Entrance, Oysterville Cemetery
While the world’s attention is drawn toward ‘the other Washington’ and the handover of our nation’s perch of power, Oysterville has been undergoing its own changing of the guard. Not that many folks necessarily care. Or even notice. For the first time in more than thirty years, we have new officers, new interest, and new energy to direct toward our peaceful little graveyard on Davis Hill.
The Oysterville Cemetery Association met last April to elect new Board members and plan for a transition of responsibilities to take place in 2017. We met again last week to coordinate our maps, review the plot ownerships, and talk about future needs. Meetings will continue for a bit – there are signature cards at the bank to deal with. And at the post office. And there is information to convey to local mortuaries, to the State of Washington, and to others concerned with the operation and maintenance of the cemetery.
Part of Old Linen Cemetery Map c. 1870s
Outgoing president Ron Biggs has walked new president Tucker Wachsmuth through both the old and new sections of the cemetery showing him the boundary markers for plots and lots. He explained what needs to be done when Mortician Ron Hylton calls to ask that a gravesite be staked out for an upcoming burial. I, as outgoing Secretary/Treasurer, have been meeting with Kitt Fleming, my replacement, to go over legalities of lot sales, bank balances and investments, correspondence, and other paperwork necessities.
We’re talking about the physical clean-up that needs to be done each year – after the storms of winter are over but before the annual Memorial Day tribute. In recent memory – as in the last three or four decades – Corky and Ronnie Biggs (but especially Corky) have spent many a late winter day gathering and raking up the blow-down of winter and disposing of pickup truck-loads at their burn pile. “How about a community work party in March or April?” suggested Kitt.
Yes! Great idea! For as fractured as the living community of Oysterville seems these days, there are still more of us with loved ones in the cemetery than not, and an even greater number who have purchased lots in preparation for their own eventualities. It seems odd to think that we might agree more on the conditions surrounding our eternity than we do about our day-to-day living situations. It’s a thought worth pondering…
WANTED: Interested community volunteers to join the Oysterville Cemetery Association and, perhaps, to serve on the Cemetery Board. It’s not the sexiest job in the world. On the other hand, it isn’t very demanding either. A concerted search has revealed minutes from our last meeting — dated 1986! Our ‘clients’ don’t complain and, as long as the work gets done, everyone seems at peace.
Then, in the mid-’60s (the 1960s, this time) when Cecil Espy retired from his banking career in Portland and moved back here to the house in which he was born, he took it upon himself to “clean up the Cemetery grounds.” With a small hand scythe he cut the waist-high grass that had grown around and over the gravestones and carefully brought the cemetery up to his high standard of appearance. He gathered up the bits and pieces of deeds and sales records and the old linen map and, as he aged, began to think of the Cemetery as his own.
With that in mind, we are holding a meeting of the Oysterville Cemetery Association this Saturday, April 9th at the Oysterville Church. Residents of the community are urged to attend. There are no “pre-requisites” for joining us — only a love of our quiet little ‘final resting place’ and an interest in continuing the work that was started more than 150 years ago.
