Keeping the Faith: Guerneville’s Cemetery Tour
The Russian River historian who founded the cemetery walk in Guerneville is now the final stop on the tour
By Bob Jones
The Sebastopol Times always covers Sebastopol’s Cemetery Walk in October. Turns out Guerneville has something similar put on by the Russian River Historical Society, though it involves storytelling rather than dramatizations. Our guest columnist, Bob Jones, was one of the storytellers this year.
Last Saturday, Oct. 18, the Russian River Historical Society hosted its Annual Tour of the Pioneer Cemetery in Guerneville. Jane and Paul Bary, leaders of the society, were dressed in nineteenth century finery and greeted participants, many of whom arrived late because of the No Kings demonstration in downtown Guerneville that day.
Wendell Joost and I led the tour on a shady walk beneath the madrones, oaks and redwoods. Wendell, who owned the cemetery for over a decade when he was funeral director in Guerneville, was dressed in a three-piece dark suit and top hat. I, the former pastor of the Guerneville Community Church, came in early-days preacher attire, an afternoon coat with tails, dark trousers, and a wide brimmed formal hat. Wendell and I collaborated on a good number of burials in the last years of the twentieth century and are quite familiar with a number of those graves and the folks who lie in them.
The tour is an extension of the tradition begun by our paramount river historian, John Schubert, who now lies in a most favored spot in the oldest part of the cemetery, which is entirely fitting. Back in the day, John, dressed in top hat and tails in the manner of undertakers of bygone days, would fairly skip from grave to grave, coattails flying, to make sure his audience knew about every important person there. Wendell and I find ourselves plodding along much more slowly, both of us well within the age group of the oldest ones lying in those hallowed grounds.
The Bagley and Guerne family plots were, as always, among those visited, for there would be no Guerneville without them, but this time we spent special moments at the imposing stone angel that rises above the graves of the Drake family. Roscoe Drake played the bugle for the last memorial service there many years ago.
And, on No Kings Day, we lingered at length over the graves of the King family who were important to the early lumber business, whose name was given to King’s Ridge Ranch Road in the hills beyond Cazadero, and whose descendant Greg King wrote The Ghost Forest, a hefty book that chronicles the machinations of various entrepreneurs, politicians, academics, and others who championed the clear cutting of the original redwood forest that stretched for hundreds of miles along the California. Greg is still very much alive and living in Humboldt County.
As has become our custom, we ended the tour at John Schubert’s grave, where I read the last paragraph of Raymond “Buster” Clar’s book Out of the River Mist. It reminds us that whatever happens, the redwood trees keep growing to the sky and the river keeps flowing to the sea. Next year, we will finish with John’s own words, which include these lines: “I’ve picked my hill, the elements are with me. I lie in the rain and it brings me comfort, not chill.”
Once again, many of those with whom we lived and spoke in times past live and spoke to us again in that mysterious way they have of doing so. Blessings to all.
Bob Jones has written his column, “Keeping the Faith,” for local weeklies in west county for more than 50 years. He was pastor of the Guerneville and Monte Rio Community Churches for 20 years, living in Guerneville since 1966.