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Classification: Query
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/Ii.2ADI/810.1.1.1.1.1.1
Message Board Post:
Aventar,
I have been listening to this thread. It sounds like you have an interesting situation
down there in Union County, but it is not too uncommon. My wife Sabrina and I have been
working on repairing abandoned cemeteries in Wayne County for about a year now. We
recently held a cemetery workshop to try and gather interest and to show others how to
repair the stones. Pioneer cemeteries are being neglected all over the state. The
majority of these abandoned pioneer cemeteries are to be taken care of by the township
trustees, and for whatever reason they give you, they are not.
In dealing with the township trustees in Wayne County, their belief is that know one cares
about the abandoned cemeteries, because they are rarely contacted by people concerned
about its care. So it is important for those on this list to send them a letter.
As you mentioned earlier, a common response that township trustees give is that they
"just do not have the funding to do anything." According to state legislature,
one of the job duties of the township trustee is that "The township shall
appropriate enough money to provide for the care, repair, and maintenance of each cemetery
described in section 1." So when they give their common response, they are really
just admitting that they did not do their job properly the year before.
Check out the Indiana Pioneer Cemetery Restoration Project home page at
http://www.rootsweb.com/~inpcrp/ . My wife and I head up the Wayne County INPCRP and have
a web page dedicated to it. Union County is one of many counties that have not been
adopted yet. You might think about starting it for Union County.
I will send a letter to the trustees in Union County, as I have many relatives buried in
Union County. Do you know who is on the board of trustees for each township. I would
like to send a letter to them also. This is because another common response is that the
"board won't let them raise funds." If the board members are informed of
the actual duties of the trustees (and their lack of accomplishing these duties), they
might get more involved.
If you want to, I would check in the courthouse and see how much each township has
allocated for cemetery care. A lot of times, the townships have some money (usually very
little) allocated for cemetery care, but it goes unspent or spent on something else,
because the trustees just didn't feel like getting off their butts to hire somebody to
clean up the cemetery. It would be interesting to find out how much they have and if they
have used any of it this year.
I will step down now. I also wanted to mention that the Union County web page looks
great. I have many ancestors (Miller, Ridenour, Lybrook) associated with the Four Mile
Settlement and I enjoyed reading that on line.
Tim