GROWING UP IN TAHOE
Tucked in amongst a grove of pines hard against the Tahoe City Golf Course is Trail’s End Cemetery. Go there to discover the story of our community. It’s a story of sadness, as we remember the awesome mountain people who died reaching for joy, but also one of inspiration, as we reflect on the impact that so many incredible people had on those of us lucky enough to live our lives in Tahoe City.
Many of the graves bring back moments of community crisis and grief, when we all came together as one. There was the horrible day in 1987 when Julie Fenley, mother and North Tahoe schoolteacher, was killed by a drunk driver. It was a day made even worse when we discovered that the drunk driver was a graduate of North Tahoe High School, perhaps once Fenley’s student. There is another Julie in the cemetery, Julie Tennis, a teenage girl who died way too young. There is also the grave of a kid I used to play with when I was a toddler, Little Mickey Daniels, son of local fishing captain Mickey Daniels. He was only 13 when he died in an accident in 1974. As I recently wandered among the tombstones, I passed by the final resting place of John Sardella, whose entire face always seemed to be lit up with a smile when I knew him as a North Tahoe High classmate. He died of a drug overdose at a three-day rock concert in 1983.
Trail’s End is a place for a peaceful stroll, but you soon realize that there is something unique about our cemetery: far too many of the graves contain those who died young. Since many elderly depart town before they depart this life, it makes sense, but it’s still profoundly sad. I meandered past the beer bottles and ‘Born to Be Wild’ signs under one 20-year-old’s stone, and the Scooby Doo and wind chimes placed by the headstone of a 27-year-old. The young victims’ graves are adorned with mementos of childhoods lost. A pile of soccer balls, a lunch box, and a GI Joe action figure lie on the grave of 10-year-old Sam Brixey, who died in 2006 in a go-cart accident. Skis rest comfortably on the grave of a young woman proclaimed simply as ‘Ski Champion.’ Little toy horses lie next to the grave of Shana Eriksson, who died at 18 in 2003 in an equestrian accident while away at college in Fresno. Three years later, the unfathomable happened, when her sister, North Tahoe High School senior Mia Eriksson, died riding a horse in a jumping competition in Temecula.
The remains of Bob Everson are here. In the spring of 1981, Everson proposed the idea for a winter carnival at Lake Tahoe. A few months later, on the evening of July Fourth, he was killed on Lake Tahoe when another boat plowed through the boat he was sleeping in. The following winter, SnowFest was initiated in Everson’s honor. One of the most recent additions to Trail’s End is Norma App, day care provider for hundreds, including my kids when they were babies. Her on again, off again battle against cancer went on so long that many in town were surprised when it finally beat her last year.
Trail’s End is not only a place to say good-bye to people we knew, but also a place to remember those who came before us and helped shape our town. Longtime Tahoe Lake School teacher Lillian Farr and her father, Judge Bill Vernon, are buried here. She inspired a few generations of Tahoe kids, including me, to love Jeffrey pines, manzanita, and Dat-So-La-Lee, the Washoe basket maker extraordinaire. Vernon was a kindly old gentleman who I remember puttering through town with a smile on his face; in his younger days he was the first director of the Tahoe City Public Utility District and was Tahoe City’s justice of the peace in the 1940s. Some of the parents of my childhood friends are here, including several who made important community contributions. Bill and Mary Anna Conners were godparents to my little sister and frequent visitors to our home, but Bill was best known as the owner of what was known as Conner’s Station in the center of town, when gas stations used to serve as meeting places like post offices. Bill and Bernie Bechdolt and Carl and Elsie Bechdolt donated the land for the cemetery, which explains why they now lie in a prominent spot next to their beloved golf course. Carl, who managed the course, was known as ‘the Hawk’ because he always had his eye out for anyone who had the nerve to be joy-riding the course in a golf cart. He scared the hell out of us Tahoe City kids. Even today, I still walk sheepishly when crossing the golf course grounds, wondering if the Hawk is watching.
Basel and Ethel Kehoe arrived at Trail’s End only two months apart. They owned Kehoe’s Market, the only market in town in the early ’60s. I remember Basel as a tall, grumpy old guy when I was a little tyke. Perhaps he was cranky because I would frequently collect red wagonloads full of returnable bottles and take them to Kehoe’s to get the deposits back. I remember one time the store was full of paying customers waiting anxiously in line for him to finish counting my bottles, a process delayed further when I suggested he shorted me a nickel.
Some of my former neighbors are at Trail’s End. Ron Attardi was a local contractor who lived across the street. He was in the process of building the Cobblestone Cinema in 1971 when he was in a car accident. After a community effort to save him failed, his funeral became the first one I ever attended. Rose Demattei also rests at Trail’s End. She was the red-haired Italian lady who dished out real estate advice and yummy Italian food. All that good eating must be why my daughter has the middle name Rose.
While our society is trending away from traditional funerals and burials and moving toward the scattering of ashes in mountain meadows and joyous life celebrations under the blue sky, it is important to remember that Trail’s End holds the collective memory of our community. I recommend spending some time there on a quiet morning. Strolling through this little grove of trees and headstones, you’re sure to discover a piece of Tahoe City’s past.
~ Tim Hauserman grew up in Tahoe City. He wrote the guidebook to the Tahoe Rim Trail. Comment on this column below.
