Providence Cemetery and Providence Pioneer Church

We arrived at Providence at 11 a.m. Monday.  The weather was in our favor, with warm temperatures and no rain.  The Providence Church has been beautifully restored, and is currently in use by the Vineyard Fellowship Church.

All of the Arnold family is buried at this cemetery, and it is always a great place for me to do my genealogy--I pick up a name or date here or there, and it helps me to more fully complete the picture of the Arnold family who settled in the forks of the Santiam River in the 1850's.

We spent over an hour cleaning up my father's grave, Aunt Elsie's grave, and my grandparent's grave.  It looked well-kept when we left, and the fresh flowers added a nice touch.  In Scio, the town turns out on Memorial Day (called "Decoration Day") to decorate the graves in the cemetery.

It's a beautiful location on the top of a hill, with a memorial to Joab Powell, founder of the church in the mid-1800's.