HUCKLEBERRIES: Hope Cemetery, a forgotten resting place

A holy acre in the middle of Coeur d’Alene comforts parents of lost babies.

But most locals don’t know it exists.

Share Hope Memorial Garden memorializes miscarried and stillborn infants behind a screen of old pines, native brush and an iron gate at Eighth Street and Gilbert Avenue.

A path leads between 10 graves of the pioneer Best family and reflection benches to an angel statue guarding a plaza with poignant messages, imprinted on pavers, including one to baby Jaxton: “Such a big impression with such a little life.”

In 2014, the garden was donated to the Northwest Infant Survival & SIDS Alliance.

It is safe from developers now.

But in 1978, it was part of an otherwise vacant, 6-acre tract in a budding neighborhood coveted by builders. The owner wanted to sell the property. But the transaction was abandoned, according to the Coeur d’Alene Press, when would-be buyers learned that a designated cemetery cannot be used for other purposes.

Originally, the cemetery was part of 24 acres owned by Edwin Best, a maker of fine bows and arrows, and his son, Vernon. The family began burying its dead there in 1893.

In 1907, founder F.G. Partington, owner of the Best Land Company, aired his dream to incorporate the Best family graves into a cemetery “as pretty a resting place as the most particular could wish,” according to a Press article April 25, 1985. In a promotional pamphlet for Hope Cemetery, Partington envisioned a wheel-shaped design with more than 800 grave sites.

He called it Hope Cemetery because hope is “all that is left to any of us when, for the last time, we enter.”

Partington’s proposal didn’t survive the planning stage.

Eventually, most of the Hope Cemetery property was developed. And the graveyard was forgotten, except for a random cleanup project by the Boy Scouts or a civic organization.

In 2005, SHARE Hope began a two-year, $50,000 project to transform the cemetery into a place to commemorate dead infants. Among the additions were a new gate, a fence, the guardian angel, benches, plaques and memorial stones.

“It’s something that will be there for hundreds of years,” SHARE Hope president Dwight Bershaw told Press readers May 6, 2005. In 1999, he and his wife, Ali, lost a son, Nicholas, during pregnancy.

“It was something tough,” Bershaw said. “You don’t forget.”

Gone with a whimper

A sign of summer, the annual Fred Murphy Days Parade ended quietly after a final downtown march May 29, 2004.

The 2005 parade was canceled the following May when no one organized it.

Sad for some, its demise didn’t surprise former organizer Stephen Gregory, the chamber of commerce, or the Coeur d’Alene Press. In an editorial, titled “When Gregory left, parade went, too,” The Press said the “demise of the parade might reflect overall dwindling interest.”

In 1987, the Lake City Days Parade was renamed in honor of the legendary Lake Coeur d’Alene tugboat captain after his accidental death on Lake Coeur d’Alene on Jan. 12, 1986.

From the mid-1990s onward, the parade featured two entries that the larger Fourth of July Parade didn’t: the marching bands from Coeur d’Alene and Lake City high schools. Since the schools were still in session on parade day — the final Saturday of May — the bands were available.

After the 2004 event, Gregory and his daughter, Carol, handed their parade information to the chamber of commerce and moved to Arizona. They learned of the 2005 cancellation only two days before the May application deadline.

Carol Gregory said: It hurts.

Pink slips

Most Riverstone residents don’t know that their slice of paradise on the Spokane River was built on an industrial strip comprising W-I Forest Products, Central Pre-Mix’s gravel pit (Riverstone Pond), and Idaho Forest Industries (Stimson Lumber).

In 1999, the W-I mill site was nothing but a brown field when developer John Stone bought it. Prior to May 8, 1990, however, the property housed a thriving mill between Northwest Boulevard and the river.

On that day,130 employees learned of W-I’s plans to shut permanently July 8, 1990, after surviving a purge of 28 workers a month earlier. Federal law required that a 60-day notice be given.

W-I offered poor severance: $50 per year for those with one to five years of service ($122 in 2025), $60 per year for six to 10 years ($147 in 2025), and $70 per year for 10 or more years ($171 in 2025).

At the time of the closure, historian Stephen Shepperd notes, W-I was the oldest continuously operating mill in town.

Huckleberries

• Poet’s Corner: At North Idaho’s College/it’s an even-odds bet:/will they get a diploma/or default on their debt — The Bard of Sherman Avenue (“NIC”).

• Magic Sid: You know that Sid the methane-breathing Green Energy Dragon at the sewer plant was named after genial late superintendent Sid Fredrickson. But did you know that, in 1995, Sid introduced us to Coeur d’Alene Green, the popular organic compost made from our poop? Perhaps that’s why Sid enjoyed referring to himself as a “turd herder.”

• Looks That Killed: Lori Barnes Isenberg is a husband killer and embezzler who likely will spend the rest of her life in prison. But she once was a mover and shaker in town, active in politics and chamber business. She even wrote a Press column. On May 10, 1990, as an aide for the local GOP legislative office, she posed for a Press photo in a dress she would model for a Republican Women’s Club style show. Now, she's stuck wearing the standard garb of an Idaho inmate. 

• Fightin’ Mad: On May 5, 1990, the late Mary Bjorklund epitomized defiance, standing in the yard of her historic mansion at Eighth and Sherman. The city wanted to carve her side yard to realign Eighth. Mary said, “Unh-uh.” And City Hall backed off. Mary would be pleased to know that her 1902-03 home now houses the Museum of North Idaho.

• Deep Sixed: In May 1995, low ratings proved disastrous for Patty Duke’s “Amazing Grace” program, as NBC-TV yanked it from its Saturday time slot. Six episodes were shot in Coeur d’Alene and Spokane. But Episodes 4 and 5 never aired. In the show, Duke portrayed a minister with a troubled teen daughter. She took the role of Pastor Hannah Miller because producers agreed to film it in her Coeur d’Alene hometown.

Parting shot

On this day 40 years ago (May 11, 1985), the public was allowed to walk the just-completed North Shore Marina Boardwalk from 9 a.m. until dusk. A day earlier, marina manager Les Frank and Idaho travel officials had toured the 3,300-foot, floating boardwalk, complete with champagne and a ribbon cutting.

However, President Jerry Jaeger of Western Frontiers said the official grand opening for the structure was scheduled later in the month. At the time, Jerry and partner Duane Hagadone were a year away from opening the overhauled old North Shore.

Of course, Bob Templin’s North Shore is now The Coeur d’Alene Resort. Western Frontiers is Hagadone Hospitality. And the boardwalk? It remains a must-see for tourists and locals entertaining visitors. 

The boardwalk was constructed by Fred Murphy and sons Lauren and Skip. 

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D.F. (Dave) Oliveria can be contacted at [email protected].

    In spring 1985, Dexter Yates of Yates Funeral Home fought to prevent Hope Cemetery from falling into developers' hands.
  

    A paver stone at today’s Share Hope Memorial Garden memorializes a lost baby.
  

    Coeur d’Alene and Lake City high schools combined to form a 160-member band for the 2002 Fred Murphy Days Parade.
  

    Union steward Marion Carson reacts to news of the W-I Forest Products plant closure May 8, 1990, after working at the mill for 38 years.
  

    Wastewater superintendent Sid Fredrickson examines Coeur d’Green compost in May 1995.
  

    Lori Barnes (Isenberg) modeled for the Republican Women’s Club fashion show in May 1995.
  

    Mary Bjorkland poses defiantly outside her historic mansion in May 1990.
  

    NBC canceled Patty Duke’s “Amazing Grace” show in May 1995.
  

    North Shore Marina manager Les Frank and travel officials tour new boardwalk May 10, 1985.