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Linn-Owen Cemetery gets a new look
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| by Nathan Treloar |
June 13, 2012 |
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This new stone entryway is the first step in the beautification of Linn-Owen Cemetery north of Pilot Mound. -Photo by Nathan Treloar
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Sitting at the end of a gravel road, now called 105th Street north of Pilot Mound, stands a magestic oak tree wider than a man with his arms out. Who could say for how long this sentinel has kept watch over the farmhouse to its east and the little cemetery that hides in its shade. The tree is nameless, but likely stood to give shade to members of the Owen family as they built the house and dug the first grave there in 1859.
That first final resting place is occupied by Bethel Owen, one of the three original trustees of Pilot Mound township which had been incorporated just the year before. At the time the plot was the start of the Owen family's private cemetery. It would remain that way until 1905 when the farm's new owners, the Linn family, gave its use to the public as a township cemetery.
And there the Linn, or Linn-Owen, or Bethel Owen cemetery (it's been called many things over the years) sat in the shade of that old oak, quietly growing older behind a rusting chain link fence with two short brick pillars at the gate. And then Dave Lungren came along.
Dave is a jovial man, bearded and well proportioned with a quick wit and a love of history. He has been a cemetery trustee for over 20 years. During that time he's seen an "attitudinal" difference arise with the board of trustees relationship to the cemeteries it oversees. What had long been an effort merely to maintain the properties has been swelling ever so slightly enough to allow the board to be proactive in the care and upkeep of it's grounds.
The planning for a new entryway into the Linn-Owen Cemetery began last year when it was decided to build a stone arch with an iron gate nearer the gravel road. A white rock surfaced driveway would then provide access, running the 100 or so feet from the gravel to the old brick pillar entrance.
Bids were taken for the project this past winter with the chosen design coming from Savanna Studios in Des Moines. Tracy Lee, a local stone mason was hired to build the arch from hundreds of stones donated from area farms along with an entire truckload from Buxton Concrete of Ogden.
Lee began working as a brick tender for Franklin Masonry 35 years ago. His first job and apprenticeship was working on the Embassy Suites hotel in downtown Des Moines. He describes the process of building the arch like putting together a puzzle with the only picture being in his head. He and his assistant, Luke Henry, stand in a pile of what would otherwise be called rubble, stones of various shapes, colors, and sizes ranging from a large grapefruit to small boulders weighing several hundred pounds. They choose a rock, turn it over and upside down until it fits the right way, a smearing of cement is applied and the stone is set into place. When finished, the rock will be washed with an acid to remove unwanted spots of cement.
Lee admits that he had never visited the cemetery, despite living on the very road it sits at the end of. Linn-Owen is a gently-used gem as far as pioneer cemeteries come. Despite being tucked away and hidden from nowhere, a roster of the names of those buried there is full of familiar families, names that you still see on small town storefronts and in church bulletins. When Bethel Owen was laid beneath that great oak in 1859, it was the beginning of all the things that have since come to pass over top of the same black Boone County soil. |
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©The Ogden Reporter 2013
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