LAST MONTH we highlighted the September conclusion of our History Saturday in the Cemetery program (second Saturdays, May through September) and planned to write this month about the conclusion of the Marker Cleaning Workshop program (third Saturdays, same months). It was quite a finale! Just before the last workshop, Christmas […]
THE FRIENDS’ final History Saturday in the Cemetery presentation of 2024 took place on another beautiful September morning with Fall in the air and an audience eager to hear the sequel to June’s talk on Courtship and Love Customs in Early Jacksonville.
Continuing the theme, this time with Love and Marriage in […]
CEMETERY HAPPENINGS!—Our August History Saturday presentation, “Let Us Entertain You – Entertainment and Leisure in 1800s Jacksonville…from bloomers to bicycles,” brought an enthusiastic group of visitors to the cemetery on a beautiful summer morning to hear another interesting chapter of local history!
In period costume and using historic photos to illustrate their […]
JULY IN THE JACKSONVILLE HISTORIC CEMETERY saw warmer weather, and, with it, an onslaught of Madrone leaves often obscuring the markers our visitors seek when touring or paying respects to departed family and friends. While city staff does their best to keep up, all of us as Adopt-A-Block “parents” need to […]
THE FRIENDS OF JACKSONVILLE’S HISTORIC CEMETERY’S “2nd Saturday” activities for June began with a wonderful turnout for the plaque dedication in honor of Dirk Siedlecki. Located on the north side of the Sexton’s Tool House in an area beautifully landscaped by the Jacksonville Garden Club, the boulder-mounted plaque provides a brief […]
OUR BUSY MAY schedule got off to a rainy start with the cancellation of the Pre-Memorial Day Cemetery Clean-Up due to unusually cold weather and nearly an inch of unexpected rainfall! Fortunately, members of the cemetery team from Jacksonville Public Works had been mowing the paths and open spaces in anticipation […]
ON A RAINY MORNING IN APRIL, Cemetery Sexton Rick Shields, together with members of the Friends board and the Jacksonville Public Works Department staff, placed a monument in the cemetery commemorating the life and work of Dirk Siedlecki, late founder of the Friends of Jacksonville’s Historic Cemetery and long-time President of […]
WITH “APRIL SHOWERS” behind us, it’s time for “May flowers” and the beginning of a busy season of outdoor events at Jacksonville’s Historic Cemetery! Our recurring History Saturday in the Cemetery and Marker Cleaning Workshop programs, plus the annual Pre-Memorial Day Community Cemetery Clean-up and Flags for our Veterans events make […]
APRIL IS A QUIET MONTH in the cemetery but also one of anticipation and transition from the cold of winter to the blooms of spring and, eventually, the warmth and long days of summer. By the time you read this, we will hopefully have completed our first Community […]
ONCE AGAIN, I’m happy to report that we’ve come through another cold, dark and (mercifully) wet winter and, depending on when you read this, spring is either here or about to be!
With Easter coming a bit early this year, we’ve scheduled the Friends’ Spring Cemetery Clean-Up for Saturday, March 16th, just […]
2023 REPORT CARD & LOOKING AHEAD—We hope you enjoyed the holiday season and found some quiet time to reflect on what’s right in our increasingly hectic world. For the Friends of Jacksonville’s Historic Cemetery (FOJHC), the past year was one of transition, and we’re grateful that, with the help of our […]
After Mountain Iron Works recently put the finishing touches on the installation of custom iron fencing to replace the original surround of the Pape/Prim block (Masonic 273) that had been stolen, some new details came to light. First, while the Friends of Jacksonville’s Historic Cemetery contract with Mountain specified a […]
New Fences and Faces!—We recently highlighted phase 1 of the FOJHC’s restoration of the Pape/Prim block (Masonic 273) … but there’s more to the story! The block was once surrounded by an iron fence atop the sandstone curbing and between the bollards, with a matching gate at the entrance. With no known photographs showing the […]
Early October is normally the time “a small army of volunteers” is working non-stop to put the finishing touches on stories, costumes, and logistical details for another chapter of Meet the Pioneers, our special Living History program where costumed Players share the rich history of Jacksonville and the Rogue Valley on two evenings of one-hour […]
In each of my eighteen summers in Jacksonville, there has always come a morning sometime in mid-September when suddenly there’s a slight crispness in the air, and it becomes clear that our typical hot summer days will soon be giving way to the cooler weather of early fall.
September also marks this year’s final sessions of […]
A key mission of the Friends of Jacksonville’s Historic Cemetery is the restoration of damaged monuments in the cemetery. Many headstones, and even entire blocks, have been restored over the years. A recent example is the Pape/Prim block (Masonic 273), restoration of which began in 2022. Project completion is expected by year-end.
Paine Page Prim was […]
With winter behind us, beautiful spring weather provided the opportunity for two significant community-wide cemetery clean-ups. Thanks to the help of some seventy volunteers, including individuals, entire families, and members of religious, fraternal, and service organizations, much was accomplished with the first clean-up on April 29th. Then, a second clean-up, on May 20th, put finishing […]
By the start of June, summer will officially be under way everywhere, including the Jacksonville Historic Cemetery! But first, a sincere thank you to the nearly seventy of you who came out for our Community-Wide Cemetery Clean-Up on April 29th. What a difference you made!
June features the first installment of this season’s History Saturday in […]
Honoring Veterans in May—May is the heart of springtime in Jacksonville and typically a very beautiful month in our historic cemetery. With winter behind us, and Memorial Day coming at month-end ready to mark the beginning of summer, May offers one more opportunity to make sure the cemetery is tidied-up for the outdoor season ahead.
May […]
By the time you read this, the Cemetery should be looking good and almost ready for spring, thanks to last month’s Community Spring Clean-Up Day and the ongoing Adopt-A-Block program where some 200 volunteers maintain “adopted” cemetery blocks—on their own schedules, as time permits.
We shared the news, last month, of the untimely passing of Friends […]
Cemetery Work to Continue—As you may have read elsewhere in this edition of the Jacksonville Review, Dirk Siedlecki, your usual columnist in this space, and the long-time President of the Friends of Jacksonville’s Historic Cemetery (FOJHC), passed away on January 31st after a brief illness.
Dirk, with his wife Mary, founded the FOJHC in 2009 and, […]
The year 2022 did not end well for our friends and fellow volunteers with the Central Point Cemetery. Sometime on or around Tuesday, December 13, vandals entered the cemetery grounds and proceeded to topple more than two dozen headstones and family monuments. Unfortunately, this was the second act of major vandalism that has occurred in […]
Sincere appreciation and gratitude to all our dedicated volunteers and many supporters for making 2022 another successful year for the Friends of Jacksonville’s Historic Cemetery. Our History Saturday in the Cemetery programs, May through September, were very well received and were enjoyed by all attending. Several […]
Three years ago, a select group of pioneers, lying in peaceful estate at the Jacksonville Cemetery, roused to enjoy the limelight and tell about their lives. Others have waited patiently for their chance to be heard. Now, a handful of residents from the Silent City on the Hill are free to speak, and believe me, […]
Well, it’s fall in Jacksonville with the return of Meet the Pioneers on the hill overlooking Jacksonville where many of the stories we have featured over the years took place. The program which was first presented in 2006 has shared the rich history of Jacksonville, the Rogue Valley and Southern Oregon in approximately one-hundred and […]
Thank you and our sincere gratitude to all our volunteers who contributed 140 hours of volunteer labor in the month of July 2022. The hours include: cemetery fixture restoration, marker cleaning, conducting tours, and general cleanup and maintenance items. Add to this number the many hours contributed by our Adopt-A-Block workforce who do so much […]
Thank you and much appreciation to our volunteers who cleaned headstones in the Jewish section of our cemetery during the months of May and June. On May 21 volunteers cleaned thirty-seven headstones and on June 18, another twenty-nine were cleaned. In total sixty-six headstones were cleaned with volunteers contributing seventy-seven hours in volunteer labor.
On June […]
My sincere appreciation to all our volunteers who put in so many hours of work in helping to prepare the cemetery grounds for the Memorial Day holiday. Thank you to our city employees who went all-out to help us in this endeavor. While we were unable to get to all areas of the cemetery, we […]
I am pleased to report that our restoration work on the Love block in the Masonic section of the cemetery was completed on April 29. The rainy weather delayed our finishing up the project but like you all, we were delighted with the much-needed rain and snow in the higher elevations.
It was the biggest project […]
A big thank you to the over sixty volunteers who turned out on Saturday, March 26 for our spring Community Clean-up of the cemetery grounds. The very large city-owned trailer was filled to the brim in an hour followed by approximately 250 bags of other debris. It was a great day with so much accomplished […]
On behalf of our Board Members and volunteers, we sincerely thank the Jacksonville Boosters Club for their continued support and recent donation of $3,500. The generous gift allowed us to purchase an 8’ x 12’ storage shed which was placed down by the Cemetery Maintenance Shop. We also want to thank the City of Jacksonville […]
Thanks to Jacksonville resident John Howell, the old symbolic cross in the cemetery has been restored and is once again standing proudly over the Catholic Section. In July 2021, while John was walking his dog, Willie, he noticed the cross was in a state of disrepair. Not one to sit back, John decided to do […]
Spring Programs in the Cemetery—Following the snow and cold temperatures in December, it was a quick jump into spring in January which continues into early February as I write this. We did lose some trees and large limbs within the cemetery grounds as a result of wet and heavy snow. Fortunately, only one headstone was […]
As the New Year begins, our organization and its dedicated volunteers look forward to continuing the work of caring for, restoring and protecting one of Jacksonville’s and Oregon’s treasures, our Pioneer Cemetery. Before going into some of what we have planned for 2022, I would like to take a moment and reflect on all the […]
I would like to begin by thanking the Cubs and Scouts from JV Troop 17, JV Pack 3017, their parents and siblings for helping clean-up the cemetery grounds on October 23, 2021. After a fair amount of rain and wind, the ground was covered with downed branches and limbs and this group of volunteers wasted […]
My write-up in the October 2021 issue featured a photograph of the Chavner block in the Catholic section prior to the start of restoration work. This month, I would like to share this photo of that same block after the project was completed and I think you’ll agree it is quite the transformation.
Thank you—I would […]
UPDATE, OCTOBER 15, 2021 – Slightly over $3,200 was raised for the Friends of Jacksonville’s Historic Cemetery at the October 9, auction held at Belita Space during Jacksonville’s Art Walk. Our sincere appreciation and gratitude to Chris Anderson for creating his beautiful and artistic bowls and for supporting our organization. Thank […]
Despite the heat, including a week’s worth of triple-digit temperatures, along with smoke from the wildfires, our volunteers managed to contribute 153 hours of volunteer labor during the month of August 2021. These hours were dedicated to grounds maintenance, cleaning of headstones and monuments, and restoration work. Not included is the time that our Adopt-A-Block […]
What a difference dedicated volunteers can make when they decide to focus on one area and give it 100%. Jim and Judy Finses have been volunteering in the cemetery since late last winter and early spring. They introduced themselves one day when I was picking-up downed branches and limbs in the Odd Fellow section and […]
UPDATE 08/13/21 – August 14 History Saturday in the Cemetery is CANCELED due to smoke and heat.
A total of 150:30 hours of volunteer labor was contributed in June, which included grounds clean-up, marker cleaning, restoration work and other general maintenance items.
This does not include all the hours that our Adopt-A-Block volunteers put in caring for […]
I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank all our volunteers who did so much in preparing the cemetery grounds for the Memorial Day holiday. The grounds looked neat and tidy with flowers and flags marking this special day of remembrance for the 410 known Veterans who rest in our cemetery. Our new […]
Well, the month of April proved to be just as successful and busy as March, with volunteers contributing 170 hours in labor, caring for the cemetery grounds, doing restoration work and cleaning markers. These hours do not reflect the time that our Adopt-A-Block volunteers spent caring for their adopted block/s. An update on the month […]
While spring time normally signals the start of a busy time for our cemetery volunteers, this spring turned out to be far busier with much more activity and like no other spring in recent memory. Our March 27 Community Clean-up saw thirty-six volunteers contributing close to 100 hundred hours and filling one large trailer, 67 […]
Thank You!—On behalf of the Friends of Jacksonville’s Historic Cemetery, I want to sincerely thank everyone who turned out for our Community Clean-up Day on Saturday, March 27. The event allowed us to get into areas of the cemetery grounds that do not always receive regular attention. You made a big difference and please know […]
Adopt-A-Block Kick-Off March 2021—This new program being co-sponsored by the Jacksonville Boosters Club and the Friends of Jacksonville Historic Cemetery, has had an amazing response from residents of Jacksonville, Ashland, Medford and Central Point. Needless to say, with a cemetery the size of Jacksonville’s, we still have blocks available to be adopted and cared for. […]
During the pandemic, the cemetery grounds not only provided plenty of space for people to get out and safely enjoy the fresh air and get some exercise, it also allowed our volunteers to continue important work.
A breakdown of volunteer hours for 2020 is as follows—Volunteers contributed 211:30 hours cleaning head stones and monuments in the […]
The Jacksonville Boosters Club has a long history of doing hands-on projects and providing financial support for the historic Jacksonville Cemetery. Even with COVID-19 this tradition continues. A small group of Boosters, working independently under the direction of Project Director, Steve Casaleggio, is refinishing the 27 benches that are located throughout the cemetery. They will […]
The amazing fall weather that we so enjoyed, along with everyone’s desire to get out and do something positive, resulted in a very productive month of volunteer work. A total of 190:30 hours of volunteer time was contributed to cemetery projects during October.
A breakdown is as follows:
Just when we thought things couldn’t get worse… bam, they did with the terrible wildfires in early September. Our hearts and prayers go out to our neighbors and friends who lost so much. I am currently trying to determine what cemeteries may have been damaged by the fires to see if any help is needed.
We […]
Our August 15th Marker Cleaning Workshop was a wonderful success with 48 headstones and monuments being cleaned in the Independent Order of Red Men and Catholic Section. Much appreciation to volunteers Mary Siedlecki, Beverly Helvie, Kathy Waltz, Peggy Jennings, Lorry Davis, Pam Smith, Michael Sneary, Teresa Hopkins, Sherry Kramer, Beverly Smith, Ken […]