Stories In Stone The Headstones Of St. Joseph’s Cemetery Offer Clues To The Lives Of Valley Pioneers
St. Joseph’s Cemetery, an island of green grass and gray stone along busy Trent Avenue, is rich with pioneer history of its area.
Inscribed on gravestones are the names of those who founded Otis Orchards. Names like Pringle, Blessing, Cassidy, Clift, Dhaenens, Sweeney, Corrigan.
About 500 people are expected to visit the historic cemetery on Memorial Day. An outdoor Mass is scheduled at 10 a.m.
The cemetery was founded in 1891. Monday’s visitors will include descendents of the first Otis Orchards settlers.
Jim Clift, 65, is one of the descendents. “You could write a history book on the people buried there,” says Clift, also a board member of the Cemetery Association of Spokane.
His father’s side of the family arrived in Otis Orchards in 1895 from Kansas. His mother’s family, the Cassidys, arrived 16 years later.
“(My grandmother) moved here in 1911 from Minnesota, she and her husband,” Clift says, remembering Jane and Patrick Cassidy. “They bought some land right on Wellesley and raised apples.”
At St. Joseph’s, it’s easy to spot the older headstones. Most of the older graves have vertical headstones, the style popular 100 years ago.
Some inscriptions hint at the lives of the pioneers.
The headstone of James McLaughlin reads “Born in the Co. of Rosecommon, Ireland.” According to the book “Otis Orchards: The First Fifty Years” by Mary Hanly Berglund, McLaughlin donated the land for the cemetery. He died at age 73.
His 1892 funeral Mass was the first celebrated in the original St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, which burned down in 1928.
Nearby, the headstone of Joseph C. Rauscher, who died in 1897, is inscribed entirely in German. Many Otis Orchards pioneers came from Minnesota, members of German immigrant families.
The parish of St. Joseph church took care of the cemetery until 1992, when the Diocese of Spokane took over its management. Although the parish moved to a new church on Arden Road in 1995, the small brick chapel built next to the cemetery in 1929 remains and still is used for funerals.
Members of the St. Joseph parish want the place well tended and look forward to the restoration of the landmark shrine.
Its hillside stonework, walkways, and even a miniature castle beyond, were built by Henry Arbes in the 1950s.
“He worked on it for years,” remembers Cecelia Hansen, 74. “He never gave up. And he was a very frail person, tall and thin.”
Hansen - whose maiden name is Blessing, a pioneer family - says Arbes was her father’s cousin. Arbes, she remembers, began working in 1955. It was dedicated a year later, but Arbes worked on the project six years.
He was a retired painter at the Navy Supply Depot, and had no masonry experience. Arbes travelled all over the West and even into Mexico to get ideas, Hansen says.
“What was so wonderful about it, was that was so much hard work that not many people would have done for nothing,” Hansen says. “He’s buried (at St. Joseph) now, too.”
Now many of the statues need cleaning. The stones that make up the grotto are coming loose. An old fountain that fronts the one-room castle has run dry.
“I’d definitely like to see them fix the roof on that castle,” Hansen says. The roof has caved in. “You should have seen it when it was first done.”
Even now, the small castle, with its two worn turrets, radiates a weathered beauty.
But Dennis Fairbank, general manager of Catholic Cemeteries of Spokane, says that building may have to be torn down. It could collapse.
He plans on restoring the rest of the shrine, hopefully within the next six years. “It’s a long-term, step-bystep kind of process,” Fairbank says.
He intends to buy new statuary. Some existing statuary will be painted - some are bronze, some are white. Fairbank wants them to match.
Masons will be hired to rebuild the crumbling stone walls.
St. Joseph is very much a functioning cemetery. Of its 38 acres, 18 acres are still undeveloped. Fairbank says there are 1,778 graves there now, and 1,500 spaces are available on the developed land. The undeveloped portion, a field to the west of the church, could accommodate another 1,800 spaces.
“It’ll take a lot of doing,” says board member Clift, as he climbs the hill toward the grotto, past a carved wooden sign warning of rattlesnakes.
But he says the restoration is important to him, and the pioneer families of Otis Orchards.
“It’s part of our faith, you might say.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 3 Photos (2 Color)
MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Memorial Day activities around Valley On Memorial Day at Spokane Valley cemeteries: Pines Cemetery, 1402 S. Pines, will have a flag raising and gun salute ceremony at noon. Members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Post 1435, will conduct the gun salute. St. Joseph’s Cemetery, 17825 E. Trent, will have Mass at 10 a.m. at the outdoor altar offered by the Rev. Dick Hemenway of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church. Prior to the Mass, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Post 1435, will conduct a brief ceremony honoring all veterans who died in the line of duty. Chester Community Cemetery, 44th and Bates, isn’t having a special holiday ceremony, although a flag will be raised over the cemetery. Last week, about 15 people participated in a cleanup effort, said Wendy Johnson, president of the Chester Community Cemetery Association. The once-abandoned and overgrown cemetery, dating to 1901, is slowly being restored. Last year a flower planter was built at the cemetery entrance by Boy Scout Troop 410, which meets at Redeemer Lutheran Church. In coming months, the front entrance will also be restored with lumber and gravel. Lumber from last year’s tree removal will be given to the Spokane Valley Center for use as fuel. Johnson said by fall the cemetery will be open again for plot purchases.