Riverside Cemetery repairs at an impasse
While yellow caution tape has gone up and city crews have cleaned away much of the debris, it remains to be seen how much longer it will be until actual repair work can be done.
So much for the old adage “Rest In Peace.”
A retaining wall in Cloverdale’s historic Riverside Cemetery has crumbled and fallen over onto aging tombstones marking the final resting places of several town forefathers (and mothers).
Volunteer caretaker Will Layfield discovered the damage earlier this month and notified the City of Cloverdale, owners of the cemetery.
What steps will be taken to shore up the wall and re-stabilize it are unclear since there is no “cemetery fund” set aside to handle these kinds of emergencies.
City Engineer Paul Wade said they have taped off the area and City crews will be cleaning up the mess. Other than that, there are no repair plans in the works because there is no money in the budget.
For years, the cemetery has been plagued with sunken graves, broken headstones and damaged monuments. Folks in town chalked it up to the work of vandals, but according to Layfield’s brother, a geologist, there are two earthquake faults in the area, one on each side of the hill. The shifting ground has caused much of the damage.
Moles are another problem. They dig under the caskets, and when it rains, water washes out the soil, causing the ground above to sink and the headstones to topple.
Wade believes the retaining wall gave way due to its age and original poor construction more than anything else. “It was probably not unusual back then for people to just mix a little river water with concrete to build them. They certainly weren’t built to the standards we use today.”
If the wall comes down completely, any number of gravesites would suffer severe damage.
He further stated he didn’t think the services of a geologist would be required before repairs could be done. “We would probably only need a soils report of a retaining wall design.”
The tricky part is finding someone willing to take on this project.
Layfield and other volunteers have made significant progress in repairing many of the historic headstones, but they certainly don’t have the money needed for a soils report or the actual reconstruction of the wall.
Wade says he hopes some kind of fundraising effort can be launched, either by individuals or a local service club, to raise the needed money.
Cloverdale Mayor Bob Cox says he, too, hopes that a service group, along with the Historical Society, steps up and raises the funds necessary to both repair and maintain the cemetery.
“I have spoken to our City Manager and she has indicated there may be some grants available for historical cemeteries.” While that would help with the immediate problem, it may or may not help with the long-range one.
At the time the cemetery was constructed many years ago, the small retaining walls were strong enough to hold back the hillside, but as Mayor Cox noted, “Cement decays, earth moves, and the ground shakes, causing our current damage.”
Whether this latest problem is shifting earth, busy moles or just crumbling old retaining walls remains to be seen.
In the meantime, a significant part of Cloverdale’s history remains in grave danger of being lost forever if funds aren’t found to do the repairs before the rest of the retaining wall crumbles and even more tombstones are damaged or destroyed.
Would you be interested in helping with fundraising and/or repair efforts? Check out the latest Reader Poll on the Cloverdale TOWNS home page (http://cloverdale.towns.pressdemocrat.com/) and share your thoughts.
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This is a real and certainly needed project. Cloverdale is more than up to the task.of preserving our history. Thanks for the update.
The history, heritage and beauty of that hill is invaluable. The sacredness of the memories, love and faith found there are for us and future generations to preserve.
Well said Harry
Harry said it all, I agree whole heartedly with his post.
I believe here in Cloverdale, where we are a community that always pulls together when needed WILL raise the money & manpower to achieve this goal to fix the wall. If even half the people in Cloverdale donate $1 that should be more than enough to accomplish this VERY IMPORTANT task of repairing the wall to help preserve the headstones/graves that are in danger of an even bigger landslide, since a big section of the wall looks like it it ready to crumble at any time, thus ruining even more graves.
Yes I am willing to make a donation, & or help fix this, and I am sure many others would also.
Also a huge THANK YOU to Curtis W. & Dylan M. (City of Cloverdale) for all the work they have done so far.
It is truly sad to see our cemetery looking like this. There is so much history to preserve, and I’m sure that our city realizes the need to somehow fix this problem. I hope that someone will find it in their heart to start fundraising to help with the cemetery maintenance. I’m good for $100.00.
We have several ancestors buried in the Cloverdale cemetary and definitely want to preserve their resting place. My husband will be coming from Stockton this weekend to view the damage and see how we can help.
Went to the Cloverdale Historical Society on Friday and gave them a check to put in the cemetary fund. I know Cloverdale is up to the challenge of fixing this problem. This is the little town that can do whatever it set its mind to do. And this is very important to do.