Of Grave Concern -- Caretaker Hopes Cemetery Lore Won't Just Pass Away

El Hoffman could never figure out why kids liked his back yard so much.

Teenagers would have noisy drinking parties on his lawn, where they'd leave beer cans and other trash.

Sometimes they would bring dates to park and kiss under the moonlight right in front of Hoffman's neighbors. And even though the neighbors probably didn't mind too much, since they were all dead, Hoffman didn't like it.

For 25 years, Hoffman lived at the old Kirkland Cemetery, where he worked as a caretaker.

But last week, he and his wife, Rita, packed their bags and moved to Redmond to live with their daughter, who, along with a brother, grew up at the cemetery.

Since he left Kirkland, Hoffman, 80, wonders if anyone will take his place at the graveyard.

The job requires someone who will not only prune the trees, pick up dead flowers and open and close the gates, but also dig graves and help mourners find their loved ones - not an easy task if you don't know where to look.

Every year, just before Memorial Day, Hoffman used to lead the American Legion around the cemetery and show where soldiers were buried so they could plant a flag at each headstone. It took two hours to make it around the six-acre grounds where about 100 soldiers lay.

That kind of information isn't written anywhere. Hoffman has it locked away in his head..

And the Kirkland Cemetery has more than 100 years of history. Some of Kirkland's pioneers were laid to rest here: Obed Patty, the first police chief; Harry Everett, the first mayor; Marie Kirk Bell, the daughter of founder Peter Kirk.

Hoffman seems to know something about everyone buried in Kirkland.

He points to Baby Heaven, where tiny markers and headstones line the edge of the cemetery along 120th Avenue Northeast, and to a spot where a child was buried without any marker because it was either forgotten or too expensive.

That's why Hoffman hopes the people who do his job after him will know something about cemeteries before they begin.

"It pays to know what you're doing," he says.

"When I first got out there, you wouldn't give five cents for that cemetery."

It's true, said Lynn Stokesbary, who heads the Department of Parks and Recreation. "There were a lot of weeds and overgrown grass. El helped a lot in getting that cemetery in better condition."

Until two years ago, Hoffman was paid by the hour and was allowed to rent the white two-bedroom house on the property for $65 a month.

Then the city decided it didn't need a caretaker any longer and asked Hoffman to leave, according to Stokesbary.

In the end, he said, the city reconsidered and let Hoffman stay and rent the house for $300 a month.

Hoffman credits his former employer at an 85-acre cemetery in Menominee, Mich., with teaching him everything he knows about cemeteries. In Michigan, he learned that uniformity was key in maintaining a neat appearance. For example, he says, bodies and their headstones are always supposed to face east. Why?

"Because that's the way it's done," he says, before pointing to a row of westward-facing headstones near the entrance of the cemetery and shaking his head.

"Those are turned around the wrong way.

So what's wrong with a headstone facing west? "Well, people who bring flowers for relatives and loved ones end up putting them at some other guy's feet," says Hoffman with a laugh.

Then there's measuring to think about.

Each grave should be about the same distance apart from the next one, he says, and each headstone should be in line with the others in a row, not like the headstones in Kirkland where many rows take on more of a zig zag pattern.

The city doesn't have cemetary crew, which may explain some inconsistency, says Hoffman. "Where I worked in Michigan, we had a whole crew to mow the lawn, dig the graves, line everything up and work together."

In Kirkland, the city's Parks and Recreation Department oversees the cemetery.

Stokesbary said parks officials are working on a master plan to unify the older and newer parts of the cemetery. Plans call for expansion and a new fountain and columbarium walls for which construction could begin next year. Columbarium walls have niches for urns containing the ashes of cremated bodies.

The cemetery will expand into adjacent land to the northeast and into the land on which the caretaker's house now sits.

The house, built in 1923, was acquired by the city in 1938. The cemetery master plan calls for tearing down the house as early as July 1994 to make space for more graves.

But the plan isn't etched in stone. Stokesbary said the city will hire an outside consultant to look at the house this fall to determine whether it should be deemed a historical building, perhaps worthy of preserving.

Hoffman hopes the city will keep the house, where children used to come to the door and ask if Hoffman and his wife were afraid of ghosts.

The city doesn't plan to hire another caretaker but may try to find someone to stay at the house temporarily until officials decide what to do with it.