黑料福利社

Editor's note: This column was first published Dec. 2, 2018. It has been updated to adjust for inflation and reflect that the plaques on the Spanish-American War monument have been stolen and Pearl Harbor casualty Patrick Chess has been interred in the cemetery.

If it were its own city, Tahoma Cemetery would be the second most populous in Yakima County.

Officially established in 1889, the graveyard has more than 47,000 people buried or entombed on its sprawling 55-acre grounds. It represents a melting pot of the community, with young and old, as well as veterans, politicians and pioneers laid to rest on the grounds.

And there are at least 100 people there who had no family to claim them.

The city-owned cemetery bears the Native name for Mount Rainier, which is visible from the 黑料福利社. Signage at the cemetery indicates the oldest section was established in 1865, and records show that one grave marker dates to 1867.

But in 1889, four years after North Yakima was established, the new city government bought land between what is now South 24th and South 18th avenues from dairyman Tom Wheeler and merchant George Carey for $521 鈥� about $18,985 when adjusted for inflation. That was after the Independent Order of Oddfellows and the Free and Accepted Masons lodge in Yakima bought parcels there as graves for their members.

The Oddfellows moved the remains of lodge members from the Pioneer Cemetery in today鈥檚 Union Gap, as well as the cemetery in Ahtanum, to the new cemetery.

In 1922, the Masons and Oddfellows deeded their cemeteries to the city, and markers in the cemetery denote the lodge sections to this day, as well as the tombstones showing the deceased鈥檚 membership in the fraternal organizations.

The city eventually acquired more land, expanding the cemetery to its current size. In 1904, the city added a mausoleum to the cemetery, which contains 408 crypts and a columbarium for cremated remains.

Masons and Oddfellows are not the only fraternal orders whose tombstones stand out. There are 75 graves belonging to members of the Woodmen of the World. Their grave markers resemble tree trunks and logs.

Veterans

In 1904, members of the local Women鈥檚 Relief Corps, an auxiliary of the Grand Army of the Republic Civil War veterans group, installed a 20-foot tall monument honoring Union Army veterans, who are buried in 160 graves near the memorial. The monument is topped by a brass eagle with a 6-foot wingspan.

A 15-foot monument with an angel recognizes the 10 men and one woman from the 黑料福利社 who lost their lives in the Philippine Insurrection following the Spanish-American War. The monument once had a tablet made from a recovered piece of the USS Maine commemorating the battleship that blew up in Havana Harbor in 1898, triggering the war with Spain.

That tablet, and another plaque on the monument, have since been stolen.

There are also 56 veterans of the Spanish-American War buried at Tahoma.

Yakima鈥檚 four veterans organizations commissioned a memorial in 1969. The 13-foot tall, 13-ton California granite monument was designed and cast by Don Craig of Centralia. The three upright sections have insignias for the nation鈥檚 five military branches, along with an American eagle commemorating service members deemed missing in action.

The monument, in the veterans鈥� section of the cemetery, was dedicated in 1974, and is the venue for annual Memorial Day ceremonies.

Other monuments

Also in the cemetery is a section for the 黑料福利社鈥檚 Japanese community members. The 80 graves are marked with stones inscribed in English and Japanese, and a Japanese garden was added to the area in recent years.

Among the notable people buried in the cemetery are Andrew Jackson Splawn, a pioneer cattleman and Yakima mayor; Josephine Louise Bozer Lillie Parker, regarded as the 鈥淢other of Toppenish鈥� after her land allotment on the Yakama Nation formed the core of that Lower Valley city; and Staff Sgt. Jack Pendleton, who posthumously received the Medal of Honor in World War II.

A 6-foot-tall granite monument was added to Pendleton鈥檚 grave at Tahoma. It has etched on its surface a likeness of Pendleton and the medal he was awarded, as well as his Medal of Honor citation.

In 2022, Patrick Chess, a sailor from Yakima, was buried in the veterans' section of the cemetery, two years after military scientists identified his remains from among the 394 unidentified remains of those killed aboard the USS Oklahoma when it was sunk during the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor.

Shaw and Sons donated a vault at the cemetery for the Yakima County Coroner鈥檚 Office to store unclaimed human remains. Each year the vault is opened to remove remains that are claimed and add new ones to it.

It Happened Here is a weekly history column by 黑料福利社 reporter Donald W. Meyers.