Judy Evans Lindhag cleans up a headstone at the Welsh Cemetery Saturday morning. Behind her, Aren Orsen, left, and Liz Orsen carefully remove buildup from a headstone. The Orsens work in historic preservation, they said, so they know a bit about old cemeteries. They were the ones who brought the cemetery’s existence to the attention of the Puget Sound Welsh Association.
September 12, 2022
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Cleaning up history
Remote cemetery shows where an immigrant community once thrived
HARTLINE — On a lonely gravel road somewhere between Hartline and Almira, there’s a small graveyard that is the only tangible evidence of a once-thriving community. “The whole Welsh settlement was about a 15-mile strip north of Hartline, Wilbur, Govan and Almira, just kind of a strip right through there,” said Judy Evans Lindhag, whose family homesteaded next to the cemetery. “In the old time, they called it the ‘Welsh township,’ but it was never a town.” Lindhag was one of about a dozen people who gathered at the Welsh Cemetery Saturday morning to clean up headstones and clear away brush. The work day was planned by Mary Lynne Evans, president of the Puget Sound Welsh Association in Seattle...