Riverside Cemetery repair projects receive outpouring of community support
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Remnants of the August 2020 derecho haunt the grounds of Riverside Cemetery like a restless spirit, as do the hands of time that mark the roads, fragile handwritten records and other various parts of the property. Approximately 23,000 people are buried there.
FEMA aid was denied because perpetual care cemeteries aren't eligible. In addition, the cemetery did not receive money from the City of Marshalltown. Despite being faced with astronomical expenses, donors have rallied. One technique employed by the cemetery that proved successful was including a note about the derecho's impact with twice yearly floral brochures that go out in the mail.
Damage caused by the derecho totaled $830,000 in tree removal. Top Notch took $130,000 off that bill.
About $22,000 is still owed on the debt, which, General Manager Dorie Tammen, who will be officially retired as of April 28, said, has whittled away mere dollars at a time.
"Well over $420,000, in a little over two years, has been paid off strictly through donations, which is stunning to me -- as much as this community has been hurt in the last few years -- tornado, the wind storm and then COVID. It's evidence of the community's love for this cemetery," she said.
She noted that $250,000 was also borrowed from the perpetual care trust fund.
"It's an interest-free loan. It's our own money that we basically borrowed from the trust. The state regulates that and we had to get the state's permission," she said of the process.
The cemetery's board of trustees assists with operations. In the last year or so, three people have joined the ranks: Vic Hellberg, Jeremy Adkins and Miriam Bryant.
Some of the trees destroyed in windstorms (the worst being the derecho) date back to the founding of the cemetery.
"Planting new trees is hard because we can't plant them on top of graves which are side by side with inches apart," she said. "We can't plant trees on top of the root balls of trees that came down because they won't grow well. There are still stumps that need to be removed. Trees that have a trunk but no canopy and some unrelated ash borer."
A few decorative blooming trees were donated and planted around Lake Woodmere and behind the office. Flowers donated by the Marshalltown Garden Club were planted in summer 2022 to enhance the grounds.
"I would love to see some flowering crabs along Riverside Street and further up because there's a wide terrace there outside of our fence and we could plant some smaller, decorative trees out there, that if they fell in a storm, wouldn't do much damage on the grounds," Tammen said.
Riverside Cemetery received a $20,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Marshall County for monument repairs. Tammen noted a specialist from Missouri came to reset stones. The Hellberg monument was fixed with help from the family.
"Our insurance doesn't cover monuments because they don't belong to the cemetery -- they belong to the lot owner or their descendants," she added.
Some smaller monuments still need to be reset. About nine full-time employees make up the grounds crew, who work spring through fall with a winter layoff. The cemetery has four lawn mowers with the oldest one traded in each year to the Central Iowa Farm Store.
The old chain-link fence was replaced with black chain-link fencing. Fencing Solutions did the work and painted the old iron sections of the fencing too.
"The fence had been a goal prior to the derecho," Tammen said.
The cemetery sold sponsorships to help defray costs. She noted that the next step is to install signage to recognize the various donors.
Special equipment allows for burials to take place year-round. Despite longstanding rumors, there are still plenty of spaces available to purchase. These include near the gazebo, in section Y by the west end of the lake and some in Lakeview by the office. The non-Catholic sections of the Garden of the Cross have space as well.
"Catholic sections are filling up. The original Catholic 1 and 2 and St. Mary's 3 and 4 are filling up," she said of those areas.
By the numbers:
2022: 105 burials total, 53 of which were cremations.
2021: 127 burials total, 66 of which were cremations.
2020: 118 burials total, 57 of which were cremations.
"We are getting down to only a few columbarium spaces left for above ground cremation interments," she said. "We've already laid a concrete pad for a new columbarium, but the cost of one is just shy of $30,000."
The cemetery possesses 14 burial order books that date back to 1883. They are brittle due to age. Tammen said the price quote to restore them is a little over $1,100 per book.
"Of course, right now our priority is more storm cleanup, getting donor signs up on the fences and the columbarium, because cremation burials are, give or take, roughly 50 percent of our burials now," she noted.
Lake Woodmere was constructed on the property in the 1890s under the direction of Sam Rubee, who served as superintendent of Riverside Cemetery from 1894 until his death in 1946. He is regarded as the person responsible for shaping Riverside's appearance. But in 2022, water ceased flowing into the lake. Tammen noted the cemetery received some funding from the Ann C Keyser Charitable Trust to allow them to fill up the lake in November 2022 to its usual level.
"In the spring, we cross our fingers we don't have another drought with hot weather," she said. "No one had ever seen the lake that low before. There was no steady feed of water keeping it full."
Tammen said the city council approved the spending of up to $42,000 for a well and a windmill to run it.
"That's in a holding pattern with permits," she added.
Heavy machinery used during storm cleanup worsened the already deteriorating roads that wind through the grounds. That price quote is around $375,000.
"We've got a fundraising plan in place for that, but we may find some corporate sponsors and could name lanes and streets after them," Tammen said of covering those costs. "We have a lot of needs here."
Although the cemetery's future will continue to include a multitude of age-rated and storm-induced expenditures, it remains a favorite gathering place for the public. Some of the lake's waterfowl -- like the now famous geese Blossom and Frankie -- even have a social media following.
Even as Tammen passes the reins to her successor, David Shearer, Riverside Cemetery will remain a repository of Marshalltown history and will be for years to come.