Mountain View Cemetery was established in 1810 with just a few plots behind a simple white fence. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer
WELD — A checkered cloth was draped over a table in the sunroom. On it sat baked brie, cocktail shrimp and tortilla chips. People sipped wine and hugged and laughed. Creedence Clearwater Revival spilled from boxy brown speakers.
This wasn’t a regular summer cocktail party – it was the annual Mountain View Cemetery party, an event exclusively for those who have purchased plots in the cemetery, one of five in the small western Maine town of 376 people.
Every summer for the last 30 years, on the third Thursday in August, anyone with a plot has been invited to gather at the cemetery sexton’s home. It’s a chance to “get to know who you’ll spend eternity with,” said sexton Sean Minear, 62.
Some come every year, others said they make it when they can. For some, this year’s gathering was their first meeting.
People talked about the view from their plots and the family they hoped would visit their graves. They joked about their eternal resting place.
Sean Minear, 62, walks through groups of socializing members to begin the annual Mountain View Cemetery Association meeting at his his home on Aug. 15. For more than 30 years, on the third Thursday in August, anyone with a cemetery plot is invited to the gathering to “get to know who you’ll spend eternity with.” Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer
“We’re going to keep right on having good parties once we’re buried,” said Joanie Hale, 87.
Friends she’s known since she was a kid plan to be buried there, too.
“It’s just nice to know that we’ve shared a lot of life together and now we’ll share eternity,” she said.
Kelly Scott, 60, said everyone who lives on her street has a plot. So when the small neighborhood on Webb Lake got to pick their street name about 20 years ago, they chose “Mountain View Lane.”
“We’ll never have to change our address,” she said. “Because everybody who lives on that lane is going to end up at Mountain View Cemetery.”
For years, someone manned the door, making sure that only plot owners were allowed in. She had a list and made sure no one from another cemetery could crash the party. Security is looser since she died a few years ago. She’s buried at Mountain View, of course – but the rule still stands.
“There are people who have bought plots in this cemetery simply so they can go to the cemetery party,” Minear said.
THE CEMETERY
On the day of this year’s party, clouds rolled quickly by, sometimes allowing a sliver of sunlight to peak through. Then, just as quickly, they’d cover it up again. The cemetery – about five minutes up the road from Minear’s home on the way to Mount Tumbledown – looked peaceful in the changing light.
Sean Minear walks through Mountain View Cemetery on Aug. 15. Minear is the sexton of the graveyard. He was raised in Weld, and his mother and various ancestors are buried in the cemetery. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer
Minear meandered through the graveyard that afternoon, pulling up weeds and taking note of minor fixes that needed to be made. He pointed out some headstones as he walked.
“There’s a kid named Bud who died in the 1800s,” he said, gesturing toward a modest headstone.
The inscription reads, “A bud transplanted.”
The graveyard was established in 1810 with just a few plots behind a simple white fence, which is now the front of the graveyard near the road. Minear’s own ancestors are buried in that section, some of Weld’s original settlers. In 1992, he became sexton, a position that means he’s responsible for the graveyard. He sells plots, organizes burials, mows the lawn. He keeps the place running.
The cemetery expanded further back in the 1970s and further still six years ago when Linda Bean, the granddaughter of L.L. Bean’s founder, donated some of the surrounding land she owned.
Minear began hosting the annual party in 1994. It precedes a meeting of the Mountain View Cemetery Association, comprised of exactly the same people – those with a plot in the graveyard.
The group discusses finances, volunteer days to spruce up the graveyard, plot availability and general operations. They vote on any changes, like upping plot prices or expanding the cemetery.
Members of the Mountain View Cemetery Association listen as leadership gives updates at their annual meeting. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer
This year, they needed to raise a little more than $900 to maintain the property.
There’s room for about 70 more plots before it will be filled again, Minear said. But even with the expansions, the graveyard looks quaint. He estimates that there are about 400 plots total in the yard.
That same simple, white fence from the 1800s runs along the front of the graveyard, though it’s been repaired and painted several times over now. The grass is mowed but not manicured. Wildflowers and ferns spill from the edge of the thick forest that lines the place. Mount Blue and Tumbledown Mountain hover above it all.
“Our attitude about this cemetery is that we’d rather have trees and have it be beautiful instead of have it look like a putting green,” Minear said.
There is steady interest in plots there, he said. In part, he guesses, because of the community that’s grown around the graveyard – especially the annual party.
OLD AND NEW FRIENDS
Ina Toth and Todd Papalagis, now in their 60s, have been close friends since they bought plots at Mountain View roughly 30 years ago. They met attending their first party at Minear’s house in the 1990s.
Todd Papalagis hugs his friend Ina Toth as they greet each other at the annual Mountain View Cemetery Association meeting at Sean Minear’s home in Weld. Papalagis’ wife recently died, and he plans to lay her to rest in the cemetery. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer
Toth and her husband hit it off over cocktails with Papalagis and his wife. Soon, they were visiting one another during the off-season. The Toths lived in York and the Papalagises lived in New Hampshire, though now they live in Weld full time.
Toth and her husband had been coming to Weld in the summers for years and, after her own parents died when she was in her 30s, she wanted to make plans for herself, hoping to spare her kids the stress of scrambling to make arrangements at the last minute. She loved Weld and the plots were affordable. She bought five. One for each member of her family.
“I bought my plot here before I owned property here,” Toth said.
Much of the community she’s built in town will share the cemetery with her, too.
“All the friends who we come up here with, they all have plots in the cemetery. We started out living together in an apartment complex and now we’re gonna be eternally together,” she said.
Papalagis and his wife bought plots in the cemetery around the same time.
“We knew how expensive things could be and when we learned a plot was $50, we were jumping on that. It’s super reasonable and it’s just a beautiful spot. We just loved the view and the town. All that stuff,” he said.
When Papalagis’ wife died this year, the Toths supported him.
“We wanted Todd to know how much we loved Meg, always, and that we were here for him,” Toth said.
Soon, Meg Papalagis will be buried at Mountain View.
“It’s just a beautiful spot,” Todd Papalagis said. “Just beautiful.”
Mountain View Cemetery is mowed but not manicured. Mount Blue and Tumbledown Mountain hover above it all. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer
DIRT TO DIRT
Death was a popular topic of conversation at the party. People spoke frankly – and often joked – about their deaths. There wasn’t a common belief around death or a shared religious or spiritual philosophy. But the members of the Mountain View Cemetery Association were clear on one thing, they would all eventually die, so why not talk about it.
Annie Agan, 70, said she regularly visits her plot. She’ll go some mornings to sit on her headstone, drinking coffee or writing in her journal.
Martha Winter Vining, right, chats with a friend at the annual Mountain View Cemetery Association meeting. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer
“It’s so quiet there,” she said, shaking her head. “I mean, heck, when you’re dead you’re dead. But I think about my son, Josh, coming to visit me. And his favorite mountain is Tumbledown, so he’ll go climb the mountain and then come say hi.”
Agan’s kids affectionately call her “Dirt Mama,” – she’s an accomplished gardener, always with her hands in the dirt – so she’s decided that her plaque will read, “Dirt to dirt.”
The party’s youngest attendee was Beatrix Merwin, just a few weeks old with a shock of dark hair. She lay on her mother’s chest sleeping and occasionally cooing. It was the first time she and her mother, Mary Merwin, came to the party.
Mary Merwin, 35, holds her daughter, Beatrix, just a few days old and the youngest attendee at the party. This year was Merwin’s first cemetery meeting. She and her husband buried their infant son at Mountain View in 2020. Mary plans on being laid to rest there, too. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer
Merwin, 35, said she found the event “a little bizarre,” but was happy to be there. She said she appreciated the community it created.
She and her husband met working at a summer camp in Weld. They got married and in 2020 had a baby. But just four days after he was born, their son died.
“We really didn’t know where to bury him. Neither of us had family plots anywhere, and we didn’t have any real connections to the town we lived in. So we were like, ‘Oh, what about Weld?’ because we just loved it here,” she said.
Merwin and her husband have bought plots for themselves, too.
“Our belief system is: We believe that he’s sleeping and that when Jesus comes, that he’ll be raised from the dead, and so I kind of think like, oh these are all the people that are gonna be there when that happens,” she said as her eyes swept the room. “It almost makes them feel like family.”
‘TO SOFTEN IT UP’
Mountain View Cemetery has few rules. Nobody is required to have a coffin. Burying ashes is fine. Funerals need not be formal. Minear said one plot-holder wants to be lowered into the ground on a plank, wrapped in a sheet. Agan found a lichen-covered stone in the woods and asked if it could be her headstone. That’s all fine with Minear.
Members of the Mountain View Cemetery Association listen as leadership gives updates at their annual meeting in Weld. Sexton Sean Minear has held the annual gathering at his home for over 30 years. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer
“I think I’ve done eight burials this summer. One of them, the kids were all blowing bubbles, people were helping fill in the grave. It’s almost rare for us to do burials that include a formal component. It’s just me working with the family and saying, ‘you can do what you want to do,’” Minear said.
He’s seen tragic deaths, expected deaths, shocking deaths, melancholy deaths. In his 32 years as sexton, he’s buried several of his own family members.
Since he became sexton, he’s layered the bottom of every grave with flowers, lilacs and ferns. He does this, he said, “so that it softens it up a little bit for the family, so they’re not just looking into a hole in the ground.”
It’s what he hopes to do, too, with the subject of death – soften it. Enough so that a group of people, many of them likely decades away from dying, can talk over a cocktail about the view from their headstones. And they don’t seem scared.
“We’ve had discussions about, ‘Well, from your plot you’ll be able to look up and see Mount Blue’ or ‘You’ll be buried right next to your friend.’ We’re very open about that,” Minear said.
Members of the Mountain View Cemetery Association raise their hands to second a motion at the annual meeting in Weld. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer
About 6:30 p.m., the group was called to order. Conversations trailed off and people pulled up chairs, still holding glasses of wine or cubes of cheese, and they directed their attention toward Minear. He ran through the meeting minutes from the previous year, he talked about a new kind of biodegradable Himalayan salt urn that he’d recently learned about, and he told the association how much more money they still needed to raise on silent auction items.
“If you didn’t bring cash or checks, that’s OK, we know where you’re going,” he joked. Laugher rung out around the room.
Then, it was time for a vote. Minear proposed increasing the price of a four-plot to $300 for residents and $600 for nonresidents. For the last few years, those prices have been $200 and $400. He laid out prices at nearby cemeteries and said raising the price would take some of the fundraising burden off the association.
A member of the Mountain View Cemetery Association waves goodbye as people leave Sean Minear’s house after their annual gathering. Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer
“Sean, as a resident, I would be fine with even more than that to ensure our perpetual care into the future,” said Kathleen Masterman, raising her hand as she reclined on the couch. “It’s still a very reasonable cost for a four-holer.”
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Publish date : 2024-09-21 21:00:00
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