May they rest in peace

Memorial Day. Whether we observe it, personally, on May 30, as we did for years, or bow to change and celebrate it, this year, on May 27, we give homage to those who gave their all that we might live in a free land.

The “Greybull Cemetery,” became “Hillside Cemetery,” and in 2019 became officially the “Donald Ruhl Memorial Cemetery,” is today, a thing of peace and beauty.

The rocks, sagebrush, cactus, and weeds, are now lush and green. Trees offer shade, roads separate the graveyard sections, the American flag flies free and high, waving gently in the breeze and atop one high pillar is a World War I helmet that belonged to Donald J. Ruhl’s father.

The Donald J. Ruhl Memorial is a beauty work that took years to complete.

The late Paul Linse, a veteran himself, was the driving force behind the memorial, but he had help from dozens of others.

When completed, it was dedicated in a service on July 2, 2010. 

At the dedication service, a gathering was held at the Senior Center and special guests included three childhood friends of Donald Ruh.

Those three men, in their 80s, remembered Donald as their friend; they still thought of him as their friend; and all shared treasured memories of him. Some shed tears saying, as one did so eloquently, “I still miss him every day. He was my friend and I loved him.”

It was a moving ceremony.  We understand that all three of those friends of Donald J. Ruhl, have joined him in Heaven, and what a reunion that must have been.

In a strange twist of fate, Donald Ruhl, who was raised in Montana, did not visit Greybull until he got his first leave after joining the Marines.

The town of Greybull was in desperate need of a blacksmith. In those days in the 30s and 40s, a blacksmith was a necessity in agricultural communities, And Greybull was without one.

So a committee of two Greybull businessmen took the train to Joliet, Mont., where they met with a blacksmith, John “Jack” Ruhl, ‘recruiting’ him, so to speak, to move his business to Greybull.

Jack joined the two Greybull businessmen on their train ride back to Greybull, looked over the shop and facilities available, contacted an electrician about doing some upgrading on the building, signed a lease, and took the train back to Joliet, where he immediately started gathering his family and his shop’s equipment, and left that same week to return to Greybull. His two sons, had joined the service, but his daughter, Frances, as still in high school,

The first time Donald was in Greybull was when he visited his parents and sister on his first furlough from the Marines.

You›ve heard of «The accidental tourist,” and Donald became “the accidental Greybullite.”

The Ruhl›s were well-liked and well-received in the community and shared in the family’s grief when word of his being killed in action reached his parents in 1945 the entire community grieved with his parents and sister.

Donald was the first Wyoming serviceman to be awarded the Medal of Honor, the highest award bestowed.

A big thank you to Terry Kunkle, previous caretaker and Chuck Spragg, who currently is the “keeper of the greens” for their excellent and tireless work to keep the cemetery a place of quiet and peace, and “green all over.”

Whether you visit the cemetery Monday, or on May 30, stop and quietly thank the veterans resting quietly, for their service to our country.