Burials at Calverton National Cemetery, the busiest national cemetery in America, are steeped in traditions and rituals aimed at fulfilling the mission proclaimed by President Abraham Lincoln: “To care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan.”
The staff responsible for the burials, nearly all veterans themselves, work together like a well-oiled machine to ensure that each service and interment is absolutely flawless.
It’s a challenge because of the volume. Some days, they handle dozens of committal services and burials. But the staff’s military training shows in the discipline which with they execute their duties and their respect for the task at hand.
The committal services and the people who take care of them are under the direction of Calverton National’s assistant director Larry Williams, a Riverhead veteran who has worked at the cemetery since 1979, shortly after it opened. Williams has worked his way up the chain of command, beginning as a laborer. “Just like the military,” he said, he rose through the ranks to the position he holds today — and from which he is about to retire in January. Committals are one of his many responsibilities as assistant director.
Foreman Bill Cantwell of Middle Island directly oversees the functions of the committal area. There are seven identical shelters comprising the committal “wheel” where final services are held for veterans and spouses of veterans. They are arranged within a densely wooded area near the cemetery’s main entrance in such a way that each shelter is isolated from the others. Each is surrounded by stone walls to create a private place for grieving families to gather for prayers and final good-byes.
Like the rest of the immaculately maintained and landscaped grounds of Calverton National, the committal area is constantly fussed over by the staff. Every shelter is swept and cleaned before each service. Chairs are wiped down and straightened. Even the stray, brightly colored leaves that blow into the shelter on a breezy November morning are picked up before the next service begins.
Cantwell and Williams speak in hushed tones as they lead a tour of the committal wheel and two of the shelters that are not presently in use.
“Sound carries,” Williams says quietly.
On the day of this tour, there are 13 burials scheduled. The day before, there were 28. The all-time high was 62 in one day.
The cemetery, where about 260,000 people are currently interred, is only about half-developed, Williams notes, with about 500 acres still to be developed.
Cantwell, a foreman for six years, oversees eight caretakers in the committal area. The caretakers handle the set-up before each service, tending to the condition of the shelters and readying them for the next service. They meet the funeral director at the hearse and bring the casketed remains into the shelter. They wheel the casket in on “church cart” and set it in a designated place, behind a short wall that shields the cart from view. They set up flowers in front of it.
When all is readied, the family is escorted into the shelter by a cemetery representative. Tending to the family’s needs is the cemetery representative’s sole responsibility.
Like the caretakers, who wear workman’s uniforms, the cemetery representatives are provided with cemetery-issued clothing, including a black coat and hat. They are all dressed alike.
Dean Phillippe of Mattituck, retired from the Suffolk County Parks Department following his own military service, works as a representative at Calverton.
“It’s a terrific job, an important job and it’s an honor to serve,” Phillipps said as he cast a final glance around an empty shelter where he awaited his next family.
Williams said the cemetery often hires “younger retirees, in their late 50s and early 60s” for part-time caretaker and representative jobs. There are sometimes full-time posts available as well.
“We give preference to veterans,” Williams explains. Indeed, more than 90 percent of the employees at Calverton National are veterans. Currently it has a staff of roughly 100 people, with 22 of them assigned to the crew that maintains the park-like grounds.
The caretaker jobs require being outdoors in all kinds of weather in all seasons, though the cemetery outfits the workers appropriately.
When the committal service concludes, the cemetery representative escorts the family out of the shelter, then a caretaker comes to remove the casket and flowers. They are brought to a garage where the caskets — all tagged with identifying names and numbers — are transferred one at a time onto equipment used to transfer them into a waiting truck. The truck is fitted to hold several caskets at once.
The transport truck brings them to the burial area where interments are currently taking place. The cemetery is filled one row at a time, one section at a time. Each row is dug with a long trench and the cement grave liners that hold the caskets are placed within the trench, where they wait to receive their caskets.
Caskets to be interred in an existing grave are transferred onto smaller equipment that can maneuver in the older sections without disturbing them, Williams said.
“The tags are checked multiple times by multiple employees each step of the way,” he said.
Once the caretaker delivers the casket for transport, he returns to the shelter to remove any litter, stray flowers and the like, and get the area ready for the next family.
The cemetery is currently looking to hire four part-time caretakers, Williams said. They are part-time positions: four hours per day, Monday through Friday. Applications are being accepted through Dec. 7, he said. “It’s a good-paying job that pays $17.84 to $20.84 per hour,” he said. (Apply online.)
Photo: Denise Civiletti
The cemetery has been a good place to work, Williams said. “It’s been my life, really,” he reflected, starting at age 22. He turned 60 this year. “How did that happen?” he asks with a broad smile.
Williams moved from laborer to caretaker to engineering equipment operator to his first foreman’s job, when he was named grounds foreman in 1986. A decade later, after a stint as interment foreman, he was promoted to general foreman. He left Calverton for four years to become an assistant director at L.I. National Cemetery in Farmingdale, and returned to Calverton in 2007 to assume the duties of assistant director, including administrative duties as well as responsibility for overall field operations.
“I take pride in serving the veterans and their families,” Williams said. “I put myself in their position — what would I expect? I take a lot of personal pride in this because I always think of the cemetery as a direct reflection of me personally.”
His efforts have paid off in helping the cemetery earn numerous awards during Williams’ long career. The awards sit in a glass trophy case in the center of the administrative building’s lobby where Williams shows them off with pride, especially the Robert W. Carey award for excellence that was given to Calverton in 1996.
