Among those attending the Pioneer Cemetery memorial ceremony Saturday afternoon is Richard Francis, saluting as the National Anthem is sung. Francis is a U.S. Army veteran from World War II in the South Pacific. Other veterans and people attended the ceremony that also included the dedication of two previously unmarked graves of World War I veterans, Erick Bernard Anderson and Ray Tibbetts. World Photos by Lou Sennick

Erick Anderson and Ray Tibbetts served their country during World War I and now serve as a reminder of the historical riches found in Marshfield Pioneer Cemetery in Coos Bay.

As part of the city's Memorial Day celebrations, Marshfield High School students paid tribute to the 91 veterans whose remains are known to reside in the cemetery adjacent to the school. Becky Soules, an 11th-grader who has been involved with restoration of the site, paid particular tribute to the two men who died during the late 1910s.

She noted that Anderson, who was 27 when he left Coos County to serve his country, never saw live combat. Instead, he spent his time in the army cutting down spruce trees in Washington to supply the government with wood to construct warplanes. After the armistice, he was sent to Vancouver, Wash., to await his discharge papers. But before he could return home, Anderson contracted an especially virulent form of influenza. He became one of thousands of Oregonians who died that winter from a flu strain that was especially deadly among the young.

Tibbetts was stationed at Camp Lewis in Washington where he too succumbed to the deadly virus, before he completed his training.

Neither man had a tombstone erected in his memory, but after careful research, Soules and her classmates located their burial sites and installed markers, dedicated on Saturday.

“More tragic than their deaths was the fact that their graves were unmarked, either from neglect, or vandalism or from a lack of funding at that time,” she said.

At the end of the ceremony, Soules encouraged residents with family members buried in the cemetery to come forward and share their stories.

One such person who arrived on Saturday was Virginia Maine, of Coos Bay. Her great-grandfather and great-grandmother, Wesley Charles Maine and Elizabeth Maine, were both buried at the cemetery in 1916 and 1922 respectively. Like Anderson and Tibbetts, neither relative had a gravestone, but thanks to the research performed by Soules, Maine was able to locate their burial sites.

“It was hard to find without a marker,” Maine said. “We might have to do something about that.”

To share information about friends or relatives buried at the cemetery, those interested can contact Marshfield High at 267-1400 or e-mail at cbcemetery@att.net.