Meyers Falls Cemetery: preserving history and providing solace

By Liv Stecker

 January 31st, 1916, the Meyers Falls Cemetery was incorporated in what is now Kettle Falls, Washington. At the time, the scenic town high above the Columbia River was called Meyers Falls, founded by Louther Meyers and his family in 1869. In 1898 the cemetery was founded as a place to lay members of the Meyers family to rest. The railroad moved into town in 1890, bringing with it the industry and prosperity that Meyers and other settlers in the area had been working toward for decades. More people migrated into the area, and in the early 1940s as work was completed on the Grand Coulee Dam, residents of the soon-to-be submerged town of Kettle Falls relocated up the hill and absorbed the small town of Meyers Falls right into their industrial boom.

But the Meyers Falls Cemetery retained it’s name and descendants of the Meyers family that settled there donated the land to the association, which is now a non-profit organization, managed primarily by volunteers and operating on a shoestring, donation based budget to keep the history of Meyers Falls alive - or at least safely buried. More than 1500 graves make up the historic graveyard, including many graves that were relocated to the site from other cemeteries that were submerged when the Grand Coulee Dam was constructed. While the board and volunteers have worked hard to restore and maintain records, due to time, the names of some interred graves are unknown.

 The all-volunteer board is made up entirely of family members of plot holders that are interred in the historic cemetery. Recently, the board voted to approve urn burial and there is a section plotted out in the cemetery for that purpose. Located at West 7th Avenue and Ivy Street In Kettle Falls, the cemetery provides a resting place for generations of local residents that have passed on, as well as the occasional visitor.

 Last year, an attorney from California contacted the President of the Board, Rosie Carr, on behalf of a Mr. Charles Pence of California, a veteran of the Vietnam War, who had no living family. He had traveled through this area years ago, and liked it so much that he wanted Meyers Falls Cemetery to be his final resting place. In the spring of 2016 his ashes were delivered to Kettle Falls and the board and the VFW were present to honor him and pay respects when he was laid to rest.

Eileen Kaiser began decorating the historical site for Memorial Day many years ago. Several years ago she was joined by local high school students and other volunteers to expedite the process that had taken weeks in the past. Melinda Langrehr, a teacher from Kettle Falls High School, has been coordinating the service with students for eight years. Eileen says she believes vandalism in the cemetery is down because of the growing local awareness of the significance of the place.

Eileen has a special interest in honoring Memorial Day at the cemetery: her brother, Robert Brown, was the first United States Military Service Member killed in action in Vietnam to be buried there. John Sparks was also killed in action and laid to rest in the graveyard, making little Kettle Falls, Washington one of the highest loss-per-capita towns in the United States during the Vietnam War.  

 This year when the volunteers gathered to decorate the cemetery, the board provided refreshments as they worked.  Howard Kaiser was on hand as always with his four-wheeler to move the boxes and clean up branches and rubbish on clean-up day.  The members of Kettle Falls Veterans of Foreign Wars were there to make sure that every known veteran, as well as  parents of veterans, had a flag on their grave. Local resident and board member Linda Cancel says the cemetery holds a very personal connection for her. Her sister, who died as a child is buried in the cemetery. Recently, she joined other volunteers and high school students to place flags and flowers on the graves for Memorial Day.

 “When I was about eight, I would take my friends to the cemetery to 'visit' my sister.” Cancel says, “Yesterday, I walked with a small group toward my family's area with the pink tree.  I thanked them and spoke of how this was personal to me.  One of the girls reacted because she remembered from last year the stone with the bird and angel.” Cancel goes on to talk about the impact that the historic cemetery has had on many of the visiting students.

 “One boy opened up and showed me where his infant brother was buried.  His buddy told me that his parents lost a baby before he was born, and that his mother doesn't talk about it.  I told him that even though he was not yet born, he still lives with parents who mourn...and that I was sorry. One of the other adults said that a student was honored to place a flag on the grave of a Navy Seal. My heart fills when I see how much beauty, comfort, and solace that people find in this special place.” Cancel says.

 Meyers Falls Cemetery is funded largely by donations and grants. If you are interested in supporting the historic preservation going on at the landmark, contact the Association at (509) 738-6768. You can also find more information on the Facebook page of the Meyers Falls Cemetery Association.

Message in a bottle: communication beyond borders

 By Liv Stecker

 The banks of rivers are often the keepers of secrets and mysteries that wash down from upstream civilizations and plant themselves in the gravel and mud somewhere along the way.  From human bones to ancient tools, riverbanks and shorelines are some of the best places to find unexpected treasures. Steve Buchholz stumbled across something he never expected on the banks of the Kettle River earlier this spring as the flood waters began to recede. It was a bottle, sealed from the turbulent waters of the spring-runoff engorged flow of the tributary river. Steve found it near Kamloops Islands, just before the Kettle River spills into the Mighty Columbia and becomes absorbed in Lake Roosevelt. Inside the bottle was a rolled up piece of paper.

Steve and his wife Michelle carefully opened the bottle and unrolled the paper, now yellowed with exposure to sunlight refracted through the glass of the bottle. The note, scratched in crayon between word-search puzzles torn out of a subscription magazine, was from nearly six years ago, and entirely different country.

 "Hi my name is Jeremy Peter - I am 8 years old - I live in Lake Country , BC - we are camping at the Little Dipper Hideaway Campground.”  it reads. Steve and Michelle turned to social media to track down the sender of the message, and after more than 100 shares on Facebook, someone in Kelowna, British Columbia, tagged Anita Peter, Jeremy’s mom.

“Steve went walking on the Kettle River beach and found this bottle, brought it home unopened. When we opened it, on the backside of a crossword puzzle page was a msg. So Please share this maybe we will find Jeremy Peter, 8 at the time, who lives or lived in Lake Country BC and let him know we found his msg. (expiration date of the paper was 2011 so we know it’s approximately that old ),” the Facebook post read. Michelle was able to make the post public so that it could be shared more widely and a friend posted it to a buy, sell and trade page in Kelowna. After they made contact with Anita, Michelle updated the post:

“UPDATE: We found Jeremy! His mom contacted me and left a comment, will close this tomorrow. We would like to thank each and everyone of you for sharing and helping us find little Jeremy , Very short journey but exciting nonetheless,3 Yay!!”

On May 11, Anita commented on the Buchholz’ post:

“That's hilarious. That is Jeremy Peter's bottle, my son. We have a yearly site at the Little Dipper and decided to send a message in a bottle one afternoon. Very cool!” Michelle sent Anita a message and got the full story behind the bottle.  Anita told the Buchholz’ that Jeremy had indeed dropped that bottle and a few more in 2008 when they were camping in their usual summer spot at the Little Dipper Hideaway. She voiced disappointment at first that the bottle had been rediscovered still in the Kettle River, until she realized that the Buchholz found the bottle at the very southern end of the Kettle, nearly 100 winding river miles south of the campground, and in the U.S.!

After tracking down the Peter family, Michelle was amused to discover that Anita is good friends with one of her cousins.

“It’s such a small world, really,” Michelle laughs. She says lucky things like this happen to her husband a lot. “Steve is always finding stuff and having lucky things happen to him. He’s just that kind of guy!” but according to Steve, a message in a bottle was the last thing he expected to find as the flood waters receded from the banks he likes to wander. Steve and Michelle plan to return the bottle and note to Jeremy so he can keep it as a souvenir, a reminder that long journeys and international borders can take you to new places, with a little time.