Eugene residents honor Memorial Day at historic veterans memorials
Eugene marked Memorial Day at cemeteries and memorials tied to 451 fallen local veterans, 145 Civil War graves and a 25-foot Union soldier statue.
Residents gathered across Eugene to mark Memorial Day at places where the city’s military history is carved into stone, not turned into a weekend slogan. At Skinner Butte Park, the Lane County Veterans Memorial carries the names of 451 local veterans killed in combat from World War I through Operation Desert Storm, a roll call first dedicated on Memorial Day in 1996 and rededicated on Sept. 11, 2010.
Near the University of Oregon, Eugene Pioneer Cemetery held a Memorial Day ceremony from 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., continuing one of the oldest traditions in Oregon. The cemetery, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, has about 10% of its graves marked for veterans and includes 145 Civil War veterans, both Union and Confederate, who later resettled in Oregon. Its Grand Army of the Republic plot, purchased in 1887 by Gen. John W. Geary, holds 51 Civil War veterans and six women and children family members.
The cemetery’s memorial landscape also includes a 25-foot, 7-ton blue marble statue of Union soldier John Covell, erected in 1903. Among the names tied to the site are Corporal Louis Renninger, Lane County’s only Civil War Medal of Honor recipient, and 1st Lt. Leslie Tooze, a University of Oregon graduate from the class of 1916 who was killed in action in World War I on Oct. 25, 1918. Organizers said the Pioneer Cemetery observance typically draws 150 to 300 people each year.
At Eugene Masonic Cemetery, several dozen people turned out for a Memorial Day weekend observance anchored by the sound of a single trumpet. Barry Barreau, 70, played “Taps,” continuing a 56-year practice of performing at military funerals and ceremonies. Catherine Kordesch of the Eugene Masonic Cemetery Association said the grounds hold 141 veterans, with 11 more in Hope Abbey, spanning service from the Civil War through the world wars.
The memorials across Eugene told the same story in different forms: names on a wall, graves beneath old trees, a statue that has stood for more than a century. Together, they gave Memorial Day in Lane County a local frame, one rooted in specific lives, specific losses and the families who still come back to remember them.
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