From the Louisville Courier-Journal
Monday, May 15, 2006
http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060515/NEWS02...
Volunteers' work is a grave matter
Group restoring cemeteries to keep their connection to the past
By Christopher Hall
Special to The Courier-Journal
A small group of volunteers gathered over the weekend to pay their respects
to the dead in a most practical manner.
The all-volunteer Harrison County Cemetery Restoration Team worked most of
the day Saturday to clean and refurbish the Kaylor Cemetery in Morgan
Township, just outside New Salisbury.
The event was a cemetery-restoration workshop and was open to the public,
but the five members of the not-for-profit organization were the only ones
there when work started about 9 a.m.
The team put on the workshop in conjunction with the Historic Landmarks
Foundation of Indiana's Jeffersonville office. The agencies have two more
workshops planned, Saturday at the Pitman Cemetery in Spencer Township and
May 27 at the Old Mount Zion Cemetery near Mauckport.
Before yesterday, the group's members already had cleared out and mapped
Kaylor Cemetery and made a list of its dozen graves. The oldest grave marker
is dated 1846; the newest, 1935.
With a portable generator, special soft-bristled brushes, garden sprayers
and a little muscle, the three men and two women cleaned and polished
markers and made broken gravestones ready to mend with strong epoxy cement.
One taller grave marker, with an obelisk-like structure on top about ready
to fall over, was to be taken down and cleaned and eventually reset and
steadied on its base. The team set up a hoist with a large tripod fashioned
from metal tubing and chains to lift the stones.
At one point in the morning, group historian Kevin Conrad used wire rods to
dowse, or "witch," for any hidden stone markers, much as traditional dowsers
use green twigs to search for underground water. Conrad acknowledged the
method is hardly scientific but said it seems to work.
The Cemetery Restoration Team got started in October after splitting off
from the Harrison County Historical Society, and finished work on the first
cemetery in November. The team now is in various stages of work on several
others and has plans to work on almost 20 -- including Kaylor -- over the
summer, said group President Karl Schettler. The group receives funding from
Harrison County township trustees and individuals, he said.
The team germinated in 2001 when Schettler retired and relocated, along with
his wife, to Lanesville from Torrance, Calif., near Los Angeles. He found a
cemetery on his property, and in researching its history, learned the very
locations of many cemeteries in Harrison County were unknown.
Schettler started working with the historical society to track down the lost
cemeteries, which led to him meeting the rest of the restoration team's
members, all of whom have had a long fascination with cemeteries. The
group's vice president, Kenny Neukam, has mowed a local cemetery for a
quarter of a century.
It's an enjoyable hobby, Schettler said, and the group hopes other people
will want to spend Saturdays working with them outdoors.
"That's what we do. We're preserving and restoring cemeteries," said
Schettler. "We look at this as a betterment of our community."
Kevin Conrad and his wife, Angie, drive down most weekends from their home
in Indianapolis to work with the team. Conrad got involved when he was
researching his family's Harrison County connections.
He said cemeteries are invaluable historic records, especially for people
tracing their ancestry, but age, construction and lack of concern are taking
their toll
"We're losing these cemeteries," he said. "Once they're gone,
they're gone."
Chris Fisher, the group's secretary, said the team's work helps maintain a
connection to the past. Fisher, who lives in Ramsey on a farm that has been
in her family for more than a century, said her mother used to drag her to
local cemeteries when she was "itty-bitty" and show her where her ancestors
were buried.
"This is who we are," she said. "These people, whether they're my
ancestors
or not, are who made Harrison County what it is. . If we don't remember
them, no one else will."