Waldport Cemetery association president Douglas Edgmon is looking for some volunteers to join the association’s board and help with maintenance of the 2 1/2-acre cemetery along Southeast Crestline Drive. (Garret Jaros/Lincoln Chronicle)

By GARRET JAROS/Lincoln Chronicle

WALDPORT – There is plenty of space available and room to grow at Waldport’s Last-Stop Inn and years have passed without anyone dying to book a six-feet deep suite.

In fact, it has been seven years since anyone was buried at the Waldport Cemetery’s serene patch of grass tucked behind a line of pines and a smattering of mailboxes along South Crestline Drive.

But now, with nearly all of the cemetery’s former board members deceased, cemetery association president Douglas Edgmon says he wants to get affairs in order before it is too late and the cemetery is left an orphan. He is asking the city to step in.

“The fellow that was taking care of it last, he didn’t really have an exit plan,” Edgmon said. “And I got contacted by his wife when he was in a hospital, in his last days. So I want to have an exit plan, and that’s why I think the city would be a good option because they have continuing staff, there’s new councilors and a continuing leadership. If I were to walk out here in front of a bus one day, there’s nobody ready.”

That fellow was Edgmon’s good friend.

“And I told him, I’d do anything he ever wanted me to do,” Edgmon said. “And this was it.”

The cemetery was established in 1938 by way of a donation from Lincoln County and is the only one within city limits. It is the resting place of fewer than 50 souls. The only other cemetery nearby is the Alder Grove historic pioneer cemetery southeast of town off East Eckman Creek Road.

About a half-acre of manicured lawn remains open for burials but there’s also the adjacent forested land on its west side making the parcel a total of 2½ acres.

The original founders of the cemetery took up donations to get it started, but at that time they sold plots for $5 so there was not a big income stream, Edgmon said. Maintenance was all volunteer so very little money was spent and what remained was placed into a certificate of deposit to earn interest.

“So there’s sufficient funds to keep things maintained,” he said.

The cemetery association eventually hired a groundskeeper to mow the lawn and Edgmon drives in from his home across the Alsea River to clear fallen tree limbs when needed. He said he has another person on the board who has access to association funds, but nobody to step into leadership if anything should happen to him.

“I wasn’t born here,” said Edgmon, who retired with Pioneer Telephone and has lived and volunteered in the area for 34 years. “I don’t have a big network of people. I don’t have people that I can put my hand on their shoulders and say can you participate? So it’s kind of hard for me to recruit. I know people who would help me but they’re retired too and it’d be better if I had somebody that was 40, 50 years old.”

Edgmon also helps look after an abandoned rural cemetery in Arkansas where his mother’s great grandfather is buried. He spent six years traveling back and forth to maintain it with other volunteers. Now he goes back once a year to spend a couple days cleaning up.

“Everybody who’s got people there just aren’t there anymore,” he said.

**Waldport Cemetery was established in 1938, there are fewer than 50 people buried in it but none in the past seven years.** (Garret Jaros/Lincoln Chronicle)

City wants volunteers first

Edgmon believes having the city take over the cemetery would offer a long-term solution to handle maintenance and oversee operations. He plans to meet soon with Waldport city manager Dann Cutter, who he contacted about the proposition last month to provide any information the city council might need for review.

Cutter told the Lincoln Chronicle that he emailed Edgmon to say the city would like first like to help recruit others to join him on the cemetery board and share the responsibilities.

“We’d be happy to handle the outreach and promote the opportunity,” Cutter wrote. “They have not ruled out taking it over, but would like to see what options to have volunteers continue it might be available. Including talking to the Yachats cemetery group.”

Yachats Memorial Park, the big cemetery along U.S. Highway 101 on the north side of that city, was in a similar predicament in 2023 when it too was down to one board member and looking for help. A community outreach effort filled that board and brought volunteers.

“They have a really good group of folks in Yachats that are community minded,” Edgmon said. “And people from other places willing to participate in their community. And you kind of have that here in Waldport, but it’s more families and working people and not so many willing to help from out of town.”

Garret Jaros covers the communities of Yachats, Waldport, south Lincoln County and natural resources issues for Lincoln Chronicle and can be reached at [email protected]