DARRINGTON — Bright bouquets of Mother’s Day flowers decorated graves last week as cemetery board volunteers wandered from stone to stone, talking about the upcoming Memorial Day ceremony on this peaceful slice of land.
The event, set for Monday afternoon, also is a celebration of the cemetery’s centennial.
Edith Nugent Kennedy deeded just over 5 acres to Darrington in 1916. The property is on the north side of Highway 530 near the west end of town. She wanted a place to bury her first husband, Sterling Nugent. He was the first burial at the cemetery. Edith also is buried there. Her headstone celebrates her gift: “for her generosity of time and work, that this property could be used as a cemetery for the Darrington Community.”
Members of the five-person volunteer cemetery board and others helping with the centennial say that the Darrington Cemetery is a good example of the community. It was donated by a woman who wanted to give something for her friends and family, and it has been cared for over the years thanks to the time, effort and generosity of people in town.
“That’s how everything gets done in Darrington,” said Shellie Jones, one of the event planners. “People just come together.”
Most people in Darrington have friends or family buried at the cemetery. Some, including Jones, already have picked out their plot and headstone. Rows of stones trace family lineages going back to the early 1900s.
“Generations are out here,” said Rosetta Willis, president of the cemetery board.
The unmarked graves on the east side are on Bachelors Row, where the single men who came to Darrington as miners and trappers are buried. Several of their names still are known, among them Sam Grabe, who lived in a cabin up Whitehorse Gulch; Nils Osterburg, who lived along Sulpher Creek; and Sam Strom, who owned mining claims on Gold Hill.
One Civil War veteran, Elijah W. Fortner, is buried in the cemetery. He was a private in the Union Army’s 11th Regiment, Tennessee Cavalry, from 1861 to 1865. He reportedly lived to be in his 90s and died in 1936. The letters and numbers still are clear on his tall gray tombstone.
A large Douglas fir used to stand as the Scattering Tree, where families whose loved ones had ties to Darrington but were not buried there could leave a plaque or a stone in their memory.
The tree was cut down in 2012, but stones and plaques still surround its wide trunk.
Cemetery board member Inajean Buchanan was born in Darrington 85 years ago. She used to care for the babies section of the cemetery, where Jones noted that her sister is buried. It’s not far from the Scattering Tree. Buchanan would decorate the babies’ graves with stones.
Ladies from the cemetery board say they all took their turns mowing grass at the cemetery, too, when they were younger. They’d start at their family’s grave sites, then mow the areas around them until they ran out of gas. That was usually how the grass stayed short, until the town took over maintenance.
People make a sort of pilgrimage to the cemetery searching for family history, said Raelynn Jones, Darrington’s town clerk.
Recently, a woman from Idaho stopped by Town Hall looking for where her family was buried.
“We have people who live all over, but their folks are buried here,” said Frankie Nations-Bryson, with the cemetery board.
She pointed to a black marble headstone: Her brother and sister-in-law, she said. “I have a lot of family here.”
A Memorial Day ceremony is planned for 1 p.m. Monday at the cemetery, and the centennial celebration follows.
Memorial Day always is a big event, drawing 100-plus people, depending on the weather.
After this year’s ceremony, people can take a walking tour of the cemetery and stop by booths to learn the history. Food and drinks are planned, along with a table where guests can look up the names and plots of those buried in the cemetery. Veterans’ graves should be marked by flags.
A sunny Memorial Day weekend can draw a lot of visitors to Darrington as they head for the natural beauty that surrounds it.
The cemetery volunteers hope some of them will stop by to enjoy the festivities.
For more information, call Darrington Town Hall at 360-436-1131.
Kari Bray: 425-339-3439; kbray@heraldnet.com.
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