Ralph Hickenbottom retires from Evergreen Cemetery after 35 years

FAIRFIELD - Ralph Hickenbottom has taken care of the Evergreen Cemetery in Fairfield for 35 years, but now he's ready to pass the torch to a new superintendent.

Matt Nelson assumed the duties of cemetery caretaker on April 1. Nelson has experience with the cemetery from having worked there during the summer when he was a teenager, and has 23 years of experience in the monument business.

'I'm confident leaving the job in Matt's hands,” Hickenbottom said. 'He's very conscientious. I have no worries.”

Hickenbottom was born and raised in Fairfield, graduating from Fairfield High School in 1974. He held many different jobs before becoming the cemetery's superintendent such as working in a factory and working for his brother's trucking business. In fact, Ralph was working for his brother's business in 1983 when his brother developed leukemia. His brother, Dave Lankford, needed to sell the business, but Ralph was in no position to buy it, so he had to find a different line of work.

Ralph's wife told him about an opening at the Evergreen Cemetery. Ralph was hired as an assistant, and expected to work there just through the winter, until he found something else in the spring. That's not what happened. After 1.5 years of working as an assistant, Ralph was promoted to supintendent, a position he's held for 35 years.

'It was a lot longer than I expected,” he said.

The Evergreen Cemetery Association is a private, non-profit corporation. It is a non-church, non-tax supported perpetual care cemetery. It does not receive tax money, and instead must rely on lot sales, grave openings, interest on a trust fund, and donations to finance its operations.

This year is noteworthy not just for Hickenbottom's retirement but also because the cemetery is turning 150 years old. It was established in 1870 by a group of nine men headed by Capt. Clement Jordan. The men bought and laid out the grounds of the cemetery to be identical to the Evergreen Cemetery in Portland, Maine. The cemetery extends over a patch of land 35 acres in size.

As superintendent, Hickenbottom was responsible for running the day-to-day business of the cemetery, which involves digging graves, selling lots, answering phone calls and letters, and 'a lot of mowing.” Mowing 35 acres dotted with headstones is a long process - four and a half days to be exact. Hickenbottom said mowing is the most time consuming activity in the summer, and it's why he relied on assistants and part-time workers. Hickenbottom said he had the pleasure of working with great co-workers such as John Barker, a co-worker of 22 years, and Gary Rodgers, whom he worked with for 13 years.

'I was blessed with two of the best full-time workers you could ever have,” Hickenbottom said of the two men.

During the winter, when it wasn't as busy, Hickenbottom spent his days repairing machinery and pushing snow. Another part of his job was helping genealogists locate a long lost relative. Hickenbottom said the cemetery still relies on paper records to find such things, though it's slowly transitioning to digital databases. And there are a lot of names to keep track of. Nearly 11,000 people have been buried at the cemetery.

Hickenbottom said he was fortunate to have a great board of directors to work with during his 36.5 years with the cemetery. The board was accommodating to his desire to volunteer with the Fairfield Fire Department, which he was on for 22 years.

'The board only had one stipulation: that I'm not allowed to leave a service to put out a fire,” Hickenbottom said. 'That was the golden rule, that the cemetery comes first.”