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Eastern State Hospital Cemetery #1
Medical Lake, Spokane County, Washington

This cemetery is on the Eastern Washington State Hospital Grounds, and permission to visit must be received at the main office as you come in. Volunteer Services will direct you if you cannot find it.

In the early days, burial records were not well kept. No plan was laid out to bury, or perhaps it was because different people handled the burials. They did not follow a well laid our plat map. Years of burials are scattered also into more than one area. I am only hoping I am correct in those middle dates. There are some in Cemetery #2 also who earlier than 1942. The sure way to know is have the office look up the records and they will show you the burial spot, if you are a blood relative.

The burials in all of the cemeteries on Eastern State grounds are marked with a small cement marker with a number on them. No particular order of burial it seems in many cases, but they are all numbered well. Over the years these small markers became buried underground. This made it so that many no longer knew where the cemeteries were. Just a weed patch, hiding both headstones and cemeteries, after they discontinued using them for burials.

In the last years the Volunteer Services Department has worked at organizing volunteer groups to help with the project they had in mind, to restore the cemeteries. First it was the cleanup, then the lifting of each of the markers to ground level. Then a plan to see that the area is mowed regularly by the groundskeepers.

This first cemetery finished and was rededicated on Oct 08, 2001. They chose to use the dates 1891-1942 on the sign, however this does not really mean they all are within this date frame. It was just a guideline to go by, because only the records office knows the real dates, and I think the dates overlap into both cemeteries. The important part was to get them cleaned out, and this was named #1 because it was the first one they cleaned up and rededicated. It was not necessarily the first cemetery used.

If there is an asterisk *, I have the photo of that stone, and found it in this cemetery. The other records were found in my research as I continued to read more cemeteries. I received no records from the staff at Eastern State Hospital. This also may mean there are errors in my work, so do not take it for absolute fact, without further research on your part. Any listed below, which have no asterisk, could be in Cemetery #2.

I visited this cemetery in July of 2002. This contains all of the headstones which can be identified, out of the estimated 1800 buried here, plus old records I found in my research, or from family.

- Maggie Rail

Adsitt, Frank, b. 1862, d. 1936, #1621 *
Assain, John, d. Mar 12, 1941, Custodial School, age 25yr, bur. Custodial School, father in California
Bartholomew, Henry, d. Oct 12, 1942, bur. ESH
Bernards, Morris, d. Jul 11, 1942 ESH, age 60yr, bur. ESH
Bolton, James, d. Feb 24, 1942 ESH, bur. ESH, h/o a wife and two sons
Cartwright, Wesley H, b. 1870, d. 1938, grave #1567 *
Cherbert, Peter, d. Jul 25, 1940 ESH, age 50yr, bur. ESH
Dunford, John Adams, d. Jul 24, 1942 Custodial School, age 22yr, bur. Custodial School, mother in Seattle, Wn
Else, Clarence Arthur, b. Dec 12, 1892 NE, d. Dec 09, 1940, (listed as Clarence Edwards at ESH, which was his first wife's maiden name), bur. Dec 17, 1940 ESH, Lot #1823
Flynn, Edward, d. Oct 08, 1939 ESH, bur. ESH
Giurnis, Gus, d. Mar 25, 1941 ESH, age 63yr, h/o wife and child/children, bur. ESH
Hannon, Patrick Collen, d. Jan 19, 1939 Custodial School, Medical Lake, Wn, age 2yr, s/o Mary Hannon, bur. at Custodial School
Hengen, Mary, d. Dec 1940 ESH, bur. ESH
Kraus, Katherine, b. 1857, d. 1937, ESH *
La Riviere, Marie, d. May 20, 1941 Custodial School, bur. Custodial School
Lawson, Clementina Fite, b. 1868, d. 1937, #145?*
Lenseigne, Richard, d. Mar 08, 1947 Custodial School, Medical Lake, Wn, age 12, bur. custodial school, s/o Victor Leseigne of Moxee, Wa
Lyons, Jerry, d. Oct 11, 1942 ESH, bur. ESH
Moore, Clara, d. Feb 16, 1939 ESH, age 62yr, bur. ESH
Morales, Lupe, d. Dec 31, 1940 Custodial School, age 33yr, bur. Custodial School
Muller, Teresa, d. Oct 1939 ESH
Purdell, John, d. May 15, 1942 ESH, bur. ESH
Randolph, Marcia E. B., d. Mar 27, 1945 Custodial School, age 49yr, bur. custodial school, sister of C.E.Browning
Rivet, William d. Jul 10, 1942 ESH, age 50yr, bur. ESH
Roiz, Aemilio, d. Oct 06, 1942 ESH, bur. ESH
Saylor, Frank, d. Sep 18, 1942 ESH, bur. ESH, left a bro
Scarbro, Jay, b. 1877, d. 1933 *
Stanton, Patrick, d. Mar 08, 1940 ESH, bur. ESH