EUGENE: Pioneer Cemetery Ceremony
11:00am to 12:15pm
Eugene Pioneer Cemetery
1001 E. 18th Avenue
Eugene OR, 97403
[The Cemetery is adjacent to the campus of the University of Oregon across University Street from McArthur Court and behind the Knight Library]
Among the notable graves in the G.A.R plot at Pioneer Cemetery is that of Lane County’s only Medal of Honor winner from the Civil War. Corporal Louis Renninger, was one of the few wounded survivors of a failed 150-man assault on the Confederate heights at the Battle of Vicksburg, Mississippi on May 22, 1863.
An Oregonian Killed in Action in WWI
Leslie Tooze has a special plot in Pioneer Cemetery, marked with an honorary granite headstone from the Department of Veteran Affairs.
1st Lieutenant Leslie Tooze graduated from the University of Oregon in 1916 and started his law school education at Harvard along with his twin brother, Lamar. They both left school to fight in World War I. After fighting mostly apart, they were finally stationed together in the 364th Infantry on the edge of northeast France’s Argonne Forest. Weeks before the Great War would end, on October 25 1918, Leslie led his men into battle. Killed in action, he would receive the Silver Star for his valor that day. After being buried hastily in France, Tooze was re-interred in Pioneer Cemetery in 1921. Although his mother relocated his remains to Portland, Tooze retains a special plot in Pioneer Cemetery.