Local history kept among the dead

In life, Monrad Wallgren was a champion billiards player, close friend to President Truman and Washington governor from 1945 to 1949.

In death, he is remembered by a small red stone marker with a modest inscription: "Mon Wallgren 1891-1961."

"It's a simple headstone," said David Dilgard, a local historian in the Everett Public Library's Northwest Room. "Here's a guy who had Harry Truman come stay in his house in Everett."

So go the stories of the Evergreen Cemetery, Everett's oldest operating graveyard, where more than 60,000 people have been buried since it was established in 1898. It's a place with so many stories that is has become the site of a popular annual walking tour, which will be offered Saturday, just in time for Halloween.

The cemetery is the burial place of many of the county's notables, including four governors, U.S. Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson and pilot Topliffe Olin Paine, for whom Paine Field is named.

The remains of Jane Morris Rucker and her sons, Wyatt and Bethel Rucker, members of one of Everett's founding families, are entombed in an austere granite pyramid on a hill that overlooks the older section of the graveyard.

Also buried here are two of the seven men killed during the 1916 Everett Massacre, a confrontation between the Industrial Workers of the World and the Snohomish County sheriff and his posse.

A group of historians began leading walking tours through the cemetery, with its lofty maple, elm, cypress and birch trees that hang over the tombstones.

"You could tell the whole story of the community, walking through here," Dilgard said.

Dilgard will again lead the public tour through the cemetery at 11 a.m. Saturday. Helping to conduct the tour will be fellow local historian Jack O'Donnell, who can take visitors through portions of the cemetery used as a backdrop for the 1995 movie "Assassins," starring Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Banderas.

Vicki Rosenau, a local historian with a green thumb, will tell tour participants about the cemetery's trees, some of which are the largest specimens in the state. A copper beech and a European white elm in the cemetery are "state champions" — the largest trees of their species in terms of height, canopy spread and base — that have been found in Washington.

"It's a parklike setting, so many of the specimens here were able to grow without being severely pruned," Rosenau said. "They were left to grow naturally, so you have some absolutely gigantic specimens."

It's not uncommon for people to walk through the cemetery to enjoy the view, O'Donnell said.

"I think for the people who live around here, the cemetery is a beautiful place," he said. "There are so many stories here ... and people who became famous. You can see [the grave sites of] Everett's first doctor and principal — all kinds of people who tell the story of the city's history."

Of course, many of the stories at the cemetery end in tragedy, Dilgard said during a recent visit.

Two victims of the Wellington train disaster are buried at the cemetery. Lewis Walker and Sydney Jones were killed March 1, 1910, when an avalanche buried a passenger train stopped on the tracks near the town of Wellington, high up in the Cascade Mountains. Nearly 100 people died.

"It was the worst loss of human life in a railroad disaster up to that point," Dilgard said.

Then there are the stories that have a lighter ending.

There is the grave of William Mescher, 1867-1905, who, at his request, was buried on a soft-cushioned sofa.

"So, of course, there are jokes made about him being the eternal couch potato," Dilgard said.

Then there is Eileen Rubatino, who died in 1988. Hers is perhaps the drollest epitaph in the cemetery:

"I told you I was sick."

Rachel Tuinstra: 425-783-0674 or rtuinstra@seattletimes.com