WILLMAR — Neighbors in northwest Willmar came out, pickup trucks and forklifts at the ready, to clean up Fairview Cemetery after an afternoon thunderstorm swept through the area on Thursday, Aug. 29. Robin and Eric Raasch lost power at their home due to the storm, but Eric drove over in his forklift to help clear downed branches in the cemetery as soon as the rain cleared, teenage son Cody and friend Gavin Paulson in tow.
Fairview Cemetery Association President Deb Magnuson, also the cemetery caretaker, said the cleanup effort may cost the cemetery up to $20,000 to clear the branches, replace the trees and repair any broken headstones. "We got nailed. We always get nailed out there, I hate it," she said of the damage.
"I walked out there today and it was beautiful, and then 40 minutes later, boom. I couldn't see anything at all, it came up so fast." Assistant groundskeeper Tyrone Swanson had just finished his work shift when he got a call about the damage to the cemetery, describing the scene as "a mess" upon his arrival.
Swanson got to work, cutting down bigger branches into pieces small enough to be piled for city workers to haul away later. Neighbors Ram Martinez and Guadalupe Arguijo also lent a hand dragging branches away from headstones and piling them along the cemetery's pathways. Fairview Cemetery is a nonprofit, nondenominational cemetery, and stays open solely through the sale of burial plots and donations.
It is kept up entirely by volunteers, from groundskeeping to maintenance to replacing damaged trees and headstones. "It's a matter of getting people out there to help and try to maintain this," Magnuson said. "It's a lot of work to come out there and do that.
" A previous storm in May 2022 cost the cemetery approximately $30,000 for repairs. "We had a lady pass away seven months before that happened, and she donated $36,000 through her estate, and then we had a tornado," Magnuson said. "This lady who passed away, it was a godsend, because we had no money to pay for it, and it was 30-something thousand dollars.
" The damages from that storm included 12 to 14 trees that had to be taken down, something Magnuson hopes won't be needed after Thursday. "Tree-cutting is a very expensive service. Just to cut a tree down is $5,000.
" If damages exceed the funds that Fairview Cemetery has on hand, which usually covers mowing and small repairs, the association may face a quandary of what the cemetery's future will look like. "If we run out of money to take care of the cemetery, what happens is that it'll go to the city, and the city will have to take care of it — mowing and maintenance," Magnuson said. "And we, as a board, are trying to keep it alive, keep getting donations and keep it, because the city doesn't want it.
" For more information about the cemetery and cleanup efforts, visit www.facebook.com/p/Fairview-Cemetery-100069663133555.
