A lively walk among the dead

COEUR d’ALENE — As darkness settled in at Forest Cemetery, a group of 20 people walked among the headstones Friday night.

The longer they followed the glow of lanterns beckoning them on to gravesites, the more the cold crept in.

Their well-dressed guide, wearing a gray jacket and vest, and a black derby hat and bowtie, warned them not to trip on burial markers.

“It would be very bad to do that,” Dave Eubanks said.

He was joined by Museum of North Idaho Program Manager Jordan Thomas wearing a Victorian dress and shawl, leading the first of several walking tours at Forest Cemetery over the next five weeks.

They came not in search of spirits, ghosts or shadowy figures, but history.

They got it.

For 90 minutes, Eubanks and Thomas shared engaging and lively tales of influential people buried over 20-acres who played significant roles in making Coeur d’Alene what it is today.

Eubanks also talked of many unknowns that have been “laid to rest for all eternity” at this tree-lined cemetery just off Government Way.

“Movers and shakers, rich and poor, scoundrels and scalawags,” are all buried there, a chuckling Eubanks said, among more than 15,000 souls.

Some reached the age of 100 or older. Others didn’t even live a day, he said.

"Back in that time, way too many children died,” Eubanks said.

Famous names like Blackwell, Sanders, White and Pulaski are on the tour. So are stops at the graves of Marion Gutches, born June 22, 1858, and who died June 23, 1881, and Pvt. Timothy Shea, born Co. Kerry Ireland on March 15, 1855, and who died April 12, 1888.

Gutches is the oldest burial in Forest Cemetery. Shea is the only soldier from the Fort Sherman era not relocated to Spokane in the 1890s.

Eubanks, umbrella in hand, kept the tour moving as he told how the Battle of Little Big Horn and Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman were connected to Coeur d'Alene.

Forest Cemetery was originally called Fort Sherman Cemetery and was owned by the U.S. Army at Fort Sherman from 1877 to 1901 before it came under city ownership.

The history of logging and even tourism dating back more than 100 years are mentioned in the program.

Ken and Vickie Roberge, who live next door to Forest Cemetery, enjoyed the tour.

“I like the historical part of it,” Ken Roberge said.

They said Forest Cemetery is a peaceful place with a beautiful setting and family roots, as Vickie Roberge has two sets of great-grandparents buried there.

They were glad to hear more about those who lived and died in North Idaho, and remain here.

"We’re learning some stuff,” Ken Roberge said.

Britt Thurman, museum executive director, told The Press the tours are a way to present history in a creative way that connects with the younger generation.

Such is the demand for the walking tours, now in their third year, all 300 tickets were sold in one week. In fact, the tours have sold out every year. That may be because they are not morbid affairs, but ones of life and learning.

“They’re starting to discover not only history here, but a great and fascinating history here," Eubanks told The Press.

While Forest Cemetery tours are sold out, other nightly strolls among the dead are coming up.

Cemeteries of Coeur d’Alene history tours are scheduled on Oct. 8 and Oct. 22. Three cemeteries in the city, Forest, St. Thomas, and Memorial Gardens, will be visited. At each, historical reenactors will bring departed figures from the past to life.

But only temporarily.

Tickets are $40.

Info: museumni.org