As cities grow, cemeteries fill up. But a new garden at Lone Fir Cemetery offers new choices to people who want that 167-year-old cemetery to be their final resting place.
At 5 p.m. June 27, Metro is sponsoring a celebratory "re-opening" event to introduce the new Chestnut Grove Memorial Garden at Lone Fir. Chestnut Grove will offer families that choose cremation a chance to leave their legacy in a unique way at one of the region’s most scenic cemeteries.
A study conducted for Metro by the Cemetery Planning Resource Alliance suggested that as much as 78 percent of people will choose cremation by 2015. Metro cemeteries manager Rachel Fox said that Oregon is among the top five states for people choosing cremation as an option.
The memorial garden will be built in two phases. In the first phase, 210 cremation interment sites will be made available.
The footprint of cremation is about half a square foot per person, versus 40 inches by 9 feet for a full-body burial.
"It's forward-thinking in terms of land use," Fox said.
The reopening event is scheduled to include remarks from Metro councilors Bob Stacey and Shirley Craddick, as well as former Gov. Barbara Roberts. Friends of Lone Fir will be conducting informational tours of the cemetery, and the Community Music Center's madrigal ensemble and Portland Actors Ensemble will hold performances.
Friends of Lone Fir and the Lone Fir Cemetery Foundation will also be on hand to share information about efforts to preserve this nationally recognized cemetery.
Metro will provide lemonade and cookies. Visitors to this free event can bring a picnic and blanket to sit and enjoy the entertainment, learn stories about historic Oregonians buried at Lone Fir, and learn more about options for purchasing a space in the memorial garden.
Metro suspended sales in 2009 at the 30-acre cemetery, as Metro began reorganizing its cemetery program. As part of the reorganization, Metro has been creating new policies and sorting through records, handed down through the cemetery's 167-year history of being privately operated, abandoned, adopted by Multnomah County, and finally passed onto Metro in 1994.
With more than 25,000 people already interred at Lone Fir, it was time to find a creative solution to deal with continued demand for services.
"Lone Fir is on the National Register of Historic Places; it was 'the' cemetery for downtown Portland when the city was being built," Fox said. "It's a really special place. Almost every day, we get a call from someone who wants to be buried or remembered at Lone Fir in some way."
Since 2009, Fox said, the cemeteries program has kept a waiting list of such requests.
Years later, some of those waiting will finally get the opportunity to reserve their place in Lone Fir's history.