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Edwardsville cemetery plots survive urban sprawl |
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Written by DeadGirl
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Thursday, 02 February 2006 |
Final resting places poignant reminders of area's pioneers
BY TERI MADDOX
News-Democrat
Sarah Gifford died on Sept. 21, 1865, just months after the Civil War ended. Her husband, D.N. Gifford, buried her in a country cemetery, west of Edwardsville. She was 24.
Sarah wasn't a prominent person. Her story isn't told in history books. People today wouldn't even know about her if not for her tombstone, which is propped against a stump in a parklike area at University Pointe I shopping center, off Illinois 157.
It's one of only three tombstones left in the developer-owned cemetery, which shrank over the years with the plowing of farm fields and laying of train tracks. Its boundaries are uncharted. Its number of graves is unknown.
"Apparently, when the railroad came through, they just cut a path right through the cemetery," said Jeff Pauk, owner of Madison County Surveyors. "They may have dug a pit and put all the remains in it, if they did anything at all."
Pauk is a land surveyor who has taken a special interest in abandoned cemeteries and family burial plots. He is keenly aware of dilemmas faced by developers in rapidly growing communities like Edwardsville and Glen Carbon.
Anyone who buys land that contains graves is prohibited by state law from disturbing them. There's also the question of who takes care of old cemeteries after subdivisions or business parks have been built around them.
In 2004, a controversy arose at Gettysburg Estates, off Goshen Road in Edwardsville. Residents complained that a cemetery at the subdivision's entrance had become an eyesore with thick, overgrown vegetation.
Madison County had been deeded the cemetery in 1882 but didn't have the resources to maintain it on a regular basis, said County Administrator Jim Monday. The problem was solved when Gettysburg Homeowners Association made an agreement with the county.
"We adopted the cemetery so we could mow it and landscape it and just take care of it," said former association president Jim Day. "... We didn't want it to be an eyesore, and we wanted to show respect for the people who are buried there."
Little is known about the cemetery in Gettysburg. All that's visible is a black, wrought-iron fence around the grave of F.W. Frickenstein (1800-1865) and portions of three other tombstones. One was erected for a 1-year-old named Jolia, who died in 1857.
A couple miles away, remnants of an old family burial plot can be found on private property at Parkview Ridge apartment complex, near the intersection of Center Grove Road and Esic Drive.
Lying flat and embedded in the ground behind a storage shed are tombstones for Washington C. Ballard, a Methodist minister for 50 years, and his wife, Elizabeth. They died in 1870 and 1855, respectively.
The apartment complex is owned by Robert "Bob" Plummer, chief executive officer of RP Lumber, who also developed Gettysburg Estates and University Pointe I.
"Fortunately, with our developments, we were always able to work around (old gravesites)," Plummer said. "Now, if you had one right smack in the middle of a piece of property, I could see where it would cause a problem."
Pauk knows of at least a dozen abandoned cemeteries or family burial plots in Edwardsville, and he believes more have disappeared under homes and businesses built on former farmland.
Pauk became interested in the subject several years ago while researching the life of Benaiah Robinson, a long-time Madison County surveyor in the 1800s. Robinson's parents likely were buried in a family plot west of Woodland Elementary School in Edwardsville.
While looking for the Robinson plot, Pauk found what appears to be the unmarked site of Ebeneezer Methodist cemetery. The discovery is historically significant, he said, because Ebeneezer was one of the few established cemeteries in Madison County in the early 1800s.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many residents were buried in small plots on hilltops, in prairies or under trees on family farms.
"You took care of your own, especially if you lived out in the country," said Robert "Bob" Herr, a fourth-generation undertaker and owner of Herr Funeral Home in Collinsville and Sunset Hills Memorial Estates in Glen Carbon.
People bathed and dressed deceased family members and laid them on couches or beds at home. Neighbors came to pay their respects while undertakers or cabinet makers custom-built wooden caskets.
Over the years, many tombstones, fences and other evidence of family burial plots disappeared. Relatives died, land changed ownership, vandals roamed and developers looked the other way.
Pauk would like to see local, county and state officials make a concerted effort to identify old cemeteries and family burial plots in developing areas. He noted new imaging technology can provide information without archaeological digging.
"To me, it would be a win-win situation," Pauk said. "A developer could buy a piece of land that's clear of pioneer cemeteries. It's one headache they wouldn't have to deal with. The last thing you want to do is be in the middle of a multimillion-dollar project and then a grave turns up."
Herr suggests creating cemetery education programs in schools to encourage respect and discourage vandalism. Students could visit old gravesites and do tombstone rubbings for use by genealogists and other historical researchers.
Since 1989, burial grounds in Illinois have been protected by the Human Skeletal Remains Protections Act. The law makes it illegal for anyone to disturb skeletal remains, grave markers and other artifacts.
Former state Sen. Evelyn Bowles, D-Edwardsville, has long been a supporter of cemetery protections. She visited several family burial plots while serving as Madison County clerk from 1974 to 1994.
Bowles saw cases of "terrible" vandalism, including skeletal remains being dug up. She felt it was her duty to make records of old cemeteries before they disappeared.
"It's respect for the dead," Bowles said last week. "Those are souls out there. Those were living people. Those were human beings."
http://www.belleville.com/mld/belleville/news/local/13740819.htm |
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