Symbolic art installation to memorialize 89 unmarked graves

In an effort to memorialize the Saar Pioneer Cemetery unmarked graves, collaborative artists Frances Nelson and Bradly Gunn will give unidentified gravesites an emblematic marker using a series of “thresholds” through the cemetery.

The 89 white thresholds, roughly 6-feet tall by 3-feet wide, are connected with plywood lattice cuts that, according to Karen Bouton with the South King County Genealogical Society, are based off the layout of the cemetery itself. Bouton says that she selected the threshold idea over three others, which she felt were too esoteric and lacked a connection to the cemetery. By stepping through each threshold, she says, visitors are acknowledging that person’s markerless grave.

The Saar Pioneer Cemetery is the final resting place for many Kent-area pioneers. Of the approximately 200 people buried here, including five Civil War veterans, there are 89 graves with no existing headstones. Burial remains from 1873 through 1949 include many infants, some suicides, a murder victim, as well as deaths from childbirth, drowning, disease and old age.

4culture, a Seattle nonprofit, dedicated to preserving the arts and cultural heritage in King County, provided funding for the project, a four-part application process. First Bouton submitted a proposal to the organization, which took her proposal and solicited artists. The artists then sent Bouton concepts, and Bouton’s selected concept was vetted again through 4culture.

Nelson and Gunn will host a closing ceremony for the artwork on Sunday from noon to 3 p.m. and it will be dismantled on Sept. 29. The graveyard can be found at 21100 91st Place S, across from the WinCo Foods parking lot and accessed from its south side on 212th Street.