I can't seem to get many others to contribute to the list so I'll just
go on spouting off until someone decides to add their two cents worth.
Come on people, ideas are most often born of conflict, and good ideas
are born of good conflicts. If you don't agree with something I've
said, say so. Please change my mind if you can. If you have a
complaint, lets hear it. If you don't like the way Johnny the Boy Scout
is mowing a cemetery, or you think I send too damned many messages to
the list that are too damned long, tell us about it, get it off your
chest. This list is a forum for that sort of thing. I know some of you
monitor Cemetery-L also. Drag some of those big mouths onto INPCRP-L.
In the meantime, I'll just have to supply my own ramblings.
WHAT HAPPENED?
What Happened? As genealogist, historians, and conservators, that
question is the essence of our beings. For our purposes, the big
question is always "What happened to that cemetery?". I'm going to
answer that with one word: Vandalism. We have all seen the effects of
the all to ordinary, senseless, destruction. I am sure there isn't one
among us that doesn't possess a mental image of some scene of ruination,
loss, and desecration suffered at the end of a length of pipe. For me,
the image is of St. John's cemetery in rural Huntington County. Upon
approaching this tranquil old country graveyard, I was horrified by the
site. There, in the middle of the second row, was a stack of marble
tablets. Not a small stack either. This was the grandfather of them
all, nearly four feet high and easily as long. Almost every marble
tablet in the cemetery had been broken off its base or uprooted and
smashed. I suppose, when the groundskeeper came to mow, which he does
regularly, he found all these stones lying about and in the way of his
mower. So, with best intentions, he reverently gathered up the
fragments and positioned them in a nice, neat, easily mowed around
stack. He then mowed the grounds and proceeded to neatly trim around
the remaining stones with his nylon weed whip.
So, in essence, there has been two different types of vandalism
occurring at St. John's. The first, Type One, was Brutality. The
second, Type two, was Ignorance, which occurred when the groundskeeper
moved the broken stones to mow and when he uses his weed whip against
soft stones.
It is unlikely that a plat map exists for this old resting place,
certainly not one accurate enough to replace these stones in their
original position. And now, these stones are laying on their faces,
strata exposed to the forces of freeze and thaw, doomed to be sure. The
information on these stones will have to be recorded very soon or it
will be lost forever. If the information is not recorded, a Third type
of vandalism will occur: Inaction.
But there is a fourth type of vandalism that we deal with also. We know
this type well, we have seen it so often. This is the type of vandalism
that has been committed when the books and maps say a cemetery is here
but we can't find it. In its place we often find houses, factories,
schools, reservoirs, corn, soybeans, or even a grassy plain. What type
of Vandalism is this? Economic. Since the majority of the cemeteries we
deal with are in rural areas and we live in an agricultural State, we
are very quick to point fingers at our farmers. From our own viewpoint,
the farmer has destroyed a piece of history and broken our genealogical
record. But, what of the farmer's views. To him, a cemetery on his
land is another uncultivated acre or two that he must pay property taxes
on. It is an eyesore and often deposits harmful weeds in his fields.
The presence of the graveyard in his field breaks up the flow of the
furrows, causing him to have to slow down to navigate around the
obstacle. He doesn't want anyone tramping through his fields to read
the stones. He doesn't want anyone to restore the place. He would
prefer it were forgotten so that he may begin the process of claiming
the ground for cultivation. And what of the developer? His business is
to sell property and build homes and factories. I'm quite sure the
developers views are similar to that of the farmer.
As our cities and towns continue to grow and spread outwards and more
people flock to the suburbs, more and more cemeteries will be forgotten
and destroyed. Landfills, reservoirs, Malls, all these are part of our
lives. And of course, so too are cemeteries. We shall all need a place
of final rest one day. Will we rest easy, assured our earthly remains
are safe from Vandalism? Will we?
It is our responsibility to make sure that our laws concerning
cemeteries are enhanced to protect cemeteries from vandalism of any
kind. If we don't, we will be guilty of vandalism type five: Stupidity.
Scott Satterthwaite
Indiana Pioneer Cemeteries Restoration Project State Coordinator
http://www.citznet.com/~ssattert/inpcrp/