Fifty Years at Oakwood - Joe Cervantez

In August of 1976, a young man arrived at Oakwood Cemetery looking for work. He was fifteen years old, although he was apparently somewhat less forthcoming about that particular detail when he filled out his application. Age undisclosed; job acquired.

It was a good decision. This year, Joe Cervantez celebrates fifty years at Oakwood—nearly one-third of the cemetery’s entire history. He has now spent most of his life here, and there is very little about Oakwood as it exists today that he has not, in some way, helped create, maintain, repair, or understand.

Joe laid out many of the sections toward the rear of the cemetery, driving pins that still define lots and burial spaces today. He planted trees small enough to carry in his hands that now tower over family plots. He has dug and prepared graves, cared for the grounds, assisted families, solved drainage problems, built things, fixed things, and handled thousands of jobs that never appeared in any formal description of his duties but simply needed to be done.

And if something with an engine broke, Joe probably fixed that too. Over the years, tractors, mowers, trucks, backhoes, and nearly every other piece of equipment Oakwood has owned have benefited from his ability to figure out what was wrong and make it work again. There is no way to calculate how much time and money that skill has saved Oakwood over fifty years, but the total would undoubtedly be substantial.

Naturally, we also blame Joe when something goes wrong.

If two measurements do not line up, a pin appears somewhere inconvenient, or an old section stubbornly refuses to match the map, the standard explanation around Oakwood is, “Must be Joe’s fault.” The joke works because the opposite is usually true. When the records leave everyone else scratching their heads, Joe is often the one who knows why something is where it is.

He remembers where pins were placed, why roads curve, what used to stand where a tree grows today, and why somebody decades ago laid out a section in a way that now seems completely incomprehensible. The explanation frequently begins with, “Well, back in 1983…” and by the time Joe finishes, the mystery is usually solved.

But Joe’s memory has never been limited to maps and measurements. Mention a family name and he may remember where they parked, how often they visited, who they came to see, and how long it has been since he last saw them. The rest of us may be looking for a grave. Joe often remembers the person.

In cemetery work, that matters.

Joe also claims to have buried more than 20,000 people during his career at Oakwood. Considering that only about 40,000 people are buried here altogether, Joe is essentially taking credit for half the cemetery. After fifty years, we are inclined to let him.

Behind that remarkable number, however, are thousands of families who came through Oakwood’s gates on difficult days and found Joe here doing what needed to be done. The grave had to be prepared correctly. The equipment had to work. Everything had to be ready when the family arrived. For fifty years, Joe has quietly made sure that it was.

That reliability, along with his knowledge and his willingness to help, is why Joe is so deeply respected by the people who have worked beside him. He has trained generations of employees, served under generations of managers and boards, and accumulated an institutional memory that no map, computer system, database, or filing cabinet can replace.

Anyone who has approached Joe with what they believed was a brand-new idea has also probably discovered that Oakwood tried something remarkably similar in 1987. Joe will remember who suggested it, how long it lasted, and, frequently with considerable satisfaction, exactly why it failed. He has been there and done that. In his case, he probably wore out the T-shirt years ago, turned it into a shop rag, and can still tell you when it was ordered.

Some of Oakwood’s history is preserved in deeds, photographs, maps, records, and board minutes. A surprising amount of it walks around the cemetery every day in a work uniform. Joe knows what was never written down because he was there when it happened.

Somewhere along the way, Oakwood stopped simply being the place where Joe worked. Its history, its landscape, its families, and countless small details accumulated in his memory until Joe became something no organization can manufacture and no successor can simply inherit: living memory.

But Joe’s fifty years here are about more than what he knows or what he has accomplished. They are also about the man himself—the coworker, teacher, problem-solver, storyteller, occasional source of aggravation, and friend whom generations of people at Oakwood have come to respect, admire, depend upon, and love.

For half a century, Joe has shown up and taken care of this place and the people who came through its gates. No plaque, anniversary, or newsletter article can adequately measure what fifty years of that kind of devotion means to Oakwood, but we can say something that is long overdue and very simple: thank you, Joe.

And because someone will inevitably get the wrong idea, Joe is not retiring. This is a celebration, not an announcement. We still have trees to plant, equipment to break, employees to train, sections to oversee, and far too many things that only Joe knows.

Fifty years ago, a fifteen-year-old boy came through the gates of Oakwood looking for work. He found much more than that, and Oakwood did too.