Man, city at odds over Washougal Memorial Cemetery plot

A family’s trio of cemetery plots is at the center of one man’s fight with the city of Washougal.

Tim Hagensen says the city owes him $800 for a Washougal Memorial Cemetery plot his parents purchased in 2013. City officials say he’s owed $450.

The dispute stems from Hagensen’s decision to sell a burial plot his parents purchased for him 12 years ago. When the elder Hagensens purchased their own plots at the Washougal Cemetery in 1997, they purchased plots Nos. 66 and 67 for $450 each. Sixteen years later, when the couple bought the adjacent plot No. 68 for their son, the price had increased to $800.

Donald Hagensen, Tim Hagensen’s father, died in June 2019 and was buried in plot No. 67. Tim’s mother, Frances Hagensen, died several weeks later and was buried in plot No. 68, the spot her son said was reserved for him.

Tim Hagensen discovered the alleged mix-up earlier this year when he attempted to sell his burial plot back to the city of Washougal and was quoted $450 for the vacant No. 66 plot instead of $800 for the No. 68 plot the couple purchased in 2013, and where his mother is currently buried.

Confused, Tim Hagensen said he went to the city for answers.

“They’re just stonewalling,” he said.

Joe Walsh, Washougal’s community services and strategy director, said the city’s hands are tied.

According to state law, in the case of city-run cemeteries, people can sell burial plots back to the city, but only for the original purchase price.

“Therefore, by code, we can only offer a refund for the original purchase price of $450,” Walsh said. “Frankly, it would be great if we could offer him what we wanted, but we just can’t do that with public funds. Our code basically says, ‘We can refund you exactly what you paid for it.’ ”

Walsh said the city did not determine where to bury Hagensen’s parents. Instead, Walsh said, the city follows funeral home instructions.

“We don’t ever make (those) decisions,” Walsh said. “The funeral home tells us where the family wants the person buried.”

Lynn King, a funeral director for Straub’s Funeral Home and Cremation Services, wrote in a 2019 email to the city’s then-cemetery administrative assistant, Kelly Brown, that “the family wants Donald buried in the middle plot.”

Walsh said that while “it’s difficult to speculate” about exactly what happened in 2019, neither the city nor the funeral home did anything wrong.

Walsh said Straub’s Funeral Home and Cremation Services in Camas may have adhered to the tradition of a wife being buried on her husband’s left side.

Walsh pointed out that the Hagensens’ companion headstone has the word “Donald” on the left and the word “Frances” on the right.

“That really flies in the face of Tim’s claim that they wanted the mom buried on the other side, unless Tim is also contending that the headstone got mixed up,” Walsh said.

“We didn’t make a mistake here. If we did, we would own up to it,” Walsh said. “I can totally understand, in the stress of that moment, somehow there was some miscommunication or an assumption or something.”

Walsh said that he has asked Hagensen where his parents should have been buried but has yet to receive a response.

Hagensen said he has no interest in communicating with the city right now, adding that he feels the two sides are “at an impasse.”

“It was by no fault of my own or my family’s,” Tim Hagensen said. “A plot is still there. If it got mixed up, then unmix it and give me my money back.”

Doug Flanagan: 360-735-4669; [email protected]