Volunteers work to preserve Lone Pine Cemetery

Stones litter a hill behind the Little Brown Church, many forgotten, overgrown by bushes and worn down by the weather.

But those who visit Lone Pine Cemetery know that those old stones tell a story.

“I look at it as kind of the family album of Bigfork,” Carol Beck-Edgar said.

Beck-Edgar is a member of the Lone Pine Cemetery Association, a volunteer group that runs Bigfork’s oldest cemetery.

The cemetery was established in April 1899 when a warranty deed was issued for the site. The Lone Pine Cemetery Association was formed in 1917. Last fall, local community members got together and reorganized the cemetery association, with the hopes of revitalizing the cemetery and to remind people what’s there.

 and it’s not full.

Barbara Potts helped reorganize the cemetery association after deciding improvements and regular maintenance was needed. Many of Potts relatives are buried in the cemetery and she often stops by to visit their graves.

“We want to get it all cleaned up again,” she said. “There’s a lot of history here of all the old times.”

Last fall after reorganizing, the group spent two days cleaning the cemetery.

“It looks tons better now than it did last year,” Potts said.

Besides taking care of general maintenance the group has plans to help improve the cemetery’s organization. 

Darlene Dobrocke has been compiling an alphabetical list of all of the people buried in the Lone Pine Cemetery. The Association hopes to have the list, along with an accurate map available at through signage at the cemetery, and possibly at the Bigfork Museum of Art and History, to make it easier for family members to find the grave they are looking for.

Dobrocke said it has been interesting to go through and learn about the people buried at Lone Pine.

She said the oldest grave is from 1871. There are also many names in the cemetery that are familiar to Bigfork, as well as some whose families haven’t lived in the area for a long time. There are also quite a few infants and children.

There are also some grave makers that are now so hard to read, she said they may never know who is buried there.

Besides adding signage, the association also plans to build a new access road, coming off the road that will go to the new county owned Bigfork trash site.

The other goal for the association is education and awareness.

Beck-Edgar said one common misconception about Lone Pine Cemetery is that it is affiliated with the Little Brown Church. She said while that may have been the case at some point in history, perhaps when the church was a different church, that is no longer the case. The cemetery is independent. 

Another misconception she said is that the cemetery is full. There are still about 900 plots available in the cemetery. Plots cost $150.

To help make their visions for the cemetery a reality the Lone Pine Cemetery Assocation is sponsoring a “Picnic for Lone Pine Cemetery,” on Friday May 15 from 5 to 8 p.m. in the Swan River Hall.

The fundraiser will include a barbecue dinner, live and silent auctions and music. The cost is $15 for adults and $5 for children ten and under.

On May 16 volunteers will gather at the Cemetery to do some spring cleaning of the site.

The group also hopes to have some summer work days to maintain the cemetery.

“You want to have it nice for the people that are here,” Beck-Edgar said.