of the men cut forked sticks and poles, dangling coffee pots over the heat. Cleared brush gave space for decorating the graves. Some were covered with blankets of flowers, gathered from side yard gardens, while others were more modestly adorned with such wildflowers as Greenwood offered. Families gathered around the graves of loved ones. There was no laughter now. The very air held the reverence of quietness, as murmured prayers drew hearts together to remember.

As if by common consent, the crowd drifted toward the hodge-podge of blankets and towels spread with the varying supply of lunch. Mothers restrained the enthusiastic charge of the children, while men retrieved the pots of coffee from the dying fire. The crowd stood awkwardly, until someone, spotting a local pastor, called out, “Brother, would you ask the Lord's blessing?” Men, with hats in hand, bowed with the women and children, as Scriptures woven into the prayer directed hearts and minds to seek the comfort only God could give. As the prayer rolled on, children shifted from one foot to the other, in that slow dance of anticipation of what hid within the hamper.

With the final “Amen!” that was echoed by hundreds of voices, the gathering collapsed like risen bread dough, and the celebration of the accomplished mission began. Mothers handed out plates and napkins, distributed such delights as they had prepared, and the roar of conversation was stilled to a murmur.

At the edge of the crowd stood a young mother who was yet to see twenty years. Clinging to her leg was a girl of three. Their faded dressed shouted of poverty, and weary faces, pinched with hunger, tried not to see the bounty that disappeared before their eyes. They were invisible to those who did not want to see.

In the midst of the gathering, a grandmother glanced up the slope to where the hungry ones stood, then back to her plate. She gasped, and looked again, catching the eyes of the child. She turned awkwardly onto her hands and knees, and ignored the snickering as she hoisted her bottom up, then pushed herself slowly to her feet. Stepping between blankets and diners, she picked her way toward the little girl and her girl-mother, who, seeing that she was the focus of the old woman's cautious journey, turned to hurry away.

Eyes turned toward the unfolding drama as the older woman called out, “Lord love you, Honey, wait up for an old lady!” The fleeing pair paused as she lumbered up the slope, holding out her arms. “Come to Grandma, Honey!” Her quiet call overcame fear in the little girl and embarrassment in her mother, and the child let go of her mother's hand, and took hesitant steps toward the outstretched arms. The grandmother swept the child up into a loving hug.

“Honey, you're nothing but a feather! Could you use a bite to eat? Have you had your lunch yet?”

The little girl shook her head, answering the last question. Her mother hesitated, then said, “We didn't bring anything...”

The older lady said, more loudly than necessary, “Well, I brought more than I can enjoy without some help. I've got a plenty of fried chicken, and some fresh rolls” She turned, still holding the little girl to her bosom, and walked with short, careful steps back down the hill, saying over her shoulder, “You come on down here. I brought a whole custard pie, too. The Lord says if you got too much, you give to those who don't have much. So, you come on down here, and don't you rob me of my blessing!”

Diners shifted uncomfortably out of her way as she led the young mother to where her blanket and hamper waited. As they passed through the crowd, faces turned toward them, then turned away from Grandma's stern looks. A mother, feeding her flock, murmured, “God bless you, Ma'am.”

As the trio settled around the blanket, the hushed conversation around them increased to its previous rumble.

The crowd of picnickers began to gather the remnants of their feasting, and drift down toward the dock, where the steamers were returning for their barges they had left tied at the dock, or anchored in the channel. Embers of the dying fire scented the air, but gave off no more smoke. Greenwood, earlier a mass of brush, was now cleared, sporting a coat of scattered color. Neatness had replaced chaos. Last to leave the grounds was an odd trio. Two widows, one old, and the other young, walked with a tiny toddler. They paused at a grave a quarter century old with a time-stained stone. The grandmother wiped lichens out of the numbers, and said, “There's many happy times between those dates. Maybe I'll tell you sometime. You get your stuff, and you and your little girl can help me fill up that big old house of mine.”

Stopping at a recent grave, the younger widow said, “He doesn't have a stone. If he did, there would be lots of hard times between the years on it. But at the last, there were some happy times. Maybe I'll remember them when the hurt goes away. Does it ever?”

The grandmother thought a moment, then said, “I think, when you lose somebody who was a part of you, even for a little, it always hurts. But, happy memories overshadow the loss. They will come back. You have to focus on the living. There's a bit of your dear husband in your little girl. Meet him there. He can't come back to you, but he left you some of himself. Some of my kids are back there with my husband, and the rest have moved away. I have our house, and it holds memories in every corner. But I need some happy times you two can bring to help cover my loss.”

Twilight settled over Greenwood Cemetery. A doe and fawn nibbled flowers from bouquets, scattering stems. A blanket of darkness tucked the sleepers in where they rested, even as the living pulled blankets and quilts about themselves, seeking rest, and perhaps memories tucked into their dreams.

AMONG THE STONES

Life in the Cemetery

PREFACE

Travelers on Oregon's rural highways pass grim reminders of tragedy in the form of artificial flowers and crosses with or without names placed by grieving family members. Some of these memorials are frequently refreshed and renewed as survivors struggle to find closure, even as they reopen the wounds inflicted by weather or carelessness or any of a plethora of causes that stalk our modern traffic ways. Others, once placed, fade and vanish like the memory whoever they memorialize.

The migration to the Oregon Country was no less hazardous, though at a slower pace. The two thousand miles of the Oregon Trail claimed nearly ten percent of the eager pioneers who started the journey with high hopes and inflated expectations. The fiercest predator that lurked along the trail was disease – dysentery, cholera, smallpox and influenza. Add in the deaths due to accident or exhaustion, and of some three hundred fifty thousand immigrants to the Oregon country, some thirty thousand were buried hastily along the trail. Spaced out, that would be a grave about every two hundred yards.

Many of the graves were in the trail itself. After the burial, the wagon train rolled over the site to obliterate it. It was, by necessity, unmarked. Those keeping a journal of the journey had only rudimentary landmarks to approximate the location. For those buried beside the trail, their monument was often a heap of stones, or a bit of wood, either of which would be wiped out by the next passing cluster of wagons.

The trip west was but a precursor of the challenges that awaited the successful immigrant upon arrival in the untamed Land of Promise. The inflated expectations that survived the Oregon Trail often burst on impact in the new land, whether the immigrants settled in the Willamette Valley, along the Columbia River, or on the Pacific coast. The so-called free land that had lured them west was purchased at the price of sweat, blood, and often, life itself. Land claims had to be wrested from the vegetation and timber that held them captive. The settlers were reduced to the state of hunters and gatherers with little or no knowledge of the local cycles of nature, no time to plant crops, and with little time to learn what foraged foods could sustain them through the impending winter. Expanding clearings held two locations that filled at a similar rate – the hastily constructed cabin that was the family home, and the family burial ground, where hand-chiseled stones replaced the cairns and crossed sticks scattered along the Trail. Disease, harsh living conditions, malnutrition and lack of medical knowledge and care filled tiny graves, and those were joined by accident, carelessness and foolishness in filling the larger ones.

Scattered homesteads, joined by others, became settlements, which grew to towns. The same dangers lurking in the wilderness moved into town, and continued to carry victims to designated burial grounds, sometimes in churchyards, sometimes on a nearby hill. Records of deaths and burials were now kept, but often vanished when the storage burned to the ground.

As towns grew toward city status, one of the legal requirements for incorporation was the designation of a dedicated cemetery. Sometimes, a local family cemetery became the official burial ground. Sometimes, what had been a family cemetery had its occupants disinterred and reburied in the official cemetery. Over the decades, pioneer cemeteries have either been carefully tended and used by local families, or have been abandoned, their memories and stories slowly erased by encroaching nature.

Cemeteries are outdoor museums. History lies between the dates on each grave marker or monument. For some, the careful keeping of the stories is a stewardship, a sacred trust. Those keepers age, grow weary, and will eventually lie beneath the sod they tend. Will others, with a passion for history, a work ethic that is focused on service, a sense of stewardship, take up the tools the present keepers can no longer wield?

My wife, Lynda, and I moved to Greenwood Cemetery in May of 1982. We had a home in the city of Astoria, but wanted to raise our sons in the country. As teachers in a Christian school, we did not earn enough to qualify for a mortgage, according to local lenders. When we were told of the availability of a house we could afford, where the current owners would carry the contract with little down, we were interested. The fact that the house was packaged with a pioneer cemetery that would require maintenance, but had the potential to make the monthly payments from cemetery income was a persuasive factor in our decision to move. We knew nothing about cemetery operations or maintenance. We did not realize that the last weekend of May was the most critical focus of the maintenance program, when crowds of people would descend on the property, expecting it to be perfectly trimmed. And yet, we moved to Greenwood in May.

The following chapters are a compilation of things gleaned from conversations spanning forty years at Greenwood. I have included no footnotes, no bibliography, and no attributions. After so much time has passed, I couldn't tell you who said what. Tidbits prefaced by “I remember my mother telling me...” simply are, and do not come with documentation. General history can be researched by the reader. I have attempted to check what I have been told against historical records, but even those are subject to the accuracy of the historian's memory and bias.

What, indeed, is it like to live and work among the stones? Four decades is a long time. Those decades can demand, but can also teach and entertain. Life in the cemetery...oxymoronic, perhaps. We've lived it. Let me spin you a yarn or two...