This article was taken from the Columbus, IN Republic and permission was
granted to post here at this website.
James R. Hull, Ph.D.
Weddington Cemetery in Madison County was reconstructed
Madison, Fayette counties show power of cemetery commissions
Wednesday, July 30, 2003
By Marla Miller, mmiller(a)therepublic.com
Cemetery commissions can and do work, even leading to the creation of a
tax-supported cemetery department in one Indiana county. The Fayette County
Cemetery Commission formed in the mid-1970s after a volunteer group started
refurbishing old pioneer cemeteries, said Ed Herrell, commission president.
Through the years, the commission's credits include restoring lost burial
grounds, organizing driving tours of rehabbed sites and hiring a full-time
employee to oversee cemetery care. Fayette County covers Connersville and
is where Orville and Wilbur Wright's grandparents are buried. John Walters
headed up the county cemetery department for six years. A cemetery
commission is useful because it serves as a watchdog for abandoned
graveyards, which are like outdoor museums, he said. The commission can
levy a tax, but doesn't have to. "Every county needs a cemetery commission
to save the history," he said. "If you don't put an entity in charge,
we're
going to lose the importance that's laying out there." Madison County,
which includes Anderson, has had an active cemetery commission since 1973.
It formed in response to public interest and pressure, said Melody Hull,
commission secretary. "The cemetery commission works with the township
trustees," she said. "We feel that the community is very supportive, and
certainly our Madison County Board of Commissioners is supportive." In
1997, the cemetery commission embarked on a project to restore the
Weddington Cemetery - home to War of 1812 and Civil War veterans.
Rediscovered in a cow pasture in the mid 1990s, the cemetery's 70 headstones
were hidden by dense trees and undergrowth. The reconstruction took three
years and involved building a bridge to get to the site. The cemetery was
rededicated in May 2000. Graveyard groomer Walters was a part-time county
highway department employee when he started mowing Fayette County's
abandoned cemeteries in 1996. "They all had the same problems, broken
stones and misplaced markers," he said. "They were in deplorable condition.
I finally convinced the county commissioners that more needed to be done
than mow the grass." He took an interest in learning to clean, repair and
reset headstones, attending workshops sponsored by the Association for
Graveyard Studies. While cemetery supervisor, he found 23 lost cemeteries
and restored 16 of them. Walters quit a year and a half ago to start his
own business, Graveyard Groomer. Now he works throughout Indiana and the
Midwest cleaning and repairing headstones. For many years, Fayette County's
township trustees and cemetery commission taxed residents for cemetery care,
Herrell said. In 2000, the trustees agreed to turn over all the county's
abandoned cemeteries to the commission. Now, Walters isn't sure that was
the best move. Due to budget cuts, the cemetery department has scaled back
its work. "The way it was before, each individual trustee could rally for
their own money," he said. "If a cemetery needed a fence, the trustee would
buy the fence and we could get it put up." Success continues Darryll
Morehead, Walter's replacement, mows 22 roadside cemeteries, down from the
40 he mowed last year. He's waiting for Walters to train him on headstone
restoration. Morehead made the best of a long winter by researching the
history of all the county's cemeteries, following paper trails and probing
for stones to find 15 more that were hidden underground. He's putting
together a reference guide for his department, the library and schools.
"There's just something right about what we're doing," he said. "If
it hadn'
t been for these pioneers laying in these cemeteries, where would we be? "I
think every county should have a full-time cemetery person. We see these
cemeteries every day. We know if vandals get in. We know the farmers." The
department has fallen victim to budget cuts, Herrell said, but it's always
operated on a small budget. And the way the by-laws were written, the
cemeteries can revert back to the trustees if need be. All in all, it's
been a win-win for Fayette County's cemeteries. It's also been a good
tourism tool, he said. "When money gets tight and you have elected
officials, they get a little leery about spending money on dead people," he
said. "But we've been very successful and we've had great support from the
community." Herrell and Morehead have given talks in other communities and
said they would be happy to discuss their work locally.
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