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Editor's Column: Visit cemeteries, encounter history

By Heather Meier/of The Herald

There’s an eventual point on any vacation where I ask my traveling companion to indulge me and visit the local cemetery.

They’ve accepted this quirk of mine and no longer look at me as gruesome.

The truth is, as a history nut and journalist, I find cemeteries tell as much about a community as the people who work, play and live there.

For example, when friends and I climbed to the Albion cemetery in Eastern Washington, we discovered a number of elderly and infant gravestones from 1918 and 1919, clearly victims of the Great Influenza. Names on gravestones in the Black Diamond cemetery, which dates back to 1880, represent the Italian immigrants who worked the coal mines.

And I always assumed the Pioneer Cemetery in my hometown of Auburn was primarily for the white settlers who built their farms in the valley until I wandered in one day and discovered an overwhelming number of Japanese families buried there.

Yet despite my appreciation for cemeteries and the fact that I’ve driven by Woodbine and Sumner cemeteries dozens of times, I’ve never stopped.

Reporter Avani Nadkarni’s front page story in this week’s newspaper inspired me, though. Her article speaks of the family and friends who are frequent visitors to their loved ones’ graves. My visit last week was vastly different.

I prefer the sections of cemeteries where there are no longer freshly cut flowers on graves and visitors are rare. In these areas, you can find the founders of the community — Edgerton, Paulhamus, Rogers and Meeker. We live with their memories every day — on streets, schools, Fair buildings and mansions.

A group of citizens purchased 10 acres in Puyallup in 1895 to develop the cemetery. The first burial was that same year. About 30 years later, the cemetery was sold to the city.

Sumner’s Pioneer Cemetery was created in 1864, long before Washington was even a state. Eventually, the cemetery expanded across the street and visitors can see a distinct difference between the two.

Take some time to visit our local cemeteries. Read the names, look at the architecture of the headstones, get another look at East Pierce County’s history.

Not every person buried there is memorialized in our community but each surely made an impact.

Reach Editor Heather Meier at 253-841-2481 Ext. 310 or by e-mail at heather.meier@puyallupherald.com.