Memorial Day with Dan White, Part 2

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

The following podcast is a special presentation of answers for elders featuring Evergreen Washelli. Welcome back to the program and we are here again the week before Memorial Day and Mr. Dan White has been gracious enough to hang out with us for another segment because we want to talk about next weekend and Obviously Memorial Day weekend is a huge weekend for you guys at Evergreen Washelli and at Abbey View. Dan is the Northern Territory Manager for Evergreen Washelli and he oversees basically the Abbey View property in Briar and for those of you got that don’t know where brier is, is kind of what is it between Dan Lynwood, Ken more, bottle lake, forest park and Mount Lake Terris it? They all kind of the kind of connected. Yeah, they go around the center. Yeah, and Nice Arey. When I was driving there the other day I was so struck by how beautiful of a drive it is to get to Abbey View. It’s kind of tucked in a residential area, which makes it so nice. It’s not doesn’t have bustling traffic and going around and I just thought, wow, is it you know, as busy as my day is, it’s not very often that I get to go someplace and have such a pleasant drive. So it’s a beautiful property. Yes, it is. Thank you for visiting, and we get those compliments quite often. Yeah, this has a nice serenity to it. Well, it is. And then, of course, you know your largest facility evergreenwash elley. I’ve known about that Park for how many years and driven by it for a hundred years? That since I’ve lived in Seattle, since seventy eight, since I got out of college. So you know, obviously you guys have been such a amazing part of this community. You know, really the heartbeat of this community for a long time. Yes, yes, we have. Thank you for that. In fact, for a Memorial Day, we’re getting ready for our ninety first annual Memorial Day service and that’s going to be on this coming Monday, of course, may twenty nine. It does start early, at seven am, is when we have the boy scouts that will be placing flags on all of the the veterans markers. They’re in our veteran cemetery. They we also asked for volunteers to come out and we have plenty of flags and they are welcome to go place those on other veterans or on other grave sites throughout the park. Now it’s interesting because you you shared in our previous segment, but for those of you that are just now tuning in, Dan, in your main cemetery you have over five thousand veterans interred is that correct? Yes, at the that is at the our veteran cemetery. It’s actually it’s it’s known as a veterans memorial cemetery there within our our park. That is amazing and and you know, like you said, ninety four one years. That’s a long time. That is a long time. So we also have a very large concert that starts at thirty PM, followed by a two PM ceremony, and so we’ll have some military officials that will be speaking and then people can sign up to go on a tour of our metal of on our recipients. Well, so we have quite a few that are there and generally it’s it is done by one of the the sons of one of those recipients, and so he’ll take you a bit on a tour that wants to go there. That is incredible. So and what time, again, does that ceremony start? At thirty ever one answer and two o’clock is the actual cemetery. That’s a ceremony. So obviously a lot of us may be going not only to Evergreen Washelli, but we may have, you know, loved ones in other memorial parks and obviously you know the goal here today is is this. We all get caught up and barbecues and picnics and and you know, all kinds of libations. But I think one of the things that I want to make sure that we don’t forget them meaning behind Memorial Day and a many of us want to go honor our loved ones and they we want to be a part of something that has meaning. And so, Dan, I’m so grateful you’re going to kind of give us like some do’s and don’ts of you know, what can we do to honor I loved ones? Well, there’s a lot of things. Certainly, if you have loved ones that are interred at any one of the the local cemeteries, it’s nice to go out there and just to reflect and to honor them for for what they have done, but you can certainly do other things. A couple those things would be like wearing him memorial day, button or a pin, certainly flying a flag at your home if that’s something that you that you have available to you. But you could also attend religious services. Sometimes there are churches and sense that are honoring as far as the veterans and such. To do that, just if you don’t have anybody who happens to be interred here, even locally, it’s a it’s even nice just to go and walk through the various cemeteries to honor those people who have fought for freedom so so much. I have a an interesting suggestion to is. Many of us have taken care of our senior loved ones and then we had to take goodbye to them and I know as a family caregiver you’re so wrapped up in the you know, in the process of caring for that loved one that when they’re gone it takes a while to really process everything that you’ve been through and I encourage people to use memorial day is a way to really get into grips of what you know, memorialize what you experienced with that loved one. I know for me with my mom, you know, I think about the the precious moments, the Times that you know, I was privileged to be a part of it at the end of her life and have an opportunity to be there as she took her last breath was a was a huge honor for me and Memorial Day is a reminder for those of us that are taking care of senior loved ones or just recently have been, to remember those precious times, remember the good times because again, you know you’ll never get those times back again. No, and you’re absolutely right about that, Susanne. It is a very good way for people to honor those that have passed before us because, as you know, death occurs to us all and you know there’s going to be some point in everyone’s life where they’re going to lose someone who is very precious to them and then time there will be those that will miss me or miss you when our time comes. So it’s a very important to keep those memories alive of all those wonderful times that those people played in our life as far as growing in such so we are talking to Dan White, is the Northern Territory Manager of Evergreen Washelli Abbey View Memorial Park in Briar and Dan, you know if I’m going to go out and let’s just say I have a loved one in the local cemetery. You know, everybody goes on Memorial Day and you know you go in and earn you think about well, you know we need to go to the graveside and put some flowers on the grave. Give us some tips on how to do that most effectively a memorial day. Well, usually, no matter which cemetery and Memorial Park that you go to, you can certainly stop by the office and certainly get a map or a location if you’re unsure where the person is that you’re looking for and then, and a lot of times they’ll just take you out there and be able to show you. A lot of times you have vases that are that are placed in the ground with the marker, and if you haven’t visited in a little while, then sometimes a grass will overgrow it and you won’t be able to locate it. But certainly the cemetery staff can help you find and locate that vases there or they’ll offer temporary vases for you to be able to use. That’s when the other thing that you can do is take with you some cleaning supplies for that flush marker. That may be good point and probably the best thing for that, believe it or not, is a powdered automatic dishwashing powder that you can use in some little water and take a brush, but a non metallic brush, just one with plastic bristles or rubber, and then you can you can scrape it and it will help bring it back to life and have some good luster to it, so that keeps the granite looking shiny and good. You can take some scissors with you if you wish to trim around it and be able to do that. So those are some good tips when you’re out there and just be respectful and enjoy your time. I mean we have families that come out to Abbey view that will bring a picnic blanket and they’ll unfold the blanket and they’ll spend time with family and just make a day of it and just sit around and tell stories and have some food and yeah, we can reminisce. We can keep our fingers crossed that it’s going to be nice weather for memorial thing. We can, we hope so to with what we’ve had before, we’re always even though we have good weather today, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be that way next to day, does it? But we can help. So that’s wonderful. So I know this is kind of a little bit beyond your realm, but what happens if families live outside of the area and they want to honor their loved one that’s in one of your parts? Do you have anything that you can do for that loved winner, for that family? Well, if someone were to call us and ask us to go out to place flowers, we certainly will do that, because I do have families that will call and ask for a local florist and they’ll tell us who their loved one is and they the flowers do get delivered to the cemetery and then we will take him out and place them on that particular grave for them. That’s awesome. That’s awesome and I can only imagine that there’s that really is predominant when it comes to veterans, because obviously if you have a veterans cemetery may not be that the family lives here. You know that’s true. That’s true. So, Dan, how do we reach you and what are the best I guess time if we were, if I was going to go to Abbey view or every Evergreen Washelli, what’s the first step? That I need to do to reach their disity office is right there. It what? Yes, at our at our main location down on on Aurora Avenue. It’s actually the office is is located on the west side of the street. Okay, so you could certainly go in there to find a location because we have well over a hundred thousand people interred at that location. For Abbey View we also have an office. So you could certainly stop by our office and we will help you locate the loved ones. And you mentioned something about volunteers. If you want to volunteer, who should you call? If you would like to volunteer out at Abbey View to help us play some flags, you can certainly discall my office at four two, five, four eight, three, zero five, five five and come on at. It’s a great experience for the kids and to be able to do that and and help. Honors Dan. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and all about Memorial Day. We are very, very excited to be working with you is. You’re going to be now a frequent contributor to the answers for others radio show and we’re going to be talking about in the future always in which we can honor our loved one. So thanks again for being here dad. Thanks for having me, Sanda, this has been a special presentation of answers for elders, featuring Evergreen Washelli. For more information about Evergreen Washelli, their website is Washelli.com. That’s Washelli.com.