Dedication to Palmer Pioneer Cemetery is a family tradition

PALMER -- It seems appropriate that the son of the Palmer Colony's first mortician is now the general caretaker of the Palmer Pioneer Cemetery.

Wayne Bouwens moved to Palmer with his mother and father when he was 5-1/2 years old and, although most people know him as the Moffit farm dairy farmer or employee at the University of Alaska Fairbanks experimental farm, many area residents know him as the go-to guy for the Palmer cemetery.

Although Bouwens, ever humble, describes his involvement with the Palmer cemetery after his father died as simply picking up where there was a need, his attention to detail and motivation shows otherwise.

No longer the cemetery association's president, he continues to take on a large role in helping the cemetery run smoothly. Bouwens keeps three sets of large plot maps, and updates each on a yearly rotation. He frets over dropping membership, worries about the care of the cemetery and the upkeep of individual graves, and talks with pride about recent additions made to the cemetery, such as a memorial wall for those who are not buried at the cemetery for one reason or another, but seek to be memorialized there.

"Wayne Bouwens and his father just can't be credited too much for the beautification and organization that has gone into this cemetery," Palmer resident Gerry Keeling said during a recent tour of the cemetery.

William Bouwens, Wayne's father, was among the group of colonists who arrived in Palmer in 1935. That first summer, Bouwens said, his father served as a sort of impromptu mortician, after three young boys died of scarlet fever.

"He was a policeman," Bouwens said. "I wouldn't be surprised if he might have worked with a mortician [while he was an officer], but he was a butcher by trade."

When his father arrived in Palmer, Bouwens said, he got involved with the cemetery association simply because people were needed to serve on the board. During his tenure as a U.S. Marshal's deputy, William Bouwens continued to serve on the cemetery board.

"He was community-minded," Bouwens said of his father, who also served as the head of the local Red Cross and belonged to several other community groups.

After serving for 20 years in the U.S. Marshal's, Bouwens' father retired and worked at the drug store in Palmer for a few years until a youth center for boys was formed at Alcantra, where he worked until he was 75. Bouwens said his father decided to take a month off and go fishing and digging for clams -- generally enjoying Alaska's recreational opportunities. Only a week after the vacation ended, Bouwens said, his father passed away, leaving his legacy of cemetery association work in the hands of his son.

"I guess I volunteered to do it," Bouwens said. After his father passed away in 1970, he went to a meeting of the association. The association members, he said, told him he'd be a good replacement, and he agreed to step in where his father left off.

Bouwens said he was motivated by his father's commitment to community service.

"He was a community service man. That was his whole life," Bouwens said. "I just felt that it was something, probably, that I wanted to do -- and could do."

His schedule was somewhat flexible on the farm, he said, so he could take time to help a family pick out an appropriate resting place for a loved one and fill out the necessary paperwork.

As Bouwens took up the tradition, the sentiment of the growing Palmer area began to change. Where churches and fraternal organizations were once solid members of the association, some of those memberships have slacked off -- a precedent that has necessitated a shift in the group's operation. It has also slowed one of the association's primary projects -- obtaining markers for unmarked graves.

"It would be helpful if [memberships] would sort of pick up speed again," Keeling said. "That would pay for the grave markers -- $10 or $20, if you had a lot of groups [donating], that's all of a sudden a nice amount."

Bouwens said donations or memberships can be sent to the association at Palmer Pioneer Cemetery, P.O. Box 4428, Palmer, AK 99645. Checks can be made out to the association.

After more than 30 years of volunteering, the association is hoping to find someone they can train to fill Bouwens' shoes.

"We are trying to start to find a break-in replacement for myself," Bouwens said.

And, though Bouwens will never say as much, his shoes, and the legacy that goes along with them, are enormous.