‘They had a bigger calling’: Boise-area cemetery identifies 148 veterans’ graves

Isham Joplin was laid to rest at his family’s graveyard 111 years ago, and in that time his plain gray stone is about the only thing in this part of the Treasure Valley that hasn’t really changed. Recently, though, Joplin, like many other veterans in Joplin Cemetery, received a new addition to his grave site: an American flag.

On Saturday, Cub Scouts from Pack 39 placed 148 flags across the cemetery, marking every serviceman and woman’s grave with Stars and Stripes. Thanks to the work of Joplin Cemetery Maintenance District Commissioner Sara Bell, that meant planting more than twice as many flags as cemetery administrators previously thought.

Over the past year, Bell spent hundreds of hours digitizing the cemetery’s records to find out who exactly was buried at the 2.25-acre site, and where. In the process, she learned that, in addition to housing some of the oldest graves in Ada County, Joplin also held scores of military veterans — at least 148 of the 1,250 or so people buried along the north side of Chinden Boulevard across from the northern tip of Cloverdale Road. She knows of two, including Isham Joplin, who fought in the Civil War.

A self-described history buff, Bell is foremost an educator. She works full-time as a school administrator with the state Department of Education. Like most cemetery district commissioners, she is paid modestly; Idaho law caps commissioner compensation at $25 per day and $1,000 per year. Bell, Kelly Schlangen and Meghan Stewart, her two colleagues on the elected board, run Joplin on a shoestring — about $44,000 per year, she said, paid by taxpayers through a small localized levy. Through her job with the state, Bell had last summer off, and she spent it “bringing the cemetery into the 21st century.”

That meant poring over three sets of card catalogues, checking every name and cross-checking them with every grave site out in the yard.

“It was a full-time job,” she said. “But it was work that had to be done.”

Before now, the names of known veterans were listed on a single index card. But there were obvious omissions; people with military headstones — the type engraved with a name, a branch and a war fought — weren’t on the list. And many veterans chose civilian headstones.

Bell dug deeper. She found obituaries, muster papers, and documentation from families. Whenever she did, she checked a column on the side of her spreadsheet. She hasn’t printed it yet, but the cemetery’s new roster is almost complete. Men and women who served will be highlighted in blue.

“When I go down a rabbit hole, I go down a rabbit hole,” she said.

To honor fallen veterans and learn reverence

For Bell, the work hit home on Saturday morning. Three days before Veterans Day, she stood with the scouts in the middle of the grounds, where a full-size American flag flaps on a pole above the graves. They recited the Pledge of Allegiance, and for a little while she reminded the children — West Ada elementary students, mostly — why they were there.

“It’s so important that we learn from our history,” she told the Idaho Statesman on Monday. “This, it can teach them reverence. It’s a way we can honor those who chose something bigger than themselves.”

Bell followed the scouts through the lot as the children placed the flags, each 18” x 12” on a thin wooden pole. She stopped at soldiers from World Wars I and II, from Korea and Vietnam.

And they planted a flag for Isham Joplin, who rode with a Missouri Cavalry in the Union Army before coming west by wagon train and farming the land that would one day hold his family plot.

The Treasure Valley took shape around Joplin Cemetery, and for that it’s easy to drive past the trim green patch at 12250 W. Chinden Blvd. in Eagle. It sits on a ledge above the Boise Fire Training Center and below a Marriott hotel. Unless you’re stuck in traffic, you may never notice it from a car window.

The place itself is small and open, save a couple of cedars and a grand spruce in the middle of the grounds. It’s about 150 yards from corner to corner, and you can walk the full length in a few minutes. On Saturday morning, Bell stood in the corner of the cemetery, so she had a clear line of sight to each of the American flags among the gridded stones. She watched them wave above the names she’d come to know.

This week, the memory of that sight nearly moved her to tears.

“No matter how you feel about our politics, or our president, we’re still the United States of America, and we still have a lot to be proud of,” she said. “People who chose this line of work — they had a bigger calling, and it isn’t political. These people are here, and who they are is important.”

This story was originally published November 11, 2025 at 4:00 AM.