This was sent last January and is still true today. -- jws http://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/letters/ Sunday, January 11, 1998 Letters HeraldNet - Letters SNOHOMISH CEMETERY Don't disturb ancestors Aren't our ancestors entitled to respect and reverence anymore? A reporter for The Herald recently wrote an article about the actions being taken by the city of Snohomish at the Snohomish Cemetery. Would you want a building and parking lot built over your father's grave? That's what the city of Snohomish has done and now they want to cover even more of Snohomish Cemetery located on the east side of town at the junction of U.S. 2 and the Pilchuck River. Many local Indians as well as white settlers were buried at this site. Several burial plots were removed when U.S. 2 was built but no records show that any remains were removed from the south portion of the cemetery. Pilchuck Jack, the last chief of the Pilchuck Indian Tribe, was buried in 1905 in the southeast corner of the cemetery with only a wooden board to mark the location. Snohomish has removed all the monuments and graded the cemetery. They say no remains can be found there. However, by law, no remains can be removed from a cemetery without copious records kept. There are no records of bodies exhumed from the south portion of the Indian Cemetery. It's easy to remove monuments and headstones and then claim the bodies are gone, too. It would be easy to say that the city of Snohomish is applying a lesser standard of concern and reverence for the dead because, after all, they were just some local Indians. It's not like the gravesides are from a more recent time and likely to have living relatives. It should not matter who is buried there. White, Black, Asian or Indian -- all people deserve respect. I would hope that Snohomish would respect the final resting place of Pilchuck Jack and others and leave them in peace where they are, overlooking the Pilchuck River. JOHN AMMETER Snohomish Tribe of Indians General Web site comments: <A HREF="mailto:newmedia@heraldnet.com">newmedia@heraldnet.com</A> Copyright (c) 1998 The Daily Herald Co., Everett, Wash. <A HREF="http://www.heraldnet.com/about/legal.htm">