Evergreen needed a facelift. Its new board made it happen. <\/p>\n
\u201cPeople love what\u2019s going on. They\u2019re really happy to see somebody paying attention,\u201d cemetery president and co-clerk Karla Bell said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t that John\u00a0[Somers, the former sexton] didn\u2019t pay attention, he was just too busy for one person.\u201d<\/p>\n
The problem the 17-acre Evergreen Cemetery faced echoes that occurring in cemeteries across Maine, where an aging population of caretakers and a slim crop of replacements has created a Sisyphean task for cemetery boards and towns. <\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Evergreen-3.jpg\")
Evergreen Cemetery in Caribou on Thursday. Among those buried in the cemetery is David A. Snowman, who was Aroostook County\u2019s last surviving Civil War veteran. Credit: Cameron Levasseur \/ BDN<\/p>\n
Steven Libby, president of the Maine Cemetery Association, said he often gets calls from groups that are struggling to find a sexton. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0usually exactly what\u2019s happened\u00a0in Caribou, that the sexton\u2019s been doing it for 40 years and wants to retire and they can\u2019t find someone,\u201d Libby said. <\/p>\n
What\u2019s less common is how Caribou responded.<\/p>\n
Penny Thompson, the city manager, led a public effort last summer to advertise the cemetery corporation\u2019s first meeting in half a century, posting to social media and discussing it at city council meetings. <\/p>\n
Her motives were twofold. Thompson did not want the financial responsibility for the cemetery\u2019s perpetual care to fall on taxpayers, she said. But it was also personal: many members of her husband\u2019s family are buried there and Thompson herself has a plot there, she told the city council. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis past weekend, while driving through the cemetery, Dana observed that it has never looked better,\u201d Thompson said Thursday of her husband. <\/p>\n
The corporation needed at least 17 members \u2014 those with plots at the cemetery or immediate family buried there \u2014 to attend the meeting to reach the quorum necessary to elect a new board that could officially replace the sexton. <\/p>\n
More than 30 people showed up, most of whom were members, several of the cemetery directors recalled. <\/p>\n
\u201cI came to that meeting because I wanted to complain about the mowing,\u201d said Thomas Whitten, who said he has family\u00a0in Evergreen. He left the meeting as the cemetery\u2019s treasurer.<\/p>\n
Whitten is joined on the board by Bell; Rhonda Rose, the vice president and co-clerk; Thompson; and Hannah Holmes, the recently appointed secretary. <\/p>\n
Bell estimated that the board members have each spent hundreds of hours working to rejuvenate the historic property, which has been a cemetery since the mid-1800s. <\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Evergreen-1.jpg\")
Evergreen Cemetery board members (left to right) Penny Thompson, Thomas Whitten, Rhonda Rose, Karla Bell and Hannah Holmes stand in the cemetery on July 23. Credit: Cameron Levasseur \/ BDN<\/p>\n
They have reorganized the cemetery bylaws \u2014 which have been unchanged since the corporation set up for its management\u00a0was established\u00a0in 1960 \u2014 straightened headstones, replaced and added signs, repaired roads and ditches and restored a storage building with the help of a local contractor. Some of the directors have trash bags and water jugs permanently in their cars, ready to pick up trash or water flowers on their frequent drives through the cemetery. <\/p>\n
\u201cThomas and Rhonda and I, one of us is here every day, or all of us, just making sure,\u201d Bell said. \u201cI think we all take enormous pride in the cemetery. It\u2019s amazing how you get attached to a property. And we are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Evergreen Cemetery is among the largest\u00a0in northern Maine. More than 5,000 people are buried there, including some of Caribou\u2019s most prominent residents. Dr. Jefferson Cary, the namesake and founder of Caribou\u2019s Cary Medical Center, rests at Evergreen. So do family members of U.S.\u00a0Sen. Susan Collins and more than 500 veterans, some dating back to the civil war. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is kind of an icon in town,\u201d Bell said.<\/p>\n
But\u00a0the community\u00a0support found in Caribou is not shared by many other Maine places that have grappled with what to do once a sexton steps down. <\/p>\n
In some towns, the responsibility of managing cemeteries has fallen to the public works director or other municipal employees, Libby said. In other areas, one person manages several regional cemeteries because there is no one else to do it. <\/p>\n
\u201cAt our annual conference two years ago, there was a gentleman from northwestern Maine and he worked with the county because there was all\u00a0these towns had no sextons,\u201d Libby said. \u201cHe was running all over northern Oxford County handling the sexton\u2019s responsibilities and he was 100% volunteer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like many other professions facing workforce shortages, the problem comes down to a wide gap between the number of cemetery caretakers aging into retirement and members of younger generations that are stepping into it. <\/p>\n
\u201cThinking of the towns that are active in the Maine Cemetery Association, I\u2019m young and I\u2019m in my early 60s,\u201d said Libby, who is also the sexton for the New Gloucester Cemetery Association. \u201cThere\u2019s no really young people getting involved.\u201d <\/p>\n