Due to the impending snowstorm for this weekend we are canceling our monthly guided historical tour scheduled for tomorrow- Saturday February 9th. All advanced tickets will be honored at our future monthly tours. We apologize if this causes any inconvenience but we want everyone to be safe! In addition Metro likely close Lone Fir during inclement weather. To find that info please check out their website.
https://www.oregonmetro.gov/metro-cemeteries
We have a handful of 2019 calendars left so we will have them on sale for $5 each until they are gone! Online- shipping included- at our monthly tours or at Red Fox Vintage on Woodstock to get your 2019 calendar! We are currently working on the 2020 calendar! So help us move the last of our inventory!
Originally designated as Armistice Day, this holiday memorializes the truce that ended World War I — which was completed at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year. WWI was thought to be The War to End All Wars until World War II began twenty years later.
Congress changed the name to Veterans Day in June 1954 with the intent to acknowledge the end of two world wars, rather than just one, and recognize the contributions and sacrifices that all veterans had made while serving the country — in wartime and peace. President Eisenhower issued a Presidential Proclamation for Veterans Day in October 1954, calling for all Americans to “solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve hour heritage of freedom, and let us reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain.”
While the holiday is commonly named “Veteran’s Day” or “Veterans’ Day” in calendars and advertisements (spellings that are grammatically acceptable), the United States Department of Veterans Affairs states that the attributive (no apostrophe) rather than the possessive case is the official spelling “because it is not a day that ‘belongs’ to veterans, it is a day for honoring all veterans.
Veterans Day is not to be confused with Memorial Day, which began as Decoration Day in 1868. Decoration Day was founded to honor the Union soldiers who had perished during the Civil War. In 1882, Congress changed the basis of Decoration Day to honor and remember everyone who had died. Congress then changed the name of the holiday to Memorial Day in 1967.
We still have a handful of 2019 calendars left and super excited to say that we are selling them at Red Fox Vintage Woodstock! Come on by their location to pick up a 2019 Friends of Lone Fir Cemetery calendar for $15. We are excited because we know you can’t always make it to the cemetery on the first and second Saturdays and this makes such a perfect holiday gift. This is our first run of the calendar concept and super excited that the wonderful staff at Red Fox are going to carry it for us! All proceeds to to Friends of Lone Fir Cemetery and our efforts to restore and preserve this wonderful outdoor museum!
4528 SE Woodstock Blvd, Portland, OR 97206. Open daily 11-7
Thank you to everyone who joined us for our Tombstone Trick or Treat event in Lone Fir Cemetery last Saturday! We hope you had as much fun as we did.
About 3,500 people — children and adults — wandered the Cemetery, we gave out 6,500 pieces of candy, and in addition to our merchandise sales, we received about $300 in donations. Several hundred people stopped by our information tent to ask questions about Lone Fir Cemetery, including a few descendants of Colburn Barrell, and more than 50 of you expressed interest in volunteering for Friends of Lone Fir Cemetery next year. And we will definitely be in touch soon!
We also want to thank everyone from Metro who joined us for the day including Matt, Noel, and especially Lupine, who not only arranged for us to borrow equipment, but personally delivered it herself!
We had an immense array of children and adults show up in costume: ghosts and goblins, witches, warlocks, and wizards (including representatives from every house of Hogwarts), sea creatures, dinosaurs, shoes, video games, superheroes and comic book characters, hobbits, historical figures, jungle animals, and just about every other person, place, or thing you imaginable.
Thank you and thank you again. We planned a little event that we though might attract several hundred or a thousand people. We were absolutely floored to see over double that number arrive (even if we did run out of candy a couple times). You brought an afternoon of life and laughter to the cemetery and its residents
We hope to see you again in the future at tour, headstone cleaning workshop, or other event. Please leave us comments, suggestions or other feedback, and if you took any photos on Saturday, we would love to see them!
If you are interested in joining Friends of Lone Fir, please join us for our Annual Meeting on Thursday, February 7, 2019.
Follow us on Facebook and Instagram for cemetery updates and news about other future events.
Tombstone Trick or Treat is a free, family-friendly Halloween trick-or-treat party hosted by Friends of Lone Fir Cemetery and featuring some of Lone Fir’s most prominent ghosts. On Saturday, October 27th from 12 to 3 in the afternoon, the cemetery’s gates will be flung wide for guests to wander the grounds and mingle with historic Portland spirits who have made impressive — and sometimes unusual — contributions to our community. The ghosts will hand out candy and chat about their historical lives.
This is a FREE event for all age groups. We will have our FLFC info booth along with opportunities to purchase merchandise such as t-shirts, hoodies and more.
Halloween is a popular time in cemeteries and the purpose of holding family friendly and educational events this time of year is to invite you in and share our love of this wonderful historical cemetery. Statistics have shown that if you invite, include, educate and share with the community it will foster local stewardship and ultimately mitigate vandalism which can be so rampant this time of year. So with that said we invite you to take part in this fun event and fall in love with Lone Fir Cemetery.
This year we are excited to offer for sale a 2019 Friends of Lone Fir Cemetery calendar. They will be for sale at this event for $15.
Looking forward to seeing you out at Lone Fir at our Halloween inspired event or at our monthly tours which are the first and second Saturday of the month!
Due to heat and smoke, the times for the Headstone Cleaning Workshop will be changed in August and September to:
Metro has decided to no longer run the Tour of Untimely Departures. This was not an easy decision; we know the tour is popular and beloved by many. It also requires a large amount of staff time and resources to produce. With all the community engagement efforts Metro Parks and Nature is committed to over the next few years, we are simply unable to host the tour.
We are interested in collaborating with community partners to welcome visitors to Lone Fir through inclusive and accessible activities, where people can share and engage in the diverse history of Lone Fir and Portland through free, family-friendly events. While we don’t have a timeline for a new event, we are interested in building on the Community History Fair that was started last year. Stay tuned for more information.
Friends of Lone Fir Cemetery needs enthusiastic volunteers for two upcoming events:
Saturday, May 12th, 2018 is Oregon Cemetery Clean Up Day. We need as many volunteers as we can get to help spruce up Lone Fir for spring as part of this state-wide effort.
The shift runs from 10:00am to 12:00pm and the duties include picking up debris and weeding around headstones. Tools, training and snacks will be provided. The more hands we have the more fun it will be for everyone. This is a cooperative project between Friends of Lone Fir, METRO, and SOLVE. To sign up for this opportunity please fill out the form here.
Memorial Day Weekend is May 26th, 27th, and 28th and Friends of Lone Fir needs volunteers in the cemetery all three days.
We need 12 people to help Central Catholic High School students put flags on the graves of veterans from 8:30am to 12:00pm on Saturday May 26th.
On all three days we need 4 people to staff a welcome table and help families find graves from 930am to 3:45pm. We hope for volunteers to work the entire shift, but we will
take your help if you can only attend for part of that time.
Shift duties include:
Lastly, we need one or two volunteers to lead the Historical Tour for guests at 11:00am,1:00pm, and 3:00pm on Monday May 28th.
Contact J Swofford to get on the schedule and to get your questions answered, info@friendsoflonefircemetery.
