A solemn but celebratory ceremony is just about to start at Fort Steilacoom Park in Lakewood, Washington.
People donning raincoats and carrying umbrellas make their way into the Western State Hospital Memorial Cemetery, where a nonprofit, the Grave Concerns Association, has been working for over two decades to add names to the cemetery’s gravestones.
During the ceremony on Saturday, the group placed what they believe is the last gravestone. It was for a man named Thomas Fedrickson, who died in 1890.
For decades, only numbers marked the gravestones. At the time, there was a state law that if someone died at a mental institution, their grave wouldn't be named.
The hospital stopped burying people there in 1953. In total, 3,218 people are buried at the Western State Hospital Memorial Cemetery.
“ They were buried anonymously under the false value of embarrassing the living,” said Fred Fellers, a volunteer with Grave Concerns.
'They lived lives'
For years, the cemetery was not widely known about.
It sits in a large, grass-covered field dotted with Garry oak trees and is surrounded by a low, wooden fence. It's across the road from where the hospital still stands.
Two decades ago, some employees of the hospital didn't even know it existed. That included Laurel Lemke, who first learned about the cemetery while she was working at Western State in 2000.
Around that time, another hospital employee wanted to bring attention to the cemetery with a ceremony. But grass and moss had grown up, and leaves covered the small numbered grave markings.
“When they came out here, they couldn't find anything,” said Larae Liddle, another volunteer with Grave Concerns. “And so they actually had an activity, the patients volunteered to come out, and they came and found all the numbered stones. And that was how it got started.”
Lemke, along with others, formed the Grave Concerns Association to try and restore dignity to the people who were buried at Western State Hospital.
The nonprofit obtained records from the hospital, including a map of the cemetery and corresponding names for many of the numbers marking the gravestones. They went so far as to change the state law in 2004 so that they could place the names of the people buried on their graves.
“ They lived lives. They were lawyers and doctors and teachers and loggers and farmers,” Liddle said. “A lot of them had children, and so they lived their life before.”
There were about 50 people who weren’t identified in the original hospital records, so Liddle combed through more records to find out who they were.
“ I went through every Pierce County, Washington, death certificate from 1907 to 1953, when they stopped burying people here, and was able to find somebody for all the missing spots,” Liddle said.
The effort has taken over 20 years, and was funded mostly through donations and fundraising efforts through bazaars, dahlia sales and restaurant takeovers.
When a new gravestone is placed, it includes the person’s name and year of death. If it’s recorded, the group will also include the birth year. The original number marking stays to honor the history of the site.
About 50 people gathered to watch the ceremony, which included music, speeches and the placement of the final gravestone.
“ We are all joined and unified in the idea that every person is a name, not just a number,” said Ralf Kalms, a retired pastor from Lakewood’s Christ Lutheran Church, during Saturday’s invocation.
The Grave Concerns Association will continue to maintain and preserve the cemetery.
