Calendar of Cemetery-related Events:

Saturday, May 21: The ‘Veterans Hall of Honor’ will be officially dedicated at the historic courthouse in Union.

Saturday, May 28: Annual Odd Fellows memorial service, followed by a presentation by county commissioner Terry Wilson and a tour of veterans graves at the cemetery. Begins at 9:00. Free Lunch!!

Sunday, May 29: To celebrate Washington’s founding date, the Washington Historical Society will host a “tour” of the Bassora Cemetery / Krog Park at 1:00 p.m.

James Cemetery -- Pacific

Saturday, May 14 at 9:00 a.m., meet at the James Cemetery in Pacific. We’ve been rained and or flooded out twice, but we’re going to try really hard to make it happen! Please join us there.

KROG PARK Probe

Krog Park, probing for and unearthing headstones – Thursday, May 5th at 4:30 p.m. and Saturday beginning at 9:00 a.m. Come rediscover the history of Washington (and Bassora!).

New Tombstone Bases Fabricated

Last Saturday, April 30, several of our members converged on the Odd Fellows building to fabricate bases for five headstones at our Cheatham-Gibson-Coleman Cemetery project. All the bases were made and are at the Lodge building curing. I’m hopeful that one or two more trips to this project site will finish things up! Thanks to those who helped. Some work was also done at the Odd Fellows Cemetery.

"James Cemetery" Probe Rescheduled

We have rescheduled the Pacific workday for Saturday, April 30 due to weather.

An Exciting Project -- James Cemetery

A reminder that we are working at Pacific this coming Saturday at 9:00 a.m. (yes, I’ve heard the weather forecast) with a rain (snow?) date set for Saturday, April 30 if necessary.

This has the potential of being a very fun project. As you may remember, we have been asked to help “unearth” a cemetery that has been covered up by decades of flood waters and the development of a home at the site in the 1960s. Today, the home has been demolished as part of the big flood buy-out at Pacific a few years ago.

One fragmented headstone was unearthed by city crews last summer. Old timers recall perhaps as many as a dozen headstones at the site. The City of Pacific has arranged for an operator of a bobcat or backhoe to come and gently scrape away the layers of earth as we watch for headstones and other indications of grave sites. Our working name for the site is “James Cemetery” as the James family members were first to exclude the cemetery from the sale of the surrounding property indicating that the James’ had an “interest” in the graveyard.

Contact Marc at Washington Historical Society Museum for directions.

Last Week at Bem

It's hard to believe it was nearly a week ago that we worked out at Bem! We had a perfect day with sunshine and mild temperatures. Rev. Rick Oberle and crew were on hand doing their annual maintenance to the church cemetery. Our job was to make some repairs and train the church members in proper cleaning techniques. Overall, the cemetery is in excellent condition. Only about six headstones actually needed repair (two must be replaced) and these repairs were completed for the most part. Many stones were leveled and dozens were cleaned by a super-ambitious cleaning crew. Six of our members showed up, but with the help of a dozen or more church members, things went quickly and efficiently. A luncheon was served by the church for which we are grateful. Thanks to all who helped. Thanks to Susan for the picture.