By Jon Chown
Two dogs were happily wagging their tails in a far corner of the Historic Soquel Cemetery Friday, sniffing for signs of where lost grave sites might be located.
Joseph Kral and Adela Morris handle their dogs Clio and Zia as they search for clues in the Historic Sequel Cemetery on Friday, June 20. The dogs can sniff out where bodies where buried more than 100 years ago.
The canines were brought by the Institute of Canine Forensics, which is working with Temple Beth El on locating lost sites within the cemetery. The temple, which owns the property, aims to map the cemetery, ensure no potential unmarked graves are disturbed and create a walking path through it.
This would improve public access and help reconnect the cemetery with the Soquel community, one of the temple’s main goals.
The two dogs showed off their skills, pawing at the ground, sniffing, lying down at spots where they smelled something, but never barking. Jospeh Kral, who brought his dog Clio, said the dogs are trained to specifically smell for bodies that have been long dead. They couldn’t be used for finding deceased victims of a recent catastrophe or crime, because that’s a whole different smell.
“How she turns her head, where she sniffs, it all paints a picture,” Kral said. “At one point she turned her head and looked at me. That was a sign she smelled something there.”
Rose Ashford looks at a map of the burial sites at Historic Soquel Cemetery.
Clio was bred in Mississippi and has three siblings that are also owned by Canine Forensics, which is based in Woodside. Once trained, the dogs will be able to locate bodies that have been buried for 200 years or more.
“We try to look for good hunting pedigrees,” Kral said. “They love their work. This is what they train and live for.”
The Historic Soquel Cemetery is one of the oldest in Santa Cruz County. It was established in the 1850s. The first burial was Frank S. Noble, a 6-month old baby boy, in 1853. For more than 170 years, the cemetery has been maintained by different entities and had gradually fallen into disrepair. Irvin Smith, the last individual owner of the cemetery, died in 2009. In 2016, the county took possession of the land for unpaid taxes and put it up for auction. Temple Beth El then purchased it in order to preserve the Jewish section of the cemetery.
Rose Ashford, a volunteer at the cemetery and a member of Beth El, said the temple had to buy the entire property to secure the Jewish section. Since then, the temple has been working to restore the property, but it’s expensive and takes a lot of work. Numerous oak trees on the property need care, gravestones need repair and the whole property needs general maintenance.
“Temple Beth El is doing what it can to preserve this cemetery,” Ashford said.
Maybe the biggest task is identifying where old graves are located and who is in them. There is a large map of the property with graves marked, but nothing seems to exist at some spots that are marked. In some cases, gophers have dug up the earth around a flat grave marker and have essentially buried it.
“We’re trying to validate this map,” Ashford said. “It’s hard, but we’re working on it.”
After about an hour, it seemed pretty clear that the dogs had found a number of old graves located in the corner of the property, even though there were few grave markers to indicate them.
“We know something is going on here,” said Holly Blue Hawkins of Temple Beth El. “We don’t know what exactly, other than it’s sacred.”
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More information on the Historic Soquel Cemetery can be found at soquelpioneers.com. The Soquel Pioneer and Historical Association will hold its annual Pioneer Picnic on July 26 from 11:30 to 2:30 p.m. at Pringle Grove at 5270 Pringle Lane in Soquel. For more info, call 831-818-8109.
TOP PHOTO: Zia, a member of the Institute for Canine Forensics, sniffs out where bodies have been buried in the Historic Soquel Cemetery on June 20.