Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery

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A few photos of Portland's Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery, in the West Hills right next to Greenwood Hills.

The grandiose, George Lucas-esque name comes from the Grand Army of the Republic, a fraternal organization of Union veterans of the Civil War. (The Wikipedia article claims that Lucas did rip off the name, big surprise there). I do so hate to ramble on about zombies all the time, but it is Halloween, you know. And if (as I mentioned in my Burnside Bridge post a while back) we're ever besieged by horrific Confederate zombies, the next logical step would to raise these guys up somehow, and send them once more unto the breach. Honestly, I have no idea why people accuse me of thinking in B-movie plots all the time. I'm really just trying to help, honest. Someday you'll all thank me. I'm sure of it.

Anyway, the GAR vanished with the last Union veteran, and although there are successor groups of Sons & Daughters of Union Veterans, they're pretty small and obscure groups. Because this is a Northern state, and we got over the Civil War a long, long time ago, unlike certain other parts of the country I might name. So these days Metro owns and cares for the place instead, and they have an info page about it. Graveyards.com and Find-A-Grave have a few more photos, and there are a few more in someone's Flickr photoset.

There's a pedestal here that once held a statue of some sort, but it's apparently been gone for quite some time. Metal thieves, probably, or rabid Civil War memorabilia collectors. So if you're on eBay or Craigslist and run across something that really looks like it goes here, let Metro know, ok? (It'd help if I knew what the statue was supposed to look like, but I'm afraid I don't.)