I am really, really PLEASED to announce that the clean-up and restoration of
Grayson-Long Cemetery in Jeffersonville Township, Clark Co., IN is nearing
COMPLETION.
This site is nestled in a heavily wooded oasis, surrounded by residential
and commercial developed. The cemetery was savagely vandalized about 30
years ago by some miscreants who dug up at least two people and paraded
around down with their skulls and jewelry.
30 years passed and the graves were never filled it. In the meantime, the
neighborhood children carried on the tradition of their predecessors,
vandalizing the site to the point that every single stone was broken or
down, except one Civil War marker. There were huge dead trees down all over
the site. In a word, it was a mess!
For the past year or so, I have been communicating with several people who
have been working quietly in the background to get this site cleaned up.
Today, I'm pleased to announce that the work is nearly finished. The dead
trees have been moved off the cemetery (which turns out to be a full, square
acre); we still need to get rid of the dead trees, but they aren't on the
graves anymore.
Jim Grayson, the owner of Grayson Funeral Homes and the Charlestown Monument
Company, and his family donated their services to repair all the broken
stones and monuments.
Either inmate labor or community service labor was used to do the actual
cleaning (I'm still not sure which).
All of this was coordinated by Mr. Dale Popp, the Jeffersonville Township
Trustee.
In the next few weeks, a fence (chain-link?) will be built around the entire
one-acre cemetery. The surrounding woods are been converted into wooded
parkland. It really is a beautiful area.
If you haven't been to Grayson-Long Cemetery and can't find it following the
directions on
http://www.rootsweb.com/~incccpc/graysoncem.html , just give
me a call. I'd love to take you there!
The above webpage features over 2 dozen photos that I took Saturday
afternoon, a true virtual tour of the site. It will take a while for the
pix to load, but I think you'll enjoy them.
I'm sure there are a ton of buried stones here and I'd love to coordinate a
probing day (with the Trustee's permission, of course!). Let me know if
you'd be interested in looking for buried stones at Grayson-Long Cemetery.
Lois