Creston Cemetery: Family ties and a final resting place for 115 years

Memorial Day holds special significance for members of the Creston Cemetery Association marking their 60th anniversary of quietly caring for the 115-year-old cemetery.

Keith Buck, whose great-grandparents established the cemetery in 1894, said no ceremony is planned at the site just a few miles south of Creston on Montana 35.

"Family members just ask that you stop and visit the cemetery and pay your respects," he said.

Tucked into a quiet hillside, Creston Cemetery is marked by a small sign on a chain-link fence, kept unobtrusive by design. The site serves as the final resting place for more than 125 people, including Buck's grandfather Charles Lewis Buck, who named Creston.

"He named it after his hometown of Creston, Iowa," Keith Buck said.

Charles Lewis, known as C.L., moved to Creston in about 1884 and soon was followed by his brother Frank and, in later years, his father, the Rev. Philip Buck, and stepmother, Margaret.

Keith's family connection inspired his interest in researching both the history of the town and the cemetery.

"I got really interested in 2004," Keith Buck said. "I wanted to know who all the people were in the cemetery."

An accomplished genealogist, he followed the families, amassing enough information to publish a book in 2005 about the history of Creston. The cemetery part of the story begins in 1894 when a young transient died suddenly and the town needed a place to bury him.

Edna Grace O'Mera, a missionary who married Keith Buck's grandfather C.L. the same year, donated several acres of her homestead for Creston Cemetery. In a sad irony, she became the beneficiary of her own generosity.

Just a year later in September, Edna Grace died from complications of childbirth. Her infant son, Leslie Ray, joined her a few weeks later in November.

"They were the second and third burials in the cemetery," Keith Buck said.

During his research, he discovered that most of the people resting on the north side of the cemetery were Mennonites while other denominations occupy the south side. The northwest corner became an area where only babies were placed, often in unmarked graves.

"People would go out in the middle of the night and bury babies," Buck said.

Dates on the gravestones reveal many family tragedies.

Buck came across two brothers who had drowned together. The date on his grandfather's grave marker recalled the family lore about his death.

Apparently, Charles Lewis Buck seemed in good health when on Jan. 27, 1939, he was told of the death of his neighbor and lifelong friend Herbert F. Jessup, a farmer and sawmill operator. He died the following morning.

C.L. joined his first wife, Edna Grace, in the Buck family row in Creston Cemetery.

His second wife and widow, Christine (Norlander) Buck, formed the Creston Cemetery Association in May 1949.

Along with a bevy of Buck relatives, the association incorporation papers included many well-known names from the area such as Coverdell, Mast, Sutherland and Calbick.

A little over a decade later in 1961, Christine was laid to rest in the spot she had chosen in the cemetery she loved. Keith Buck remembers when the family gathered at Creston Cemetery to bury her.

Like most country cemeteries, Keith described the burial process as 'self-serve."

"I helped dad [Howard Buck] and my brothers dig grandmother's grave," he said. "It's not an easy place to dig because of the gravel."

At the time, graves were dug by hand with picks and shovels. Once excavated, the grave's sides had to be shored up with wood to receive the casket and reinforce it from collapse.

According to Buck, his family kept a Memorial Day tradition of visiting the cemetery to place either wildflowers, irises or lilacs on the graves. Although he now lives in Washington, he still tries to travel to the Flathead and the cemetery at least once a year.

His last visit was in 2008 when he joined his cousin Donna Carr of Kalispell and other members of the cemetery association for the annual cleanup before Memorial Day. He was excited to find the grounds so well kept.

"My mom and dad would be so impressed with the way it looks now," he said. "Donna and the others in the association really stepped up to the plate."

According to Keith, the cemetery fell into disrepair for many decades until the early 1990s when the association made many improvements. Donna said an aunt first recruited her to go to an association meeting about Creston Chapel just in front of the cemetery.

"She said they were going to widen [Montana] 35 next to the cemetery and the chapel had to be moved," she said. "I got voted in as secretary that night."

The chapel, where Donna and Keith's great grandfather Rev. Phil once preached, was moved to Big Sky Bible Camp. The loss of the chapel was a blessing in disguise because the right-of-way money paid for leveling, seeding, fencing and gates at the cemetery.

Once elected as secretary, Donna found out it was a lifetime appointment. But she has no complaints about working each spring at the cemetery.

"It's been a real joy," she said.

She and about 22 other association members had their annual meeting May 9. Afterward, they cleaned up the cemetery and placed flags on veterans' graves in anticipation of Memorial Day visits.

Since the association levies no charges for grave sites, family members and other interested people pitch in to keep up the grounds.

"We had a beautiful morning," she said. "We all got together with gas mowers and weed eaters. We hauled off the dead limbs and put bright new flowers on the graves."

Each time she visits, Donna said that she thinks about her grandparents and her aunts and uncles walking on those grounds after church. She feels good about helping keep Creston Cemetery tidy for her ancestors buried there and the public.

"You get a real swelling of pride," she said. "It looks very nice for a country cemetery."

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by e-mail at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.