Daisey’s memory established to relaxation

It only took 135 years, but Daisey Kirtley is back again with her family.

At least, her grave is. It was formally reunited Saturday with the Kirtley family gravesite at the Buckley Cemetery, for the duration of a ceremony that brought about 50 folks to witness the historic reuniting of the Bonney Lake place household.

Amongst them have been Daisey’s fantastic-grandnieces Robyn Salo and Raynne Cech. (A third sister wasn’t able to make it to the ceremony that day.)

“It’s surely intriguing finding out about the heritage of the family members, and how significantly again we have long gone,” Salo mentioned. “It’s fun learning about this. This has normally been my residence. … It’s surreal.”

“It’s neat to see all the folks who are so energized about it,” Cech added.

Born April 10, 1878, Daisey died just a month right before her eighth birthday on March 13, 1886. Washington only turned a state three a long time immediately after her loss of life.

Astoundingly, her grave showed up last 12 months in Bonney Lake – triggering months of analysis into her background.

“When I consider about the journey this very little stone manufactured to get right here, to use an old phrase, it blows my brain,” Weeks Funeral House outreach liaison Charmaine Jovanovich-Miller mentioned in her welcoming speech to the group. “But then it will make me smile. Due to the fact it would hardly ever have happened if not for all the very good folks who did not know a lady named Daisey, had never satisfied her … (and) stepped ahead to help.”

Shane Riley, a ranger at the Military Corps of Engineers’ Mud Mountain Dam Park, did his very own analysis on the grave and arrived at out to the sisters soon after studying of their familial connection to Daisey. He’d currently been researching families in the region for his task on a collection of interpretive panels, and recognized the identify “Kirtley” when Daisey’s story first received out.

For Riley, “it’s fulfilling” to see the good-grandnieces reunited with Daisey.

“They had no strategy, so what a excellent surprise for them to be component of some thing they ended up absolutely unaware of,” Riley explained.

Image by Alex Bruell
Raynne Woolery Cech, remaining and Robyn Woolery Salo stand by the gravesite of the Kirtley spouse and children, wherever Daisey’s grave has been laid to rest.

Daisey’s journey – at least, her gravestone’s – was anything at all but regular.

Her grave showed up in October last calendar year in the woods close to Bonney Lake. Close by resident Dustin Baccetti, releasing a mouse that his cat had caught, stumbled on it.

Baccetti shared some pics in the Bonney Lake Neighborhood Group Facebook team, and the Increased Bonney Lake Historical Culture before long grew to become conscious of the grave marker far too. The Historic Society and sleuths from the Facebook team commenced parallel investigations into Daisey’s life, starting up with the scant data from her grave marker. Riley, way too, performed his personal investigate.

Distinct from the outset was that the Kirtleys had been a single of the first pioneer family members of the Plateau location, settling to expand hops in the Lake Tapps area in the late 19th century.

But it turns out the Kirtleys experienced been here decades just before.

James’ brother Whitfield Kirtley joined three other guys in 1953 to vacation from Yelm in get to scout the Naches Path by the Cascade Mountains, according to Riley’s exploration. War broke out involving settlers and Native Us citizens in 1855, and Fort Henness was constructed for shelter in Grand Mound.

The Kirtley loved ones were being one of 20 people that probably experienced to consider shelter in the fort for just about a calendar year as war raged on, Riley stated. James Kirtley, alongside with most of the other adult guys, was enlisted into support in the Military.

Following the war, the Kirtley relatives probable moved back again to Summit, Missouri, Riley reported, where Daisey was born, even though data on accurately in which they put in that time are conflicting.

Either way, many years later on, they built their way to the Lake Tapps area.

James and Mary Kirtley settled at their pioneer homestead situated at Lake Davis (afterwards acknowledged as Kirtley Lake) in 1885 to increase hops, Foothills Historic Society treasurer Jean Contreras stated. The Kirtley spouse and children took ownership of the land in 1890.

About 1900, the household offered their farm to Westinghouse Electric powered and Manufacturing Firm, which was buying residence all around Lake Tapps as part of the White River Job. The spouse and children moved to a new farm throughout from what is now Haugen’s Dairy Farms on Sumner Buckley Freeway.

Roughly a ten years afterwards, the White River Job flooded the unique family farm for the duration of the construction of a hydroelectric energy plant fueled by drinking water diverted to Lake Tapps. Four pure lakes – Crawford, Kirtley, Church and Tapps – ended up flooded to build the Lake Tapps reservoir. Daisey’s aged residence is now underwater just north of Tapps Island.

Mysteries nonetheless remain to be solved in Daisey’s story. The historians have not but identified her result in of loss of life, nor particularly how her grave created its journey to the woods in Bonney Lake. Although they suspect she was buried at the old relatives farm, now underneath Lake Tapps, that element hasn’t nevertheless been verified either.

But at the very least just one piece of the puzzle has now clicked into place.

“A good deal has transformed given that 1886, but the reduction of a youngster feels the very same no matter what yr you’re in,” Jovanovich-Miller mentioned. “So now … it seems like a quite joyful ending to me.”