Scott Swanson
Of The New Era
It’s 38 degrees and misting slightly on the grassy knoll as Glenn Yoder climbs aboard his 1970 Ford tractor-backhoe to dig yet another grave at Gilliland Cemetery.
Yoder is 93. He’s been digging graves locally since 1966, when he got a phone call from Blair Smith, the caretaker at Gilliland, asking if he’d be willing to dig a grave at the cemetery with his backhoe. In those days, Yoder said, crews dug the graves at Gilliland, Ames, Lewis and Liberty cemeteries by hand.
“I dug one for him and I don’t think they’ve dug one by hand since,” he chuckled.
Kelly Smith, Blair’s son, who is the current grounds foreman for the Sweet Home Cemetery District, said Yoder’s arrival was a sea change for the district.
“Dad started up here digging by hand,” he said. “He dug five graves the first week. Then he got hold of Glenn.”
Yoder started excavating in 1948 after growing up on a farm on the road between Woodburn and Molalla.
He was the oldest of four children when his mother died, when he was 6. His father remarried and another daughter was born, making Yoder the only boy among four sisters.
During World War II he served in the “alternate service” since his Mennonite faith prohibited him from going to war. He worked at a mental hospital in Oshkosh, Mich., and then operated a Caterpillar bulldozer, clearing brush and timber in California.
Back in Oregon after the war, he worked on the family farm and in a sawmill before he decided to go into the excavating business.
He worked in the Sweet Home area for two years before moving here.
“I worked quite a bit for the city, doing sewers and water mains,” he said.
Later, he purchased a crane and did a lot of work clearing log ponds, he said.
Once, he said, he was clearing a pond and heard a popping sound. He noticed that some of the log dump employees standing nearby “looked funny,” so he hopped down to see what was going on. His rig was in contact with some power lines. He said he was fortunate that he wasn’t electrocuted in that incident.
When he came to Sweet Home, he worked for the Emmert brothers and met Floyd Emmert’s daughter Ethel, who worked for Dr. Langmack as an X-ray technician. They were married in 1952 and had two children, Dean and Jeanie (Overturf).
Dean Yoder took over his father’s excavating business in 1991, but Glenn Yoder has continued to handle the gravedigging.
He parks his tractor next to where the grave will be located, at a spot where cemetery staff have peeled back the turf. Plywood sheets cover the ground around the backhoe, to protect the grass and to keep mud from getting on the lawn.
Yoder scoops the dirt out of the 36-inch-wide hole with his shovel, which is exactly that width and digs the hole to a depth of 52 to 54 inches. The grave has to be deep enough that 22 inches of dirt can be packed on top of a cement liner. The liner, a box with a top, keeps the earth from caving in on top of the casket, Smith said.
Yoder said he usually checks the depth with a tape measure, though he can tell, pretty closely, when the grave is deep enough.
He figures he’s dug nearly 4,000 graves since September 1966, when he began and, according to cemetery staff, he’s the best, hands down.
“Nobody is as quick as this guy here,” said Groundskeeper Bob Felkins last week as Yoder smoothly scooped dirt out of a hole and deposited it on a dump trailer. “He can (dig a grave) in an hour. Others take an hour and a half, two hours.”
Smith agreed.
“He runs this machine faster than anybody can run one of their new ones,” he said.
As cremations have become more popular, Yoder said, demand for graves has decreased somewhat.
“In 2006 I dug 88,” he said. “Last year I only dug 50. They’re going to cremation now.”
He said he’s dug one in his career that wasn’t in a cemetery, on Hufford Ridge.
Yoder’s dug them in rain or shine, though recently the cemetery staff have tried to schedule him when the weather isn’t too wet. They’re not eager to see him retire.
“If we go to Lewis or Liberty, we drive the backhoe for him (from Gilliland),” Felkins said. “We want to keep him going as long as possible. Mainly. We want to watch out for him. He’s never disappointed us.”
Ethel, who handles the business side of things, said her husband has slowed down a bit.
“He keeps going,” she said. “I hope he can yet, but I don’t know how much longer he’ll be able to.”
She said Glenn has a bad ankle and “running that backhoe on cold mornings is getting difficult,” though, she added, “he really is in pretty good health.”
Yoder allowed that he likes to garden, “but it’s getting harder.”
Smith said that Yoder has rarely missed a grave digging, even though he’s had a hip replacement and several cataract surgeries.
“He was back to work after three weeks when he got his plastic hip,” Smith said. “He never seems to get sick.
“He’s an amazing guy.”