Digging graves becomes family tradition
PILLAGER - LeRoy Van Vickle wasn't sure how his grandfather Vernie first got the job digging graves in the area.
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The year was 1945.
"I think they just needed somebody and he was doing some farming then and I suppose he was available," LeRoy said. "When he started, they weren't able to thaw the ground. They wouldn't allow them to have any kind of fire in the cemetery at that time."
Dug by hand, the winter burials meant using a pick-ax to get through frozen ground.
Clint Van Vickle prepares grave sites at numerous area cemeteries, including the Baxter Cemetery, which is tucked behind the Baxter Elementary School. Brainerd Dispatch/Kelly Humphrey » Purchase reprints of this photo.
"All of our family - whenever there was a grave to be done - they never were concerned about not having them ready when they came," LeRoy said of the grave sites.
Many times roads to the rural cemeteries weren't plowed in time following a snowfall. When LeRoy was quite young, the deceased were sometimes taken to the grave site on a toboggan. Caskets were lowered into the grave by ropes.
"It wasn't typical, but that definitely did happen on more than one time," LeRoy said.
LeRoy said his grandfather took his own time to create maps so families or friends could more easily find their loved ones. He literally knew where every body was buried.
"He took a lot of that on himself and I don't think most people even knew he did it - that's how he was," LeRoy said of his grandfather. In 1966, when LeRoy was about 12 years old, he started helping his grandfather at the graves. His grandfather continued on the job into his 70s. LeRoy's father Gene also helped with the work.
During the years, techniques and traditions changed. Wood fires were allowed in the cemeteries to thaw the ground. Sheets of tin were placed over the fires to concentrate the heat. Later a thawing hood sized for a grave site was created and a propane torch used. Sometimes the wind blew the torch out and the ground was frozen solid by morning so the pick-ax or air compressor and jackhammer were put to use.
"If you haven't picked five feet of frost you wouldn't understand, but if you've ever tried to you'd know what's involved in that," LeRoy said. "It's difficult. We've been out there at 10 o'clock at night trying to get equipment fixed so we could dig. ... You have to do whatever it takes to get that frozen ground out of the way so it's ready in the morning. If it means being there after midnight, that's what you do."
Clint Van Vickle is the fourth generation in his family to prepare grave sites. His great-grandfather, Vernie Van Vickle, started the tradition in the mid-1940s. Brainerd Dispatch/Kelly Humphrey » Purchase reprints of this photo.
Vernie started by taking care of burials in the Pillager Cemetery. His dependable reputation grew. LeRoy remembers his grandfather as a quiet man with few material possessions, but plenty of integrity.
One of LeRoy's childhood memories is of his grandfather stopping to get his usual five or 10 gallons of gas for the pickup. His grandfather typically picked up a treat for the youngsters, too. This time, Vernie rolled the coins of change in his hand when he reached the truck and, noting the clerk gave him too much, promptly went inside to give the extra coins back. That stuck with LeRoy, as did the way his grandfather treated others.
"If it's not yours, you don't keep it," LeRoy said. "That's the type of character, the type of person he was. ... A real role model. ... I think if looking at grandpa leaving a legacy, it was the example that he set. ... He was a neat guy."
One of the benefits of the family business handed down from one generation to the next came from the opportunity to work together, LeRoy said.
Angels kept watch in the sun-dappled Baxter Cemetery this summer. Brainerd Dispatch/Kelly Humphrey » Purchase reprints of this photo.
"The character of the person, you learn that because you spend time with them," LeRoy said.
He described his grandfather and father as "fair, honest, hardworking people."
Clint said that type of character was passed down to his father as well.
"He's just like my great-grandpa," Clint said. "I think all the stuff he listed you could list right down the generations - it would fit."
Clint took over the grave digging business when he was 16.
"I take a lot more pride in it now, just because my great-grandpa did it, my grandpa and my dad," he said, seated at the dining room table of his rural Pillager home. "In four generations of digging I don't know of any grave that ever got missed no matter what the circumstances were."
More cemeteries were added during the years as others sought out the Van Vickle family. Now Clint works in 15 cemeteries in a 75-mile radius.
"I keep picking up more because of the work we do," Clint said, adding whether its 30 degrees below with six feet of frost or a nice 60-degree day, the work is done.
Families have the option of digging the grave themselves or choosing someone for the work. The funeral homes typically notify Clint for the work.
While times have changed, Minnesota's long winters and frozen earth remain a challenge. Thawing efforts, although improved, still have to work through sections of earth at a time. Once the top layer is thawed, the ash and softened dirt are removed and the thawing effort begins again until the grave reaches a typical 5.5 feet in depth.
More than once Clint is watching over a thawing grave site about 20 minutes after starting a fire only to have the Baxter Police Department arrive to check out a report of a man starting a fire in the city's cemetery.
Clint Van Vickle displayed the tools used on the job. Van Vickle provides the grave site preparation at about 15 different cemeteries in a multi-county area. On average, he works on 20-25 grave sites per year. Brainerd Dispatch/Kelly Humphrey » Purchase reprints of this photo.
"'Oh it's just you,'" they say.
Clint works his regular job with the Minnesota Department of Transportation and takes care of about 20 to 25 burials each year. There can be months without activity. But he's had as many as three graves due on a single day with four feet of frost in the ground. In that case, Clint worked his day job from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Then he rounded up old barn steel to make additional thaw hoods. He went from one cemetery to the next, getting up at 2:30 a.m. before his regular job started, in order to start fires to thaw the earth and begin the dig. In the late afternoon, he was back to the cemeteries, working until 10:30 p.m. starting fresh fires and getting up again at 2:30 a.m. to finish the work.
In 1992, Clint and his brother Travis took over the grave digging. Clint was 16. They worked together for several years before Travis started his own masonry business and Clint took care of the graves by himself.
"I dug them by hand for a couple of years and then finally said that's enough of that and went and started using a mini-excavator," Clint said. "I still fill them in by hand and once in a while I'll dig one by hand to remember how hard it is to do it."
Once on a three-day spring motocross racing trip to Oklahoma with members of his family, Clint received the call that a grave site was needed in the afternoon. They drove all night to get back to Minnesota and then started the fire in the cemetery to prepare the ground, digging the grave into the next night.
"I think that shows our kids dedication," Clint's wife Kelly said. The couple has two sons, Beau, 13, and Carson, 8. Kelly's introduction to the family business came early on as Clint's work took him to an area cemetery.
Four generations of the Van Vickle family have kept the working tradition of preparing grave sites at area cemeteries. It started with Vernie Van Vickle in the mid-1940s and continued with son Gene, grandson LeRoy and great-grandson Clint.
"It was our first date," she said and laughed. "I was like 'what am I getting into.'"
Following a graveside service, Clint goes back to the site and fills it in by hand, rakes the ground and re-arranges the flowers. Kelly says he's quite good at it.
"I try to treat every (one) of them I dig as if I was burying my dad," he said solemnly.
When Clint was 4 or 5 years old he was already out helping his dad in the cemeteries. A tradition his sons continued. Clint isn't sure what the future will hold or if his sons will continue the family legacy. But he said: "It would be nice if they did."
RENEE RICHARDSON may be reached at renee.richardson@brainerddispatch.com or 855-5852.