Dead men tell no tales. That is, unless Cliff Dougal is asking the questions.
Dougal, who cared for more than 67,000 graves at Denver’s Riverside Cemetery and found the unmarked gravesites of countless historic Colorado figures, retired last month as the dean of Denver’s dead.
But the end of his 18-year career at Riverside didn’t come as he envisioned it.
Pushed by continued financial losses at the 129-year-old cemetery, Dougal’s retirement was forced, sparking concern among historians who fear that the cemetery’s final chapter is nearing an end.
“Cliff defines Riverside, and no one could ever love that cemetery more than he does,” said Ann Student, a historian who has written a book about the cemetery on the Denver-Commerce City border along the South Platte River. “We all lose because of this.”
The 61-year-old Dougal, with his pudgy face, wiry gray sideburns and slicked-back hair, looked the part of a cemetery caretaker. His shirts were always striped, his pants black and his shoes perpetually covered with a thin, dusty film from his work in the graveyard.
He always knew retirement would come, though he envisioned that it would be on his own terms, that Fairmount Cemetery Co. would somehow let him stay on as long as he wanted.
“I was devastated when I got the news,” Dougal said early on a recent weekday. “I didn’t know what to do.”
Riverside was always beautiful to Dougal, even with its drought-stricken grass, near-dead trees and a constant stench that rose from nearby refineries.
Dougal came to Riverside after 10 years at Highland Cemetery, his first job in the grave business. Before he started at Highland, the married Pennsylvania native made baggage handles.
Dougal was drawn to Riverside’s history – several Denver mayors, Colorado territorial governors and Civil War veterans call the 77-acre site home – and he thought other people should be, too.
He invited elementary school children to make rubbings of gravestones, he hosted annual Veterans Day celebrations and had gang members visit the unkept graves of teens who were shot to death in gang violence.
When he found unmarked graves of famous Coloradans – including that of Negro Leagues third baseman Oliver “The Ghost” Marcelle – Dougal raised money for their headstones.
And in 1994, he championed the cemetery’s designation on the National Register of Historic Places.
Historians who frequent Riverside claim that Dougal was almost too good at his job, that Fairmount wanted the cemetery to fade away after consistently losing money, but Dougal’s research kept a flicker of interest.
Barbara Eastin, Fairmount’s vice president, said the decision to ask for Dougal’s retirement was “purely financial,” adding that Riverside might have had to close for good without the change.
In addition to Dougal’s retirement, several other jobs were slashed and the cemetery no longer is selling plots, in part because there are only 10 to 12 burials each year. The cemetery’s hours also were reduced.
“History doesn’t pay the bills,” Eastin said.
The morning Dougal was told that he would have to retire, the caretaker walked across his outdoor office, sat on a bench overlooking his favorite gravestone and apologized to an old friend.
Leiueen Smith, the cemetery’s former caretaker who died five years earlier, would be disappointed at the news, Dougal thought. Smith taught him how to read the burial plots in 100-year-old records and was always proud when Dougal uncovered a long-lost customer.
“She knows how important the cemetery is to me,” Dougal said. “She knows I wouldn’t leave unless I had to.”
He will still visit as often as possible, he assured Smith.
And when he dies, Dougal will be cremated and buried near his friend in a plot overlooking the river.
Staff writer Robert Sanchez can be reached at 303-820-1282 or rsanchez@denverpost.com.
