3 October 2008

Dear Friends of Spring Hill Cemetery,

Although the skies were overcast on Friday, the rains kindly held off until we had loaded our last load of debris onto Regional Park's dump truck. It was another very productive - and enjoyable - workday at Spring Hill. 14 volunteers raked, hauled, measured, and preened the cemetery in preparation for Monday's GPR Scan.

Three newcomers joined us. Kate Campbell is a Herbert researcher who found us on Larry Wendt's SpringHill website, and came all the way from Redding to join us. Steve and Linda Longmire, McReynolds descendants, traveled from Fair Oaks. Not only was their labor much appreciated, but also their stories add to the knowledge we are amassing on Spring Hill's inhabitants.

It appears that Spring Hill is home to the first WWI soldier from Sonoma County to "meet death." Ray Owen kindly gave me an article he came across from the July 1917 Press Democrat. PR. WHITCOMB IS FIRST SOLDIER TO MEET DEATH Sebastopol Youth, Enlisted in Infantry, Called at Fort McDowell to the Colors Above. The article continues,

Private Whitcomb, a Sebastopol youth who enlisted recently in the infantry at the call of his country died Friday night at Fort McDowell. The cause of death was presumed following an attack of measles. The soldier lad who was a little past eighteen years of age, was the son of Mrs. Elsie Henry, and a stepson of Mr. Henry of Sebastopol. Word was sent to the military authorities at the fort to have the remains sent to Sebastopol to the Joyaux undertaking parlors. The bereaved family have the sincerest sympathy in their hour of sorrow. This is the first death hereabouts incident to the war.

We had no other information on Private Whitcomb (Daniel H. Whitcomb) outside of the writing on his tombstone, so I am excited to learn more from Ray's article. According to the DAR burial list, there should also be a "Martin Herrin Whitcomb" at Spring Hill who died in 1902 (no age given). We have yet to find Martin's headstone. I had always assumed that Martin would have been a sibling of Daniel's, given that he predeceased Daniel who died at a very young age. From the newspaper clipping mentioning that Daniel's mother had remarried, it could be that Martin Herrin Whitcomb was Daniel's father. Another mystery for us to puzzle over! I looked up "Joyaux undertaking parlors" on the net and found a reference to "Sawyer Undertaking Parlors, under the direction of H. V. Joyaux of Sebastopol."

Tomorrow is the day of the scan! Ken Blom and Dave Bissiri from Norcal Geophysical will be at Spring Hill performing the scan from about 9:30 to around 1:30. Jeremy Nichols and I, along with a few other volunteers, will be onsite to support the scan. It is not a "workday" - we will not have the tools, or the dump truck. If you are interested in the scanning process, you are welcome to stop by and see it in action.

Our progress this year has exceeded my expectations. I am hopeful that with the clean-up work we have accomplished, in conjunction with the information we will learn from the GPR scan, we may actually be able to reset our headstones in their original positions next spring. That will be a giant step forward for us. Once the headstone bases have been leveled and their headstones properly reattached, the stones will be much less vulnerable to breakage from vandalism or earthquakes.