Family History Stolen When Headstone Taken

When vandals tipped over almost 100 grave markers at the Peone Cemetery in March, Jean Baker went there as soon as possible to check on her relatives.

All of those grave markers were fine, undisturbed by the people who pulled up flowers, scrawled graffiti and destroyed mementos such as children’s teddy bears at the cemetery.

When Baker went back in late April, the disturbed gravestones had been set back up by volunteers from the community, the Washington Monument Co. and Tresko Monument.

But her uncle’s gravestone was gone. No other headstones had been disturbed.

“It’s just plain missing,” Baker said last week, as she stood over the hole where the marker used to sit.

The gravestone was the third oldest marker in the cemetery, which holds at least 1,200 graves. The cemetery, set off Bruce Road near Day-Mount Spokane Road, is more than 100 years old.

John Perry Scribner died April 9, 1894, after drowning in a drainage creek winding down from Owens Lake, north of Chattaroy. He was two years, one month and two days old.

Baker had recently had a painting of John Perry redone for her daughter’s birthday. The painting, with a gilded frame, shows a baby boy with blue eyes.

Baker’s family is important to her. Most of her history is enclosed in Peone Cemetery - five generations, at least. Her younger brother and her grandparents are buried near John Perry. Her husband’s family is in another spot. Her plot is in another corner.

All her life, Baker has come to Peone Cemetery, bringing plants to her family’s markers and watering the area. She grew up in Chattaroy and now lives in Colbert.

“I’ve come out here all of my life, as long as I remember,” said Baker, as she pulled the grass from around her younger brother’s marker. “It was always a family event.”

She wants to know where the missing marker is. She fears that whoever took it thinks that the boy’s relatives are no longer around. She fears that someone might plant the marker in a yard for Halloween.

Baker has called the Spokane Sheriff’s Department. The department’s stolen property room did have a headstone - but it wasn’t John Perry’s.

Baker wants the thieves to return it.

“How can people ever go back and trace their ancestors if they destroy the cemeteries?” Baker said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo