Grave Stories, Part 1

This is the first post of a multi-part series.

I’ve recently registered Randolph, Coos County, Oregon, as a one-place study (OPS). Now I’m in the process of learning how to conduct a OPS so that I can start adding content to its dedicated WikiTree webpage.

Many one-place studies (OPS) begin defining a place and its population by its church parish records and its historic buildings. However, Randolph had no churches — so, of course, there are no church records to examine. And as far as I know, it has just two buildings that are over 120 years old. The first is a schoolhouse that fell into disrepair. It is now privately owned and has been renovated in an attempt to restore some of its historic ambiance. The second is a privately-owned house, which is eligible for – but does not have – official status as a historic home. Consequently, local architecture can tell us only a little about the place.

There are three other sites created early in the history of Randolph that help define it as a place — its cemeteries:

1. The Randolph Cemetery (located near the old schoolhouse site, coordinates 43.1700989°, -124.3557297°, at red marker on image below). It includes one grave marker along with several unmarked graves. It is no longer used for interment.
2. The Hultin-Thrush Cemetery (located near the junction of North Bank Lane and Seven Mile Road, coordinates 43.1689931°, -124.3506551°, at purple marker on image below). It does not include any grave markers but reportedly eight individuals are buried there. It also is no longer used for interment.
3. The Russell Family Cemetery (located west of Seven Mile Road, coordinates 43.1764634°, -124.3389126°, at blue marker on image below). It includes at least 22 memorials. Interments still take place here.

As a child I remember my family once walking up a long, forested drive to see the old Randolph Schoolhouse. My recollection of the schoolhouse itself is vague. My father might have told us that there was an old cemetery behind the schoolhouse, but I don’t have any visual memory of the cemetery. He told us about an 1890 landslide into Randolph Slough, below the schoolhouse site. The landslide took down a house with two of our family members inside, crushing them both to death: John Thrush (one of my father’s great-great-grandfathers), and Mary E. Russell (one of my father’s grandfather’s sisters). Since hearing the story, I’ve never passed the site without remembering what happened there.

Until this moment I did not realize that my father’s story directly connects the three cemeteries together: one of the two family members killed in the vicinity of the Randolph Cemetery is buried at the Hultin-Thrush Cemetery, and the other is buried in the Russell Family Cemetery.