What’s Happening in Evergreen Cemetery?

This glorious 70-degree day has my thoughts wandering up East Beecher Hill. If you haven’t been up to the Evergreen Cemetery since Tony Barnhart from Tri-County Tree Service cleared the slope below the SaSaNa monument, get in your car, put on your hiking boots, and get up there! The restored view is glorious.

The Friends of Evergreen are going to be at work next weekend (Saturday, April 27, 9 a.m. to noon) picking up branches, raking leaves, and generally cleaning up the cemetery in anticipation of the mowing season. We’d love to have you join us. If you can’t make it next Saturday, we have scheduled work days on May 4 and 18, June 22, July 20, Aug. 17, Sept. 19, and Oct. 19.

Last year began a new era for our treasured Park and Cemetery. The new Village Board has set Jeff Soules and his hard-working crew free to make substantial improvements. Those of you who have been up in Evergreen have seen the big new drain pipes being installed. Jeff’s crew is already up there finishing the job of burying the pipes and landscaping. 

This will be followed by a rebuilding of the walls along the roads. The capstones were saved and the walls will be rebuilt from the road level up. The culverts along the roads will be cleared and then lined with stone. This work will be ongoing and requires heavy equipment – so be patient since it is unlikely the roads will be repaved until 2020.

We were busy during the winter writing a Cultural Landscape Survey Grant request. Great thanks to Elaine Jardine, in the County Economic Development and Planning office, for doing the lion’s share of the work. The grant is to pay for a plan to restore, maintain, and improve the Cemetery. The Plan will have both historic conservation and practical suggestions. It will be written by a landscape architect, a woman from Ithaca; who in addition to her landscape and historical credentials, is a specialist in stormwater mitigation. The plan is not to second-guess the work that Jeff Soules does, he knows what he is doing. These planning grants help us prioritize and are an essential step on the road to securing larger rehabilitation grants. 

Thank you to the County Historian Emma Sedore, the Master Gardeners, the Owego Rotary Club, the Owego Kiwanis Club, the Cemetery Committee, the Owego Historic Preservation Advisory Committee, and not least the Tioga County Historical Society, all of who wrote spectacular letters of support for this grant application. 

At the last several Cemetery Committee meetings a novel plan was discussed. This will require public discussion and Village Board approval but I wanted to start the discussion since good ideas and suggestions always come from your feedback.

As background, in 2000 the Village purchased around 1,300 feet of property along the ridgeline East of the SaSaNa monument. While the Southerly part is the continuation of the steep slope, North and East of the Monument is a large flat area slightly higher, and thus drier, than the area around the Gazebo. Think about that new area cleared of trees, as a parking and picnic area. Think of picnicking with the best view in the Southern Tier! Think of being able to park your car in a proper lot and following the newly revised walking tour map through the serene beauty of Evergreen. Also think about this as a restoration of Evergreen whose original purpose was as a park and picnic area in addition to a burying ground.

Nadine Bigsby in her letter supporting the grant above reminded us of British Prime Minister Ewart Gladstone’s words, “Show me the manner in which … a community cares for its dead, and I will measure … the tender mercies of its people … and their loyalty to high ideals.” Come join us in Evergreen.