Volunteers learn history as they preen inner Southeast Portland cemetery

INCLUDES OF VIDEO OF VOLUNTEERS ‘GRAVETENDING’ | Discover why people came from all over the Portland area to give some ‘TLC’ to this ancient urban cemetery in outer East Portland …

Numerous folks spend the morning here, in Multnomah Park Cemetery, providing volunteer “grave tending” at this historic burial ground.

Story and photos by David F. Ashton

Many people drive past Multnomah Park Cemetery, kitty-corner from Eastport Plaza in the Foster-Powell neighborhood, just southwest of SE 82nd Avenue of Roses and Holgate Boulevard, without giving it a second thought.

But on Friday, August 2, some two dozen volunteers – along with specialists from METRO Parks and Nature – came from across the city into the cemetery to learn more about this historic graveyard, while tidying up monuments and grave stones.

Telling about “cemetery tending” is METRO Parks and Nature Content and Marketing Specialist Hannah Erickson.

“Today is one of a regular series of events that METRO Parks and Nature holds, in which we invite members of the community to come help us tend cemeteries,” explained METRO Parks and Nature Content and Marketing Specialist Hannah Erickson.

What’s it like to help spruce up a historic cemetery? Take a look at our video:

“In this case, ‘tending’ this means doing things like cleaning grave markers, picking up litter, and making sure that grave markers aren’t sinking into the grass to the point where they can’t be seen,” Erickson continued.

“Actually, it’s a lot of it is just old-fashioned ‘elbow grease’ with soapy water, to help keep things clean!,” she described.

Using simple gardening tools and cleaning supplies, volunteers clean and refresh one gravesite after another.

Asked why people volunteer for this duty, Erickson told East Portland News, “Many of the people who come out to these events say they’re interested in helping us preserve our historic cemeteries, because it helps them connect with this region’s history – a in a very personal way.”

“Participating in this cemetery-tending activity helps increase ‘death positivity’,” says PSU Death Café member Meadow McGalliard.

Promoting ‘death positivity’
While cleaning a headstone, one of the volunteers – Meadow McGalliard – mentioned that she, and some of the other Portland State University students who came, are starting a campus club called the PSU Death Café. “It’s an environment where people come together and we promote talking about any topic around death; a difficult topic.

“But, this is something that everyone has to deal with! Doing community activities, like this, is another part of Death Café, and death positivity,” McGalliard said.

“Why not?” explains volunteer Susan Moliken, who lives southwest of Portland near Durham.

Of interest to some volunteers was that the almost 10-acre Multnomah Park Cemetery was established in 1888, when the area was rural. It was founded with some of the settler families who lived down here at the time, including Oliver Lent and his family.

Respectfully, the volunteers groomed one site before moving to the next.

To find out more about METRO Parks and Nature and its activities, see their website: CLICK HERE.

>> On our Front Page: Saben CDC intern Audie Ethridge says she’s helping out at Multnomah Park Cemetery as one of her service learning initiatives.

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