Only the dates indicated that Lillian's death was unusual. Nineteen is young to die. There were no other Coles nearby. She was buried, probably unexpectedly, among strangers by people who loved her and then moved on.

I can't remember when I didn't love cemeteries. I'm drawn to them the way some people are to churches.

Our reasons are similar. Churches teach that life and love go on in a better fashion after we die. But I'm also simple enough to take comfort in the mere fact that most of life's worries come down to a hole in the ground.

Most people see graveyards as repositories of sorrow. The wind through the trees is a muted choir of weeping. I'm more inclined to hear laughter. If the dead regard us at all, it's probably with derision over the things we fuss about.

You can't escape the tragedy of cemeteries, though, or the stories. To the indifferent eye, cemeteries are a collection of stone blocks. I see books with dust jacket inscriptions. For me, a cemetery is a library.

You have to know where to look. The military cemeteries of Gettysburg, Antietam, and Shiloh would be meaningless if I didn't know the young men buried there rushed our nation's future and their lives into the mouths of cannon.

Walk through Salt Lake City Cemetery and any headstone you see with a death date of 1918 is likely courtesy of the Spanish Flu epidemic that killed at least 50 million people worldwide.

Some graves tease their stories through simple numbers, like the pioneer-era plots with parents and a string of children dead before the age of two.

Twenty years ago, I stumbled about a coastal forest in Washington state, looking for a tiny cemetery marked on a map. I think I found it, but it was hard to tell. Even the foundations of the homes were gone from the place where people once laid the treasures of their hearts.

A visit to the State Archives tells Lillian story. A bride of a few weeks, she was young, happy and probably still in her nightclothes when death found her.

On the morning of Feb. 17, 1926, a massive avalanche hammered through Sap Gulch in Bingham Canyon, smashing 20 buildings into kindling and sledge-hammering 40 people including Lillian to death. Her husband escaped because he was at work in a mine.

I have no idea why I find this interesting. I only know that when I pass by Lillian's headstone now, I feel like I know her.

rkirby@sltrib.com