Eugene Masonic Cemetery Association eNewsletter
Hope Abbey Mausoleum
 

In This Issue
Did you know?
Plant Thefts
Drinking Fountain
Just a Blink in Time
Music To Die For
Did You Know?
 Fifty different birds have been sighted in the Eugene Masonic Cemetery. They range from the American Crow and American Robin to the Yellow Rumped Warbler. Some are permanent residents and others are migrant (spring and fall). Woodpeckers, such as the Downy Woodpecker, the Red-breasted Nuthatch and the Northern Flicker create holes in trees called cavities. Other birds such as the Western Screech-owl, the Red-breasted Sapsucker and the Blackcapped Chickadee build their nests in existing holes and are called secondary cavity nesters. Other animals such as, raccoons, bats and honeybees also dwell in the cemetery's tree cavities.
  

HELP US CONTINUE RESTORING HISTORY

Consider making a contribution through PayPal, available on our website. When you click below, you'll be taken to the EMCA website, where you can access the PayPal donate button. Help us preserve this important part of Eugene's history. Thank you. 

 

 
Plant Thefts
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We at the Eugene Masonic Cemetery have been making improvements in the appearance of the cemetery, particularly to our entrance at E. 25th.  However, the time and money we've invested in this project is being seriously compromised. 

Someone is now hard at work stealing many of these new plants.

If you see suspicious behavior in the cemetery, especially out of normal working hours, please call the Police Non-Emergency number at 541 682-5111. Even if you're uncertain, just call. The police are aware that we have vandalism problems, and they will respond if called.

For over two decades we've been hard at work to make the cemetery a place of communal pride. We, the staff, find it frustrating and expensive to have our work constantly vandalized. Please help us if you can. A reminder that the cemetery is NOT a public park. It is private property.  Thanks!

Sally, Wendi and Steve   
The Drinking Fountain
by Hugh Prichard, EMCA Past President

At the top of the cemetery, opposite the "public square", there is a drinking fountain made from one massive stone column. It was installed just before the turn of the last century, during December, 1999. It is a memorial to my father, Hubert Prichard, who died long ago at the young age of 49. My family wanted to do something special in his memory; something useful and beautiful.
 
We chose a single stone of native basalt to make into a drinking fountain. Keith Schneider, local stone mason, installed the stone, but first he had to drill two holes completely through the long axis for the water supply and the drain. This was an arduous task.
 
Keith then spent many more hours shaping and grinding a basin in the stone. No other changes were made to the natural features. It took us several days on site to make the installation. No telling how much the stone weighed, but it took a serious truck-mounted crane to inch it into place.
 
Supplying the water was a major effort, requiring over 300 feet of trenching and the installation of a new water line all the way across the cemetery from East 26th Street. This improvement also allowed the installation of a water faucet nearby for irrigation, with the possibility of more in the future.
 
The drinking fountain blends into the natural landscape and looks like it has always been there. We are pleased that it has become a regular stop for many of the cemetery's visitors, and it should still be providing cool refreshment at the turn of the next century. And the next.
Just a Blink in Time
Katy Szekely, Board Member


This winter and spring have been hard on the old places. Many moss-laden limbs and cracked branches strewn across paths made a stroll through the cemetery a pretty dicey adventure for awhile. Now, with spring clean-up, chipping is a drone in the background in our cemetery neighborhood.
Winter's ice and snow, then a thaw, then re-freeze threatened some of the oldest markers along the paths. One wonders how many seasons just like this had left fine filigree signatures and webwork designs on tilting stones.
During an early season volunteer clean-up day, a buried, meandering brick wall was uncovered and soon became the topic of curious speculation. What was its purpose? Who lugged all of those perfect bricks up such a steep hillside? Was it meant to mark out a loved one's hallowed place, or divert a wayward water course? Some care and time and concern had been taken to construct such a curious little wall. The more digging, the more bricks. Weeds and wildflowers and Time took hold and hid it for future discovery. Now, what to do with this embarrassment of brick? Useful for another purpose, to be a small path maybe, blanketed in snow and ice, to shift over time with vinca and snowbells poking through, to be buried again and uncovered years from now with yet again excited speculation.
If you were to turn the pages of old photo collections and see this cemetery in its early years, when the now towering firs were saplings and Eugene hills were bare knolls in a distance, you would see a growing place - vine maples taking root, mahonia building a name for itself (Oregon grape), blue bell carpets and probably poison oak digging a foot in, just because it can.
It is still a growing place, and claiming its verdant stronghold in our midst. Those dreaded "hundred-year storms rained down and passed on. What's a hundred years to a mountain, hill or to a fir or pine, or to a cemetery.

2017 Music To Die For 

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Music To Die For The 5th season of the popular music series will resume in June, 2017.    

June 25th: We'll start off with favorites, Linda Danielson & Janet Naylor, playing fiddle and Celtic Harp, respectively.

While schedules are not finalized yet, here are the performers for the rest of the season:

DK Stewart: Soft Blues 
Ensemble Primo Seicento: music of the early Baroque era 
Wild Hog in the Wood: Oregon Originals string band 
Jim Dotson and crew: bluegrass and whatever else suits them.

There will be more information later on the individual groups and how to find the Eugene Masonic Cemetery and Hope Abbey.

All Music To Die For programs at Hope Abbey Mausoleum are on the last Sundays of the Summer months, June through October. The concerts are free to the public. Programs begin at 2 PM.
Sincerely,
John Bredesen
eNewsletter Editor