The Wahkiakum County Eagle - Established as The Skamokawa Eagle in 1891

To The Eagle:

My husband and I prepare every year for our annual visit to our local cemetery. To prepare we load fresh cut ferns, cut flowers, along with a scrub brush, hand grass clippers, rags, cleaning solution, two gallons of water and a large screwdriver to remove the upside down vase that is in front of the headstone (usually it is stuck because moles have pushed dirt inside the vase.) When we get the vase out we have to clean inside as the dirt is packed in it. We brush dirt off the stones, wash using the scrub brush, rinse the headstone, trim grass around the base, use cleaner on the headstone and a rag to wipe it off. The process took about 30 minutes. Now we are ready to arrange the flowers in the containers.

There is a great ending to this story. This year when we got to the cemetery, Sunday about noon, we were overwhelmed with how the grounds looked so beautiful. We realized every headstone had been power washed, grass trimmed and cleaned around the cement base, flower containers were upright and cleaned out. Lots of larger flags were placed on veterans’ stones. We did not need any of our supplies and it took us 10 minutes to arrange the flowers on four headstones. A huge thank you to our cemetery crew who took a lot of time to make it look so amazingly beautiful; we very much appreciated the extra effort.

Tony and Carol Danker

Cathlamet