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.