The aging glass-and-concrete chimes tower that dominates a corner of Evergreen Washelli Memorial Park stands quiet vigil over the Veterans Memorial Cemetery, its bells silenced to accommodate the living who have encroached on the resting dead.
The octagonal, 65-foot-tall amber glass and concrete tower — built in 1950 with donations from local veterans groups — serves as a permanent shrine for more than 5,000 veterans buried in its shadow, spanning conflicts from the War of 1812 to Vietnam.
The tower overlooks this part of the 144-acre memorial park with its towering flagpole and rows upon rows of uniform white marble headstones, earning it the sobriquet “Arlington of the West.”
This past fall, the cemetery updated the veterans section and renovated the chimes tower, adding a new sidewalk with handrails and new lighting, and cutting back ivy and other greenery that had crowded on the structure. The renovations were a long time coming, said memorial park general manager Scott Sheehan, and took a long time to complete — two years, instead of two months, because of contractor conflicts.
“We’re glad that part of it is over,” Sheehan said. “This monument deserved the attention. This is a special place.”
The veterans section takes up 4 1/2 acres of the old section of the memorial park, located north of Green Lake. The park is divided by Aurora Avenue North, with the veterans memorial on the east side.
As far as burial plots, it has been full for years — the last veteran buried there served in Vietnam. There hasn’t been physical room for veterans who served in later conflicts.
“Nobody could have anticipated, back when this was dedicated right after the Second World War, that we would still be fighting endless wars,” Sheehan said.
Evergreen Washelli, which is privately owned and operated, has paid for the upkeep and renovations at the tower. The upgrades include a partial solution to the space crunch by adding 700 niches for cremated remains of veterans and their loved ones around the base of the tower and inside the locked lobby.
“We needed to have more space,” Sheehan said, noting the popularity of cremation has soared over the past decade. Data shows Washington ranks fourth in the nation in cremation rates, at 79%.
The outdoor niches are granite-fronted and curve around the base of the chimes tower. The niches inside the echoing, locked lobby of the tower are larger and decorative and have glass fronts, so the niche can be personalized with photos or other memorabilia. Prices range from roughly $2,000 to $20,000. Care is for perpetuity.
Daylight filters through panes of pebbled, amber-colored glass into the eight-sided tower, softening and shading the rows of niches. Above is a room for the carillon — a series of bells played through a keyboard — installed in 1965, which still sounds on Veterans Day and a few other occasions.
Before the cemetery became hedged in by residential neighborhoods, the chimes would play patriotic tunes every day at noon and 4:30 p.m., according to cemetery supervisor Aaron Sholes. That ended, he said, when more and more neighbors moved into the area and then complained.
A walk up the road next to the veterans section, leading to the chimes tower, is a humbling reminder of the sacrifices made by those who rest there — and how far back they go. There are rows after rows of identical white granite headstones that gently rise to the chimes tower, which sits at the highest point of the memorial park.
A path leading into the cemetery is guarded by the famous — or rather, infamous — 12-foot tall bronze “Doughboy” statue — placed in the cemetery in 1932. Controversy swirled around the statue, with complaints about souvenir German helmets gripped in one hand. Somebody cut them off years ago, along with the bayonet on his rifle. Some Seattle residents and officials thought the scene insensitive, according to news reports from that period.
Along the road headed toward the chimes tower are bronze section markers, each named after a memorable battle or incident at arms from America’s past: Manila Bay, Belleau Wood, Gettysburg, Bataan, Iwo Jima, Salerno Beach.
The cemetery is the final resting place of seven recipients of the Medal of Honor. Each of those graves bears a special marker recounting their sacrifices.
Among them is the grave of William Kenzo Nakamura, a Seattle resident whose heroic actions during World War II in Italy won him the nation’s highest military honor and cost him his life. The inscription on his grave notes that racism resulted in his actions not being recognized until 2000, when President Bill Clinton awarded the medal.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals courthouse in Seattle is named in his honor.
The new sidewalk leading to the chimes tower is flanked by two black-powder cannons taken from the deck of the USS Constitution — “Old Ironsides” — and placed at the veterans cemetery in 1929, just two years after the section was set aside by then-cemetery park manager Clinton Harley, a veteran of the Spanish-American War.
The first Memorial Day service was held at the cemetery in 1930. Since then, said Sheehan, Boy Scouts and other volunteers place thousands of flags on the graves every Memorial Day.
“It’s a sight to see,” he said.
Evergreen Washelli Memorial Park is the largest cemetery in Washington and has its roots in a tragedy that befell a founding family of Seattle.
David and Louisa Denny lost their infant son, Jonathan, and originally had buried him in a plot near what is now Capitol Hill. They decided to move the child’s remains to an area on property they owned near Oak Lake, the site of the current cemetery. Over time, several other Denny relatives and early pioneers buried their families there as well.
Sheehan noted that, at the time, the cemetery was a full day’s buggy ride from downtown and that Highway 99 was a dirt and brick path. In 1914, the family sold the property west of the highway to the American Necropolis Association, which renamed the property “Washelli,” a Makah word for “westerly wind.”
Five years later, the Evergreen Cemetery Company opened a competing graveyard on the east side of the highway. Evergreen bought Washelli in 1922, and the combined cemetery was named Evergreen Washelli in 1962, according to a history of the cemetery.
While talk of building a permanent memorial to veterans had circulated for years, the chimes tower wasn’t constructed until 1950 with contributions from local veterans’ groups, whose emblems decorate the sides of the eight-sided tower, which “stands as a permanent memorial to all veterans,” whether interred at Evergreen Washelli or not.
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