Unknown but not forgotten.

Byline: Matt Cooper The Register-Guard

GLENWOOD - He was in his 20s on that summer day when the old cemetery reached out and shook him.

Steve Moe had seen the gray-metal markers plenty of times as a kid, near a path in a forgotten corner overrun with weeds and brush.

A dozen or so markers, each no bigger than a lawn flag, all of them aged and run-down. Temporary indicators of graves never replaced with proper headstones.

A couple had names and dates, most had nothing at all. Men, women, children. Babies.

Who were they? Why were they buried here? Where were the headstones?

On that day, at the end of the path, Moe stopped at a marker and bent to read it. It was a baby, one who was born and died on the same day.

June 18, 1942. Moe's date of birth.

That could be me, he thought.

"It was one of those periods in your life where you're starting to realize, 'Maybe it's not going to be forever, maybe there's an end out there,' " said Moe, 61. "I've never forgotten it."

It's overstating it to say the end is near for the 150-year-old Laurel Grove Cemetery. But change is inevitable - will it be for the best?

The Independent Order of Odd Fellows has maintained the 12-acre cemetery south of Franklin Boulevard for more than 100 years, and they're out of steam.

It's time to sell to "somebody with the means to take care of it," said manager Bob Meakins, 64. He wants $20,000 for a cemetery with more than 1,400 open spaces.

The unknown graves aren't the only distinguishing characteristic in Laurel Grove, also known as the Laurel Hill or Glenwood cemetery. This is the final resting place of Isaac Briggs, brother of Elias, Springfield's founder. Headstones recognize pioneers such as the Hayden family.

"If a group does not form to take care of it, it's going to go back to bushes," said Jan McKee of the Springfield Museum. "It's a terrible thought."

"It's right in the midst of two of our most important communities," said David Koach, executive director of the Oregon Mortuary and Cemetery Board. "It ought to be a place where you could put up a sign on I-5 and say, 'Here's this historic pioneer cemetery,' and point to it with pride."

Oregon has about 3,000 known pioneer cemeteries - that is, those with burials prior to 1909, said Mirra Meyer, of the Oregon Commission on Historic Cemeteries. Local groups protect some of them, but many are in jeopardy.

Parts of Laurel Grove qualify for pioneer status - the earliest recorded burial was in 1855 - but Meakins doesn't see the need: The grounds have always been cared for, he said, so what more can the commission do?

He'll rely on the price tag to discourage irresponsible buyers, and he's confident regulations will protect the cemetery's condition.

Moe hopes a commercial operator will take over and commit as much time to preserving history as turning a profit.

Communities once looked after cemeteries the way families looked after their own, Moe said, but "it doesn't look like communities run that way anymore.

"I've sort of wondered," he added, "what happens when a cemetery is abandoned?"

Markers of Great Depression

He thinks about abandonment when he walks among the metal markers in the northwest corner. You needed a machete to get through the brush before a work crew came through last month.

No one knows how many graves are here, but estimates are in the hundreds.

In one spot, uprooted markers are piled in a heap. Wide depressions in the earth - some call them "bathtubs" - are the only clue to the graves below.

The burials date between 1900 and 1950, with most in the Depression-era '20s and '30s, said McKee, of the museum.

Many of the dead came from the Lane County "poor farm," an early welfare institution north of Eugene, said Jerold Williams, of the Lane County Historical Museum.

They were orphans or the elderly poor, transients and loners who had succumbed to illness or age. "The unlucky and unwanted," Williams said.

Many of the babies were buried by families who couldn't afford better, McKee said.

The burials weren't reported, Meakins said, so the best records were the vitals written on a card and placed behind the glass on the metal markers: Name, age, date of death.

Most of the markers long ago lost that information to time and weather.

Forty or more of the dead were under 18 months, by estimates. Some have names like "Baby Clark," a boy, or "Baby Culp," a girl. Mortality was high; some families waited months before naming a newborn son or daughter.

When Moe takes students on tours of the cemetery, the kids always migrate here.

"Particularly the girls," Moe said. "Because of the babies."

Cemetery becomes a mission

The unknown graves that touched the man in his 20s have become a mission for the man in his 60s.

"They weren't remembered as they should be," Moe said. "I can't imagine anybody having a child and burying it with just a marker and never coming back to it again - or being able to."

Moe's father and grandfather are buried in Laurel Grove. As a kid, he went there to sneak up behind the cars of love-struck "parkers." Some day he'll join his dad and granddad there.

Moe was the one to hound Lane County for a work crew to clear the hillside around the metal markers, and there's more to be done.

Someday, he hopes to erect a sign; something dignified for all the nameless men, women and children. "Unknown but not forgotten," or words to that effect.

Beyond that, time will tell. Moe can't predict the future for Laurel Grove, but he hopes for the best.

"Looking at the long range, what is going to happen to it, I don't know," he said. "As far as I'm concerned, I'm going to work to make it a better place. I hope we can pass on to others the responsibility to try and continue the care of that."

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Call Bob Meakins, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, at 747-3448

CAPTION(S):

Steve Moe of Glenwood holds one of the grave markers that were revealed after a work crew cleared brush away at the Laurel Grove Cemetery. The pioneer cemetery is for sale, and Moe hopes the buyer takes steps to improve its condition and preserve its history.