Thanks, UEB, for the link to the Star's editorial on Freedomland Cemetery
(see
http://www.indystar.com/article.php?editgraveyard24.html )
As most of you realize, there was a big error in that article. Below is the
text of the Letter to the Editor that I just sent to the Star:
Thank you for your 4/24/2002 editorial, "Graveyard teaches respect for
history". I am very familiar with the Freedomland Cemetery in New Albany,
IN, a "perpetual" community project of S. Ellen Jones Elementary School
students and agree this is an important and valuable venture.
There was one important error in your editorial, however, in the statement
". . . but each county has a cemetery commission appointed to fund and
oversee maintenance".
In actuality, each of Indiana's 92 counties MAY create county cemetery
commissions under IC 23-14-67. To my knowledge, only TWENTY counties in the
state have cemetery commissions, their status ranging from defunct or
inactive to very active and their annual budgets running the gamut from $0
to $30,000 or more.
Most cemetery commissions work in conjunction with Township Trustees, who
have a statutory responsibility under IC 23-14-68 to care for cemeteries
established before 1939 that have no funds for maintenance and on which
property taxes are NOT assessed and paid.
County cemetery commissions are volunteer positions and often make use of
individuals working off community service sentences, inmate labor and civic
groups to accomplish their goals of restoring these critically important
historic sites.
If your readers would like more information, they can visit the Indiana
Pioneer Cemeteries Restoration Project's website at
http://www.rootsweb.com/~inpcrp.
Lois Mauk
INPCRP State Coordinator