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| Introduction | This database is an index to the Salem Cemetery located in Ritzville, Adams County, Washington. There are 79 names listed. Location Lat: 47° 00' 08"N, Lon: 118° 23' 08"W T18N R35E Sec 34 To reach cemetery head north on State Highway 261 from Ralston, go one mile turn left (west) onto Roloff Road, go 2 miles and turn right (north) on Kramer Road. Cemetery is 1/8 mile up that road on left side. This one time Congregational Church Cemetery lies 1 mile north and 2 miles west of Ralston on a plot of land about 2/3 acre in size. The church was located beside the cemetery until 1955 at which time it was torn down. There were a few white crosses, so I obtained a copy of an earlier reading done in 1975 by Georgia Hays from the Ritzville City Hall, making it possible to add about 10 more names. The Adams county Centennial Committee furnished a new sign for Salem cemetery, making it very easy to spot. The sign says, "Salem Cemetery Established 1899". I surveyed this cemetery 100 years later in 1999. Transcription Notes Entries followed by NS were taken from the above mentioned and the Old Bessarabian Church records, microfilmed and kept at Salt Lake City, church records of the Salem Evangelical Congregational church as translated and transcribed by LaVerne Kautz and made available to me by the Adams County Historical Association. In 2004 a group of interested neighbors and family organized and took on the challenge of bringing this cemetery back. For a year volunteers worked at redoing the landscaping of the grounds, replacing the fence with a new vinyl fence, a 12 ft wide, 8 ft high arched entrance way with a new sign. There is still more work to be done as time and money allows. Descendants of those buried at the site donated over $9000 to use for those improvements and a informational sign. This 'Germans from Russian' community kept their early Pastoral Records in German as mentioned above. This record by Mrs Kautz was updated by the committee and a copy of the book was given out to each person who worked and later attended the rededication of the cemetery in June of 2005. Randy Roth provided me with a copy of the book which the committee published. It contains the complete history of the church, which closed in 1955 and a map and listing of all buried in the cemetery, which are known. The names listed at the end were church members, who may not be buried here. ~ Maggie Rail Earliest birth date listed - 1828 Earliest death date listed - 1899 Most recent death date listed - 1990 I walked and read this cemetery on Oct 02, 1999, including all existing stones and markers at that time. Abbreviations s/w = stone with c/o = child of d/o = daughter of h/o = husband of w/o = wife of b. = born d. = died s/o = son of P = Plot |
| Citation: | Database: Salem Cemetery 1899-1990. ONLINE 2010. Washington Secretary of State. Cemetery index, history, description and transcription notes donated to the Washington Historical Records Project by Maggie Rail, August 2009. Available: http://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov |
