-----Original Message-----
From: Lois Mauk <LawOfficeInformationSystem(a)WORLDNET.ATT.NET>
To: INROOTS-L(a)LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU <INROOTS-L(a)LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU>
Date: Thursday, January 28, 1999 6:10 AM
Subject: [INROOTS] Speak Up for Indiana's Pioneer Cemeteries -- State House
of Representatives' Committee Hearings on Monday, 02/01/99
Several members of the Indiana Pioneer Cemeteries Restoration Project
(INPCRP) appeared Wednesday afternoon (1/27/99) to testify before the
Senate
Committee on Governmental and Regulatory Affairs, which was discussing
two
cemetery bills (SB 178 and 280).
There will be a hearing before the House of Representatives' Committee on
Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development on:
Monday, February 1, 1999 at 3:30 P.M.
in the House Chambers
(third floor of the State House; east side)
Additional seating is available in the gallery, accessible from the fourth
floor.
The House is considering SIX very important cemetery bills, the details of
which and links to the various sponsoring legislators and the full text of
the bills can be found on the INPCRP website under "Pending Legislation"
at:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~inpcrp
If ANY of you are in the Indianapolis area or can be in Indianapolis on
Monday afternoon, we would dearly love for you to join us there. Since the
meeting will be in the House Chambers, they should be able to accommodate a
large turnout. (There were about 40 people crammed into the Committee room
on Wednesday, though a number of them were present regarding other bills.)
This is a unique opportunity to see our goverment in action and a chance
for
our voices to be heard by the men and women who make our laws.
In my honest opinion, I don't think the Legislators are getting the big
picture here. I don't think they are in touch with the desperate reality
of
this situation and it's only by showing up in numbers that they
are going
to
realize that large numbers of potential voters are watching what
happens in
the State House this year.
Indiana's pioneer family cemeteries (which by some estimates account for 75
to 90 percent or more of all the burial grounds in the state) have little
or
no laws to protect them. Property owners are permitted to abuse,
neglect
and obliterate these sites pretty much with abandon. There is only minimal
enforcement of the laws that DO exist.
Most of the proposed bills will have impact only on cemeteries on "public"
property -- sites owned or controlled by the state, the counties, the
townships and the cities and towns. One bill (HB 1522) will govern how and
under what circumstances our ancestors and predecessors' remains will be
disinterred and reinterred when the real estate upon which they are buried
becomes "ripe for development".
The real estate developers in this state consider pioneer cemeteries an
impediment and an encumbrance. I can guarantee you that, in years to come,
you will at some point learn that a cemetery to which you feel some bond
will be subject to relocation. How that takes place and what happens to
those human remains, if it must happen, is of tremendous importance to
family historians, genealogists and right-thinking people everywhere.
Today, if a property owner wants to move a known cemetery on his/her
property or if human remains are found in an unknown cemetery is found
during construction, there is almost a 100% chance that those remains will
be excavated and then warehoused in a university archeology laboratory
where
they will be housed INDEFINITELY for "archeological
research".
It's happened on three occasions in the past two years that we know of
today. We're sure it's happened more often that that, but these things are
usually kept hush-hush because they don't want to "offend our
sensibilities". The 35 children and 8 adults that were exhumed two years
ago in Indianapolis to make way for the construction of a warehouse are
STILL on deposit in a laboratory in Indianapolis and there is apparently no
timetable for their reinterment. It happened last summer in Dubois County
and it happened again last December in Shelby County.
Read the bills yourself. They are all linked from the INPCRP Pending
Legislation pages. Make up your own minds about them. Contact your
legislators and tell them your opinion. Come to the hearing on Monday in
Indianapolis if you can and stand up and tell your Representatives' what
you
know and what you believe about the desperate state of the vast
majority of
Indiana's pioneer cemeteries.
Lois Mauk
INPCRP State Coordinator
-----------------------------------------------
List problems?
Check
your WELCOME message FIRST
http://php.indiana.edu/~stephenl/problems.htm SECOND
then contact stephenL(a)indiana.edu