Duo works to identify all veterans in cemetery

Cherry Alice Van Tine and Jim Lemon, the local coordinators for Wreaths Across America, have been working at Bruning Funeral Home to look up records of veterans who are buried in the Colfax cemetery.

The Colfax Cemetery has graves that go back to 1895 and more than 10,000 people have been buried there in that time. Van Tine and Lemon have already found more than 630 veterans in the records and believe many more are there.

Back in December, Van Tine, as the coordinator for Wreaths Across America for the Bethel Cemetery at Steptoe, received 115 extra wreaths. Van Tine and Lemon decided to take the extra wreaths to the Colfax Cemetery, even though they didn't have a list. Together they walked the cemetery and whenever they found a veteran, they would put a wreath on the grave. They went back in to pick up the wreaths Jan. 19 and Lemon took a picture of each of the veteran's marker they took a wreath off, as well as nearby headstones or plaques they had missed. When he got home that day he realized he had taken about 170 pictures.

The pictures led to more research, and the pair went to Brunings where owner Craig Corbeill allowed them to start going over the books, some of which date back to 1895, which is when the cemetery, Brunings and the records started.

"Craig Corbeill, he is 100 percent behind this," Lemon commented.

The two of them have taken up the task of going through all the records.

"These veterans go back to the Oregon-Washington Indian Wars. We found vets that fought in the Civil War, Spanish-American War, of course World War I and II, Korea, but there's a lot of older veterans out there that I don't think very many people know that are even in existence," said Lemon.

Lemon is a veteran, and Van Tine comes from a military family.

They are looking for help in finding the veterans buried in the Colfax Cemetery.

They started looking through the books individually and spent five days on that before getting online to Findagrave.com. By researching online Lemon found 516 names of veterans buried in Colfax, and then going back to the books, they were able to discover another 115 names.

"It's a slow process but, the goal is worthwhile and that is to identify all these ladies and gentlemen up on the hill that paid the ultimate and served the country," said Lemon."There's a lot more people up on that hill than I ever imagined."

"I think it's important to get this information out there," said Van Tine. "We want to share this experience; we want to share this information; we want people to get involved and learn about it and teach the younger people."

"The people that we are finding are related to just about every old family in Whitman County," said Lemon.

They are still going over records.

Not all veterans were recorded as veterans in the records.

Residents with ancestors buried in Colfax Cemetery who served in the military can be a great help to Van Tine and Lemon by letting them know so they can add that information to the records. If an ancestor doesn't have their military service marked on their headstone they might be able to get something for them.

"That's where we need the families to help us, to find the unregistered veterans that are buried in Colfax," said Lemon

Today, the Veterans Association can furnish grave markers, headstones, and other memorial items to honor a veteran's service, as well as assist with the burial and medical needs of veterans or replacement medals and awards for veterans. The VA has military records all the way back to the Revolutionary War and can help family members find graves in a national, state or tribal veterans cemetery.

"We don't want to miss anybody. These guys and gals are too important to miss," said Lemon.

"The stories that do come out are amazing," said Van Tine. "We want to preserve the memory of our veterans who went through all the wars: Vietnam, Korea, Desert Storm, I mean there's just so many of them."

"Whoever put some of the records in did an amazing job, and would put all of their military history, but some of the young men in their 20s were killed over there and their bodies shipped home or parts shipped home, and they've put down how they died," explained Van Tine. "Sometimes it just really grabs you."

"World War II were kids that lied about their age to get into the Navy, Army, the Marines," noted Lemon. "It wasn't like it is now, when you went to fight in World War II you went until it was over, you died or you came home. Today they have standards of how long your tours will be in country."

Lemon has only come across about a dozen names of people who were killed-in-action, about half of which were pilots.

Most of the veterans they find came home and lived lives, had families, became farmers, politicians, nurses and so on before they were buried.

"It's quite a history lesson," said Lemon.

Van Tine and Lemon are feeling hopeful of receiving help in their search.

"There are more and more people that honor and respect the veterans," said Lemon. "And now they're starting to realize how much history is gone with these guys. So I think we owe it to them to identify them, not only for what they did, but for families."

Lemon has put close to 340 hours into this project already.

Van Tine's and Lemon's goals for this project are to identify all the veterans buried in the Colfax cemetery and to provide wreaths from the WAA for each one.

"The question is 'How come nobody's ever done this before?'," said Lemon. "Well, when you have local legion post, probably guys from the World War II era and Korean era, they're dying off and retiring. So, unless there's some new blood and somebody takes it on as a project, it just doesn't get done."

This is the first time anyone has tried to make a master list of all the veterans found in Colfax Cemetery.

"We know we won't be able to do Wreaths Across America this year because it is too big a project, but by the end of the year we hope that we have all the veterans buried in the Colfax Cemetery identified and then next year, 2020, we can do the Wreaths Across America in both the Bethel Cemetery and the Colfax Cemetery," said Van Tine.

For Lemon, the end goal is that by Memorial Day they can identify and locate all the veterans graves to mark with flags.