Cemetery District accepts ownership of Mt. Baker Cemetery
By COLLEEN ARMSTRONG
Islands Sounder Web site editor, Editor
August 6, 2009 · 3:49 PM
It seems the residents of the Mount Baker Cemetery have been pushing up daisies faster than the caretakers can mow them down.
Which is one reason why the Orcas Island Cemetery Association, a nonprofit organization that has operated the Mount Baker Cemetery since 1891, has gifted the land to San Juan County Cemetery District #3.
“We're getting a little old to get out there and mow a few times a week,” said Peggy Nicol, who is co-director of the association with her husband Fred. For the past three decades the couple has maintained the property, which is located on Mt. Baker Road immediately west of Buck Park. It was originally named the Orcas Island Cemetery.
Last month, members of the association turned the cemetery over to the district, which has managed the Woodlawn Cemetery on West Beach Road since 1985.
“I think it's a great opportunity for the district to take on all the history that is there,” board chair Pierrette Guimond said. “Since I've been a cemetery commissioner, I've realized how important it is to maintain the cemeteries and their history.”
Cemetery clerk Scott Miller says they were able to accept the offer because “we've been so efficient with the other cemetery that we can afford to take this on. We won't have to ask to raise taxes.”
Fred is the last generation of his family to caretake the property; his dad managed it before he took over. Fred and his wife plan to be buried in the cemetery next to their family members.
The district's first order of business is to update the Mount Baker Cemetery's records to digital files, as it did for Woodlawn. That information is now available at the cemetery, the Orcas Library, and the Orcas Library website. Last year, the district installed 100 markers in Woodlawn to identify plots without headstones.
Guimond says organizing the Mount Baker records will be much easier because most of the plots have identification. Of even more help is a photo album of every headstone; the book was put together by Martha Truax and Bruce Anderson in 2007.
The two and half acres that encompass the Mount Baker Cemetery are not fully developed, but it is only accepting urn interments at this time. Woodlawn has space for both full burials and urns.
Orcas Cemeteries
There are three cemeteries on Orcas: Mount Baker, Woodlawn, and the Olga Cemetery, which is run by a private association. Island residents can only be buried in Olga if they lived east of Mt. Baker Road at the time of their death.
For information about the Woodlawn and Mount Baker Cemeteries, call 360-472-1573.
Contact Islands Sounder Web site editor, Editor Colleen Armstrong at editor@islandssounder.com or (360) 376-4500.Comment on this story.
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