http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3951644,00.html
No water at Riverside
Families upset that loved ones' final resting place lacks 'sacred' upkeep
By Jim Sheeler, Rocky Mountain News
July 25, 2005
As the brown grass crunched underfoot, Janice Rhody Allan ambled along inside Riverside Cemetery, pointing toward the grave of her great grandparents.
"It's by the cottonwood tree," the 68-year-old said. "The dead cottonwood."
Evan Semon © News
Janice Rhody Allan, 68, holds a picture of her great grandparents, who are among her relatives buried at Riverside Cemetery. She is upset that Fairmount Cemetery, which owns Riverside, will no longer pay for watering. The grass is brown and crunchy, and has been for years.
Inside Denver's oldest operating cemetery, she looked out toward the final resting places of many Colorado pioneers and their often elaborate, distinctive headstones that once poked through lush grasslands of a sprawling, park-like setting.
But these days, refineries, meat-packing plants and auto-salvage yards surround the cemetery, and brown grass carpets the graves.
Today, Allan says, too much of Riverside Cemetery is dead.
"On the gate it says, 'You are entering sacred grounds' - but it just doesn't look very sacred, as far as upkeep," said Allan, who counts more than 40 relatives buried at Riverside, alongside the graves of Colorado governors, mayors, warriors and paupers. "There should be a way for people to care about this little cemetery, to care about our roots."
The graves turned brown in 2003, when Fairmount Cemetery, which has owned Riverside since 1900, stopped watering to save money. The company recently stopped selling grave sites, saying it actually lost money on each new plot. Later this month, the cemetery's office will close, visiting hours will be scaled back, two workers will be laid off and the cemetery's longtime manager will take early retirement.
Fairmount executives say they had no choice - the place designated "Denver's Pioneer Cemetery" has lost money for most of the past century.
Even death, they say, has a bottom line.
"I can see the emotional side of it, absolutely. This is our heritage," said Barbara Eastin, vice president of Fairmount Cemetery Co. "I'm a fifth-generation Coloradan. This is where my heart is, and I hate to see anything happen to our history. This was not an easy decision for the board to make. We kept thinking, 'Something's going to get better.' We tried different things but it didn't work. I would appeal to people to understand that a cemetery has to have money to function."
Allan traces part of her heritage back to the surrounding Swansea and Elyria communities - places she says mirror the cemetery, places she says are too easily forgotten.
"When I first came out here, I was appalled because I had just come from Fairmount where everything was so lush and plush," she said. "It's like a Cinderella syndrome: The mother keeps the stepchild in rags. The little cemetery is not a moneymaking project so why don't we just ignore it, let it go."
Perpetual care
When it opened in 1876, Riverside Cemetery was the place to die - and the place to live."It was the first cemetery park, the idea of it being filled with trees and grass and curvilinear streets," said Tom Noel, historian and University of Colorado professor. "On a hot day like today, you could go out there and learn who the local movers and shakers were. It was a city park, a leisurely environment. Now, the grass is all crunchy. It's sad."
Despite its previous popularity, the cemetery saw a decline in new sales ever since the turn of the 20th century as industrial sites sprouted around Riverside, and Denver families opted for more pastoral settings at Fairmount and Mount Olivet.
According to Fairmount officials, the enduring problem lies in Riverside Cemetery's financial endowment - or lack of one. When a cemetery sells a grave site, it is supposed to invest a certain percentage of every dollar, money designated for trust funds to ensure "perpetual care."
"Riverside sold the majority of their plots from 1876 to 1900 and didn't put away the money," Eastin said. "You can't go back and recover that endowment money. There's no way to recover that lost time."
Still, some families argue, Fairmount bought the cemetery, assumed its responsibility, and has a duty to give their relatives' graves the same care as the manicured grounds at Fairmount, just south of the Lowry redevelopment.
"I am very disappointed, and if it were not for the expense, I would have my grandmother and grandfather's graves moved to Arvada cemetery where my husband is buried," Carol Pickerel wrote in an e-mail to the Rocky Mountain News. "I enjoy going over there and seeing the many graves of families I have grown up with and the history. (Fairmount) seems to care more about the affluent people. They seem to forget that some of the affluent people have families at (Riverside)."
Fairmount has also fielded its share of inquiries from upset families.
"Someone called and said, 'You're just doing this because this is where the poor people live.' That's not it at all," Eastin said. "If people think Fairmount has lots and lots of assets, that it can in perpetuity support Riverside and maintain the same level as Fairmount, that's a misconception. We operate as a not-for-profit cemetery and have since 1982."
Still, some families say the recent decision to stop watering was the final nail in Riverside's coffin.
"Of course nobody wants to buy a plot out there," Allan said. "Just look at it."
Water rights battle
Riverside is named for its proximity to the South Platte River. But the cemetery's problem dates back to the same year that Colorado entered the union, when the cemetery's initial owners failed to secure permanent water rights.
Despite the oversight, the cemetery siphoned water from the river until 1981, when a group of nearby property owners challenged Riverside's water use. In a battle finally decided in the Colorado State Supreme Court, the cemetery lost.
Later that year, Riverside entered into a year-to-year contract with Denver Water to keep the grounds green. That ended in 2003, when Denver Water decided to convert all its year-to-year contracts to permanent contracts.
Denver Water officials offered to negotiate but say they were told Riverside could no longer afford it.
"What we tried were a number of different (solutions). We offered to let them continue to take irrigation water from Denver Water while we tried to work out some sort of arrangement for a permanent agreement," said Marc Waage, water resource engineer at Denver Water. "What Denver Water was told by Fairmount was that . . . just the monthly costs of buying water plus the labor costs for operating an irrigation system were too much."
Even more frustrating to some families, the cemetery is only a few blocks from Denver Water's massive new water recycling plant in Commerce City. The cemetery can't tap that source either because, according to Waage, it would cost more to use wastewater than to take it from the river.
In contrast, Fairmount Cemetery uses water from the Highline Canal, where it owns permanent water rights. The company has promised to continue trimming and mowing wild grasses at Riverside, but the grounds will continue to crunch underfoot.
"We really have no efficient way to deliver the water," said Kelly Briggs, president of Fairmount. "At this point, it's a slim possibility."
Retiring at Riverside
Inside his office at Riverside, manager Cliff Dougal has already started removing the plaques of thanks that he received from military and historical organizations over the past 18 years. Dougal is referred to as "the walking encyclopedia" by genealogists for his ability to pinpoint grave sites that everyone else seems to have forgotten.
After the 61-year-old's retirement this week, Riverside's office will be open only by appointment. Fairmount officials say they plan to find volunteers to continue tours.
"I'm sorry to hear that man is going to retire. He really took good care of the cemetery - he was so kind," said 89-year-old Lemoin Barber, whose mother, Mamie Legg, was buried at Riverside in June.
At 111 years old, Legg was the oldest person in Colorado, living a life that, like the cemetery where she was buried, spanned three centuries.
"It's kind of nice to drive around and see some of the old-time Denver people buried out there. But it's too bad they're going to let it brown out," said her son, 87-year-old Mirum Legg.
"I'm really sorry to hear it," Barber agreed. "But I guess everyone's time does come."
Copyright 2005, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.