With a nice damp Fall, mushrooms are doing very well here in Portland.
Today, I walked around Lone Fir Cemetery. The leaves, the dead, and the damp combine to create some real beauties.
I am not an expert in fungi and don’t know the names of any of these. The only thing I know about wild mushrooms is to NOT eat them…. Unless you are properly trained.
But I am not shy about getting down on my tummy to take some close-ups! Aren’t these beautiful?
Someone picked this mushroom before I got there, and laid it on top of a grave stone.
This batch of tissue- thin mushrooms was surrounded by quite a busy swarm of gnats, so I decided I was about done, took my picture quickly and headed off.
The Friends of Lone Fir is a non-profit, volunteer group who help maintain and educate folks about our wonderful local pioneer cemetery. They put on tours of the Women in Lone Fir, symbolism and architecture of tombstones, and headstone cleaning workshops.
And this year, the Friends hosted a five Saturday series of tours called Twilight Tombstones. On each Saturday in October and one in November, guides lead four groups of twenty through the cemetery, telling stories of the folks buried there.
It was sold out in minutes!
This year, Auntie Bridgett volunteered with me. She greeted folks at the gate and steered them in the right direction.
My job was “tour support”, which means I made sure our group, lead by Peregrine and Paul, stayed together. I also answered extra questions from the folks in the group. It was a delightful, educational, exhausting evening.
The fun began even before the tours started! A friendly group of Zombie Carolers came by after serenading the Dead, and shared their songbook with us. Their songs are not for the squeamish, featuring such delightfully gruesome tunes as “Rudolph the Undead Reindeer” and “Good King Wenceslas Tastes Great.”
On my visits to Lone Fir Cemetery, I admire the lovely headstones. Some are more than 150 years old, others are from just a few years ago, but they all have their own style and beauty.
And many of them, sadly, are victims of time and neglect. Their surfaces have become pitted and worn, and their lettering is obscured by moss and dirt.
On my first trip to help, I took along the Friends of the Lone Fir recommended kit: Lots of water and a variety of plastic scrubbers and scrapers. I even wore gloves!
I poured on a lot of water to soften the crud, then used the plastic scraper to dislodge the heaviest moss encrustations.
More water and gentle scrubbing with a plastic brush revealed most of the lettering.
I used a wooden chopstick to get into the letters and numbers, but was frustrated by the numbers pressed into the concrete surround.
I wish they were clearer, because I’m sure they mean something. Maybe L23 and B21? When I ran out of oomph after an hour, I was pleased with how Byrd Hanley Andrew looked, and happy that I had done something to preserve this wonderful, fragile old place.
You know how much I love visiting the dead folks at Lone Fir Cemetery!
Well, yesterday Auntie Bridgett and I joined a sketching group there. It was led by a lady named Jen whose full time job is elementary school teacher (just what I used to do!)
Jen is also a fan of Lone Fir, and wanted to find a way to earn some money to help maintain this fragile old space. She put a notice on The Friends of Lone Fir website, and people pay $10 a head to join the group. The money goes to Friends of Lone Fir, the same non-profit organization that runs the Twilight Tombstone tours I will be helping with later this month.
Being a ‘real’ teacher, Jen has a ‘real’ curriculum, this book by John Laws. It lays out a lot of steps and philosophy about nature jour along, and I’m sure it is a fine book.
But I was interested in a quick guide to start with. Once our group of thirty (!) people were gathered, Jen gave us just that.
She suggested quick info about day and weather and then prompts of “I notice” “I wonder” and “It reminds me of”, and really close looking at whatever you choose to draw. It could be a tree or a leaf, a patch of ground, or anything in the area.
“If you think it’s boring,” she said, “keep looking and you’ll be amazed how much you see.” We all went off to our own areas and had one hour to draw.
I chose this wonderful old chestnut tree by the rose garden. If I got far enough away to see the whole tree I’d miss the detail, so I could only draw part way up the trunk. I was fascinated by the dappled light and how the patches kept shifting as the sun went down behind me.
When our hour was up, we assembled back at the Soldier’s Memorial and did a “gallery walk” of everyone’s journals. I was impressed by the variety of drawings and the close observations.
We shared our experiences and said what we liked about other folks’ sketches. I liked that we were complimenting the sketch, not the artist… it was less personal, less embarrassing, and more meaningful.
We all enjoyed our time at the cemetery, and being able to share it with other folks made it even better. And next month, Auntie Bridgett and I get to join Jen and the sketchers again!
I get to volunteer at the Lone Fir Cemetery again! This year the event is called Tombstone Twilight, and will be held every Saturday in October from 4 to 7 in the evenings. (Buy tickets online at FriendsofLoneFirCemetery.com)
This should be an easier to manage, mostly-daylight activity, in contrast to last year’s event. The Tour of Untimely Departures was one, very long, very dark, evening.
I am looking forward to being part of the show, and this year, Auntie Bridgett is getting involved!
We met up with J Swofford and other volunteers at Lone Fir the other day, for a walk-through of the tour. We got to ‘meet’ such interesting folks as Julius Caesar, a formerly enslaved man who made a name for himself as a political orator for progressive causes. He was also a local baseball fan, and on his tombstone, along with his name and dates, are the words “Play Ball”.
Walking in Lone Fir always gives me peace and perspective, and learning about the lives and accomplishments of the folks there shows me the possibilities of the human spirit. (There are also a lot of cute squirrels.)
I will be making the walkabout a few more times before the tour, so I will not get lost escorting folks around, and I’ll tell you about it as it happens.
Auntie Bridgett and I were wandering the Lone Fir Cemetery the other day, and we came across this tall, ornate headstone for a Woodsman of the World.
The Woodsmen were a service and benevolent organization, like the Elks. Their member’s graves are honored with very specific markers, cast and sculpted from cement. This one included a tree taller than my head, mallet, ax, ferns and scroll.
I figured Mr. J. A. Tell must have been a big shot with his fancy stone, so I went to my old friend, the online Historic Oregonian, to look him up.
I was saddened by what I learned.
As you can see by his stone, Mr. Tell died at the young age of 22. According to the newspaper story, J.A., (whose first name is not given in any of the articles) convinced two friends to go swimming with him in the Willamette River.
They borrowed a boat and rowed out to the protected channel between Ross Island and a smaller island. Here’s what the area looks like now, from Googlemaps.
Robert Ausplund stayed on the island while J.A. and the other fellow, identified only as Jorgenson, rowed to the end of a fifteen foot rope. J.A. disrobed and dove into the water.
Within minutes J.A. began calling for help, but his friends thought he was fooling. In the past, J. A. had insisted that he was a good swimmer. By the time they realized he was really in trouble, they could not reach him in time, and he drowned.
J.A. Tell came to Portland from Dakota just three years before his death in 1891, was a skilled mechanic and, by all accounts, a fine young man. I mourn for the foolishness and over-confidence that lead to his very preventable death.
It turns out that the ‘training’ of exercising and eating better to get me ready for SOAK has paid off in other ways, as well. I had two long, lovely walks Friday, with two of my favorite people.
First, Cynthia and I walked around the International Test Garden in Washington Park. It was a bright sunny day, and a lot of roses have started opening up! I didn’t check any of their names, just their scents. This one was the best!
Then we walked down the road a bit to the Holocaust Memorial. This is a solemn reminder of the horrors that the Nazis visited upon 6 million Jews and other people back in the 1940s.
As we looked at the names and read the history, both of us wondered: How could Israel, a country founded after these atrocities, commit those happening now in Gaza? The dark side of human nature left us sadly pondering.
After a few hours of walking and conversation, Cynthia dropped me off at home. Lunch and a rest got me ready for the next outing. Auntie Bridgett was having technical difficulties and needed a walk, so I went.
We ended up at Lone Fir, where we actually FOUND Eloisa McLaughlin Rae Harvey’s grave! She is named on this tall, mossy obelisk, along with her second husband Daniel Harvey and her son, Daniel Harvey Jr.
Eloisa was a woman who led a remarkable life as daughter of Dr. John McLaughlin, “The Father of Oregon”, and wife to two employees of the Hudson’s Bay Company. She traveled to Oregon, Alaska, San Francisco and Hawaii in a day when most women rarely left their hometown.
It’s a quiet miracle how dead people, whether in throngs of 6 million or one by one, give us perspective and allow us to mark their passing.
Well, I survived! Being a volunteer for the Friends of Lone FiR Cemetery’s Tour of Untimely Departures was the longest, most exhausting, and most rewarding days I have spent since my retirement from teaching.
During the set-up, my new-found friend volunteer Jennifer and I raked leaves from the ‘off-road’ routes for the North and South tours. Each tour is about a mile… so two miles for raking.
Here is Jennifer later, in her Tour Guide regalia. Isn’t she beautiful?
Then we set out the solar powered tiki torches that mark and illuminate each actor’s position. Two more miles. Then it was time to walk home for lunch, a change into costume, and a rest. Half a mile each way.
When I checked in for the Tour, J Swofford met the actors, tour guides and assorted helpers with pizzas, making sure we knew where to be and what to do. Folks practiced their lines and prepared for the long evening.
During the evening, I was a ghoul. This role calls for walking among the tours at a distance, keeping an eye out for stragglers and making sure actors have what they need. It allowed me to see the beautiful Line Fir Cemetery at sunset and twilight.
Part of my evening was spent at the Exit gate, directing people to the Entrance, answering questions, and stopping folks from sneaking in. Luckily, I had found a lovely stick, about six feet long, which became a handy, authority-lending staff.
At 10:00, when the last of the visitors had left and the exhausted actors headed off, I helped gather the luminaries and Auntie Bridgett and Grandpa Nelson came to walk me home.
I know you’ve always asked yourself, “What does one wear to spent a freezing Halloween night in a cemetery? Well, I will show you.
This weekend I volunteered at the Tour of Untimely Departures in Portland’s Lone Fir Cemetery. The skies were clear, but it was forecast to be in the low 40s…. So I knew I needed layers. Remember, these are not three separate outfits. This was all on me at the same time.
Layer #1. Long underwear and wooly socks.
Layer #2. Turtleneck sweater and jeans over the underwear.
Layer #3. Victorian blouse, vest, and skirt. This is the ‘costume’ part. The watch cap will save my ears!
Final ghoulish layer #4. Shroud-ish scarf and heavy black gloves. The little shoulder bag held energy bars to keep me fed for the six hour shift! My heavy Portland boots finished things off and kept my twinkle-toes warm.
And doesn’t Bridgett’s artwork make my face scary?
Out on a walk the other day, Auntie Bridgett and I enjoyed the cool Fall breezes and wafting leaves.
We also got that perspective that really looking at things gives. Near the SideStreet Arts Gallery, we saw this delightfully painted mailbox. It had a sweet, almost “Dora the Explorer” feeling.
We continued through the neighborhood to pay a seasonal visit to the Dead People at Lone Fir Cemetery. I have volunteered to help with this year’s Tour of Untimely Departures, a wonderfully eerie event put on by the Friends of Lone Fir, and I am very excited about it!
At this event, groups of guests are escorted through the cemetery, and actors playing some of the dearly departed stand by their headstones to tell the story of their life and death.
On our walk, I took the map of the tours and we walked around to see if we could find the graves. First on my list was Emma Merlotin, but I couldn’t find her, but Auntie Bridgett took this picture of the headstone ofAnneJean Tingry- Le Coz because of her French origins.
When we got home, Bridgett did some research on Miss Tingry-Le Coz on the Historic Oregonian website. It turns out that SHE was Emma Merlotin, the lady on our tour who I was looking for! Emma Merlotin was the name she used when she was working here in Portland, but after she was murdered, her friends chose to bury her under her real name.
As always with friends at Lone Fir, I was sorry for her death, especially after her short, difficult life. But I was happy to have found Miss Merlotin and be able to remember her.
Life is full of contrasts, and I am glad for them.
Dear Liza 