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Mostly cloudy this morning with showers developing this afternoon. High 72F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

Showers this evening becoming a steady light rain overnight. Low 59F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 70%.

Rose White leads a tour of the Lynden Cemetery. With an interest in history, especially Victorian era history, the 17-year-old White leads tours of the Lynden and Greenwood cemeteries. For each tour, White wears the blue velvet Victorian-era outfit her mother Darcy made for her. (Bill Helm/Lynden Tribune)

Rose White leads a tour of the Lynden Cemetery. With an interest in history, especially Victorian era history, the 17-year-old White leads tours of the Lynden and Greenwood cemeteries. For each tour, White wears the blue velvet Victorian-era outfit her mother Darcy made for her. (Bill Helm/Lynden Tribune)

Rose White leads a tour of the Lynden Cemetery. With an interest in history, especially Victorian era history, the 17-year-old White leads tours of the Lynden and Greenwood cemeteries. For each tour, White wears the blue velvet Victorian-era outfit her mother Darcy made for her. (Bill Helm/Lynden Tribune)

Rose White leads a tour of the Lynden Cemetery. With an interest in history, especially Victorian era history, the 17-year-old White leads tours of the Lynden and Greenwood cemeteries. For each tour, White wears the blue velvet Victorian-era outfit her mother Darcy made for her. (Bill Helm/Lynden Tribune)

Rose White leads a tour of the Lynden Cemetery. With an interest in history, especially Victorian era history, the 17-year-old White leads tours of the Lynden and Greenwood cemeteries. For each tour, White wears the blue velvet Victorian-era outfit her mother Darcy made for her. (Bill Helm/Lynden Tribune)

Rose White leads a tour of the Lynden Cemetery. With an interest in history, especially Victorian era history, the 17-year-old White leads tours of the Lynden and Greenwood cemeteries. For each tour, White wears the blue velvet Victorian-era outfit her mother Darcy made for her. (Bill Helm/Lynden Tribune)

Rose White leads a tour of the Lynden Cemetery. With an interest in history, especially Victorian era history, the 17-year-old White leads tours of the Lynden and Greenwood cemeteries. For each tour, White wears the blue velvet Victorian-era outfit her mother Darcy made for her. (Bill Helm/Lynden Tribune)

Rose White leads a tour of the Lynden Cemetery. With an interest in history, especially Victorian era history, the 17-year-old White leads tours of the Lynden and Greenwood cemeteries. For each tour, White wears the blue velvet Victorian-era outfit her mother Darcy made for her. (Bill Helm/Lynden Tribune)

Rose White leads a tour of the Lynden Cemetery. With an interest in history, especially Victorian era history, the 17-year-old White leads tours of the Lynden and Greenwood cemeteries. For each tour, White wears the blue velvet Victorian-era outfit her mother Darcy made for her. (Bill Helm/Lynden Tribune)

Rose White leads a tour of the Lynden Cemetery. With an interest in history, especially Victorian era history, the 17-year-old White leads tours of the Lynden and Greenwood cemeteries. For each tour, White wears the blue velvet Victorian-era outfit her mother Darcy made for her. (Bill Helm/Lynden Tribune)

Rose White leads a tour of the Lynden Cemetery. With an interest in history, especially Victorian era history, the 17-year-old White leads tours of the Lynden and Greenwood cemeteries. For each tour, White wears the blue velvet Victorian-era outfit her mother Darcy made for her. (Bill Helm/Lynden Tribune)

Rose White leads a tour of the Lynden Cemetery. With an interest in history, especially Victorian era history, the 17-year-old White leads tours of the Lynden and Greenwood cemeteries. For each tour, White wears the blue velvet Victorian-era outfit her mother Darcy made for her. (Bill Helm/Lynden Tribune)

Rose White leads a tour of the Lynden Cemetery. With an interest in history, especially Victorian era history, the 17-year-old White leads tours of the Lynden and Greenwood cemeteries. For each tour, White wears the blue velvet Victorian-era outfit her mother Darcy made for her. (Bill Helm/Lynden Tribune)

Rose White leads a tour of the Lynden Cemetery. With an interest in history, especially Victorian era history, the 17-year-old White leads tours of the Lynden and Greenwood cemeteries. For each tour, White wears the blue velvet Victorian-era outfit her mother Darcy made for her. (Bill Helm/Lynden Tribune)

Rose White leads a tour of the Lynden Cemetery. With an interest in history, especially Victorian era history, the 17-year-old White leads tours of the Lynden and Greenwood cemeteries. For each tour, White wears the blue velvet Victorian-era outfit her mother Darcy made for her. (Bill Helm/Lynden Tribune)

Rose White leads a tour of the Lynden Cemetery. With an interest in history, especially Victorian era history, the 17-year-old White leads tours of the Lynden and Greenwood cemeteries. For each tour, White wears the blue velvet Victorian-era outfit her mother Darcy made for her. (Bill Helm/Lynden Tribune)

LYNDEN — It is a well-known fact among Lyndenites that Phoebe Judson is the city’s founder.

Although Judson is known as the mother of Lynden, her mother Anna Glenning Goodell is actually the first Anglo person to die and be buried in the city.

As the story goes, Goodell was originally buried on the northern edge of the Judson property on Main St. Later, she was re-interred in the Lynden Cemetery.

At 11 a.m. Saturdays through Oct. 22, 17-year-old Rose White tells this and many other fascinating stories as the Lynden Cemetery’s tour guide.

“Hello everyone, and welcome to the Lynden Pioneer Museum’s Lynden Cemetery Walk Back in Time. My name is Rose White and I will be your guide this afternoon,” she tells folks taking the tour.

White also is the tour guide for the Greenwood Cemetery. Tours of the Greenwood Cemetery are held the final Saturday of each month, through Oct. 22, at 1 p.m.

A resident of Lynden for the past year, White is a high school student who is homeschooled. Shortly after arriving in Lynden, White decided to go to the graveyard on one of her walks.

“I was fascinated by the architecture of the stones and people that have come before us,” White recalls.

White explains that after having studied art for the past eight years, the “beauty of the cemetery” inspires her.

“I wanted to be involved with the Lynden Cemetery, and then I saw the tour pamphlet,” White says. “I immediately wanted to be a tour guide, to learn and then teach the history of this beautiful area. Lynden has a rich history and story. The pioneers that made this area have a wonderful story to tell.”

With a particular fondness for the Victorian era, White says she has “always been fascinated by history.” Her mother, Darcy White, made the Victorian era-inspired outfit she wears during the tours.

“She made Victorian-era dresses when she was younger,” White says. “Once she had kids, she didn’t do it so much. But she made this for me.”

The outfit is a blue velvet coat and skirt, with lace fringe on the collar and on the cuffs.

“She’s always so supportive,” White says of her mother. “No expectation of what you should do.”

Paula Williams of Lynden and her daughter, Erin Williams of Shelton, joined a recent tour of the Lynden Cemetery. Paula Williams said she and her daughter “just have a curiosity about history.”

It’s interesting to hear about it all,” says Williams, whose family has relatives buried at the Lynden Cemetery.

Along the tour, Paula found the gravestones of her great-grandparents.

“Thank you for bringing to attention the intricacies of the headstones,” Paula Williams told White.

Many gravestones at the Lynden Cemetery recognize service history

With script in hand – 13 pages and more than 4,800 words – White guides the interested tourists through the many stories that make up the Lynden Cemetery.

“Here we have the oldest person to be buried in Lynden Cemetery,” White says of Elizabeth Bay, who died when she was 108. “She was also the last child delivered by Phoebe Judson, who served many as a midwife.”

At the Smith gravestone, White tells us that “many stones also record service history.”

With no mention of a first name, White says that Smith was a private in the Civil War and fought for the Union. “Many Civil War vets came west to homestead when the US government offered them free land instead of monetary compensation for their service.”

White explains that while the Smith grave marker is “the same white marble slab that marks many of the other veterans’ markers, this one is new and was placed in 2012 when his burial was finally located.”

We also learn that the Lynden Cemetery marks each veteran’s grave with a bronze medallion that indicates service history or participation in a war.

White says that by guiding the tours she hopes to “get people excited about the history of Lynden and to create an awareness of our history, so that it will continue on and not be forgotten.”

“I am very excited to be part of Cemetery District 10 and would like to continue to be a part of the planning and maintenance of it for years to come,” she says.

• The Lynden Cemetery was founded in 1889 by the Masons and Odd Fellows which are two fraternal orders. In those days, it was typical for fraternal organization to handle burials of their members and to maintain cemeteries.

• The Hawleys were the third family to arrive in Lynden, around 1873, after coming west on the train. Enoch and Mary Hawley brought their children out west to build a new life. Enoch Hawley was best known for having the first general store in Lynden, the riverboat landing, and first sawmill. Enoch Hawley was the second burial in the Lynden Cemetery.

• The first burial in the Cemetery was Amanda Bell, who died on Aug 2, 1889.

• The obelisk first erected in the late 1920s is the center point of the original Lynden Cemetery. This point is the control point for the laying out of burial space through surveying. The obelisk was rededicated in 2010 as a memorial to the unknowns by Lynden V.F.W. Post 9301.