Gone but not forgotten: Local woman works to improve little-known cemetery in Mae Valley
The cemetery is home to one lone headstone on the three-fourths-acre lot despite a handful of other graves most likely hidden there.
Rebecca Pettingill/Columbia Basin Herald
From the left, professor Steve Hackenberger, Harold Hochstatter and Ruth Latham go over records Hochstatter has of the history of the Mae Valley area.
Maria Kovach pushes the ground-penetrating radar across the dirt to help evaluate the cemetery on Oct. 10.
One of the CWU students pushes the ground-penetrating radar as another student confers with professor Steve Hackenberger on the progress of their work at the cemetery on Oct. 10.
This scan from the ground penetrating radar shows patches of red, which is an indicator of soil disturbance, throughout the middle area of the cemetery. The oval circles are what Hackenberger believes to be the graves, or former graves, which historical records show and correspond with the soil disturbance. The square is the location of the only standing headstone in the cemetery.
Ruth Hinen Latham, of Moses Lake, has taken it upon herself to restore a small cemetery along Mae Valley Road.
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