At graveyard, a labor of undying love

KELLOGG – Before he was buried at Greenwood Cemetery in September 2004, Henry “Pape” Savage visited the hillside cemetery weekly to tend his relatives’ graves.

He weeded around the headstones and used scissors to trim the blades of grass – caring as meticulously for his loved ones’ burial plots as he did the yard of his Kellogg home.

Thanks to his wife, Millie Savage, Pape’s final resting place would certainly garner his approval. The 83-year-old woman, who described her husband as a perfectionist, used his estate to give the unkempt cemetery a generous makeover.

“I think my husband would be happy, looking down every 15 seconds and saying, ‘Wow,’ ” Millie Savage said.

The Greenwood Cemetery Beautification Project is the largest privately funded public works project in Kellogg’s history. A new wrought-iron gate flanked by stone walls greets visitors. Dirt roads have been paved, with curbs added in some areas. Weeds have been sprayed, giving way to green grass.

Flagpoles were erected surrounding the graves of Silver Valley military veterans, and Savage bought flags to fly in their honor.

Diseased trees were removed and replaced with healthy ones. Elegant rock terraces were installed, along with fresh landscaping and irrigation systems.

Savage spearheaded the improvements in the past 18 months and has more projects in mind for Greenwood Cemetery, including raising and reinstalling sunken and fallen headstones. A memorial park also is in the conceptual stages.

All along, the retired surgical nurse has worked quietly, trying to stay anonymous. She is reluctant to talk about the work she has funded and won’t say how much she has spent so far. The project, she said, is a labor of love and a way to give back to the community where she and Pape, a 30-year employee of the Bunker Hill smelter, spent their lives. They would have celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary this spring.

“He’d always say how peaceful it is up here,” Savage said Tuesday inside the entrance to the cemetery.

The words “Love is Eternal” are perched atop the iron gate. Nearby is a memorial dedicated to her husband. “No farewell words were spoken,” it reads. “No time to say goodbye/You were gone before I knew it/And only God knows why/Your Loving Wife, Millie.”

“It’s true,” she said Tuesday. “It happened that way. In the morning he was fine and that night he passed away.”

She wasn’t ready for her husband to go, and visits his grave often. “Almost every day – and I give him hell,” she said.

Millie Savage talks to him and said he speaks to her, too. Like when a single flower moves on a still day. Or once when the wind whooshed past her as she sought his advice.

Before she took on the cemetery restoration, Savage contacted Dan Pavelich, 62, of Spokane. Savage, who has no children, helped raise Pavelich – taught him to ride his bike and drive a car when he was a boy, growing up in Kellogg.

Pavelich and his wife, Sandy, also a Kellogg native, dedicated themselves to Savage’s vision for the cemetery. The three of them have spent hours there, cleaning and weeding and planting. They worked especially hard in the days before Memorial Day, Savage’s personal deadline for completing the project.

A break in the weather provided an opportunity for the cemetery roads to be paved just in time for the holiday. There was no formal dedication to celebrate the improvements – just the Paveliches and Savage and their own private ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Oradell Triplett, a 71-year-old member of the Shoshone County Genealogical Society, said the change at the cemetery is dramatic. “It’s just really beautified,” she said.

Triplett began doing an inventory of the graves in 1965 and continues to update the records. The oldest on record is that of an unnamed baby who died Aug. 12, 1893, just 1 year and 15 days old.

Triplett said the cemetery is also the burial ground of Noah Kellogg, the town’s namesake, and twin brothers True and Dennis Blake, who started the Sunshine Mine.

“Millie has done the community such a great service and she’s been so generous,” Triplett said.