Most of the district’s meetings are carried out with a deliberate impassiveness. It’s likely out of necessity, as many topics deal with death. There’s a need for a respectful routine, according to its members.
The commissioners are Zalpys, Jeanette Jester and John Straub.
Meetings, decisions
At its January meeting, the group discussed lowering the price of its baby grave plots, designated to a small section of the cemetery marked off with a white picket fence. The baby section is about 1 year old and featured a handful of graves as of mid-March.
That meeting took place at East County Fire and Rescue Station 91, just up the road from Fern Prairie, off Northeast Robinson Road.
It costs $100 to bury a baby at the rural Clark County cemetery. That price and others are less expensive than options in the Vancouver-Portland area. In recent years, people have been choosing Fern Prairie for its affordability, Zalpys said.
Burials can be costly. So can the upkeep of the cemetery. So the commissioners discussed including costs of keeping things neat, particularly around natural gravesites. “Green” caskets, allowed under Washington law, decompose over time. The ground around the plots can shift.
“Selling people graves but telling them after a burial that they owe more money is awkward,” Zalpys said.
Other topics covered included barring customers from using homemade caskets (people weren’t following the criteria for doing so), vandalism of the cemetery’s portable restroom, and keeping a temporary position open in case commissioner Straub took off to hunt elk.
Perhaps the hottest issue during the meeting had to do with a hiring an accountant to help with the district’s budget.
The matter remained unsettled more than two months later, and was the most talked about issue during the cemetery district’s March 13 meeting.
Secretary Eileen Abernathy wasn’t short on comments. The woman with short pearly hair and a fondness for sweatshirts featuring flowers handled the budget on a regular basis for years.
“I haven’t complained,” Abernathy said during the meeting last month, which took place at the main office on the grounds of the cemetery.
The commissioners sat in folding chairs placed around a desk in the cramped room. The office features wood panel walls, a scuffed-up floor, a yellowing black-and-white map of the cemetery district and three calendars for 2018 pinned in various spots.
“I checked with a (certified public accountant) downtown, and he wanted nothing to do with us,” Straub said. “He recommended we get a bookkeeper to check on things, make sure everything is in order.”
Following some back-and-forth about whether a bookkeeper was really needed, Zalpys told the commissioners hiring some help was the best route, and he’d be unyielding with his decision.
The conversation then shifted to whether the office was ever going to get any upgrades.
The pioneers
On a stroll through the cemetery in mid-March, Zalpys spoke fondly of the projects he’s been able to see completed while working there.
Thanks to his efforts and the help of the commissioners and other volunteers, the cemetery has undergone several improvements in recent years.
Asphalt replaced gravel roads cutting through the grounds. Electricity and water have been hooked up to the property. An information board was erected. A wrought iron fence was installed with the help of some local Boy Scouts.
History about the cemetery has been chiseled on several stones. The most robust history is on the side of a monument with a wagon wheel carved atop a stone column.
The cemetery is located on the land claim of Lewis Van Fleet, who filed the claim in 1855, two years after leaving Missouri with a team of oxen. The first recorded burial came that same year. The “Old Section” of the cemetery serves as its point of origin and was used by the Van Fleet family and their extended relations. The relatives laid to rest include Dr. Louisa Wright, the first doctor in the county to have both a degree in medicine and a license to practice.
It became a community cemetery around the turn of the century. Several sections have been added through the years.
Other Clark County pioneers have gravesites at Fern Prairie — the Knights, Robinsons and Strunks, among others.
The chairman noted the cemetery’s history with pride.
“The cemetery has been moving east away from Robinson Road since about 2002,” he said. “Locals pay taxes for the cemetery, so it just as much belongs to them.”
A solitary burial
A couple days after the March meeting, Commissioner John Straub set about digging a grave, albeit a small one — a foot deep, a foot wide.
The grave was meant for a local firefighter. His wife passed away eight years ago, and now his ashes were being placed next to her.
Straub said he knew the man; he worked as the East County Fire chief and then as a volunteer for 28 years.
When asked if burying people he knew growing up in the area affected him in any way, Straub paused before answering.
“It does make me think” about life, he said. However, he is used to death. His father ran a funeral home in Camas. He and his brother decided not to get into the family business, but he ended up working at the cemetery later in life.
“It makes me think of the dedication he gave to his job during his life, and I know how that is because I did it myself. … In general, it makes me think about how people choose to live their lives, and whether their bucket list was checked off.”
Correction: The article incorrectly stated that one of the commissioner’s of Cemetery District No. 1 is Jeanette Straub. Her name is Jeanette Jester.
