Norma Watson hates driving west on Mill Plain Boulevard past Old City Cemetery.
Not because she’s afraid of ghosts. It’s because the iron fence between the historic graveyard and the street appears near death, too. A city planner once told Watson the bent black bars look romantic, but Watson sees nothing but blight.
“It’s fraught with problems,” she said of the 10-acre cemetery — the final resting place of pioneers and early community leaders with still-famous names such as Slocum and Proebstel, Leverich and Caples, Wintler and Short. That’s right: Esther Short, a true tough-as-nails pioneer mother and early landowner who donated what became Vancouver’s town square, is buried here beneath a modest white tombstone that’s frankly hard to find.
The city should do better with the graves of its historical celebrities rather than stand aside while vandalism, drug activity and trespassing run rampant around them, Watson believes.
“Here’s the perfect opportunity to introduce our history to people, and we’re not embracing it,” she said.