Annie Alloway, who died in January at the age of 76, wanted to be laid to rest with her mother and other members of her fami­ly.

When her family and friends huddled together at Lincoln Cemetery to pay their final re­spects to the woman who had en­tertained them so often with her jokes and stories, they saw tears, respect and love. They did not see the three large garbage bags of trash that Alloway’s nephew, Autry Bostick, spent hours picking up before her service.

“I didn’t want them to see trash all around like that,” said Bostick, a 57-year-old who once lived in Montgomery but now lives in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Most say conditions at Lin­coln Cemetery are actually bet­ter today than in past years, but that isn’t saying much. There are worse troubles than litter plaguing Montgomery oldest commercial cemetery for Afri­can-Americans.

When human bones are visi­ble because of broken concrete slabs and there is no one track­ing who is buried there, litter becomes a minor issue.

Lincoln Cemetery has long been one of Montgomery’s most notorious mysteries. Although privately owned, for years no one has acknowledged owning the cemetery. If the city, family members and volunteer groups did not periodically maintain the property, no one would.

Yet the burials continue.

Read the rest of the story

Greetings All,

Regarding the removal of African American Cemetery in Sumter County Florida, we are in a home stretch for tomorrow night’s Sumter County Commission meeting. FOX13 Tampa aired a news story tonight about the cemetery, All the more reason to bombard the commission with emails. One Commissioner’s heart has definitely turned. We need the rest. FOX13 News story: http://www.lcni5.com/cgi-bin/c2.cgi?073+article+News+20091007104347073073003

Letters to the Editor: http://www.lcni5.com/cgi-bin/c2.cgi?073+article+Opinion+20091007103219073073004

Their email addresses are below. Many of you took action previously but we need to renew and intensify our efforts. I am also wondering if we don’t need a S.O. S. site for endandered historical African American sites. Is there one online? I became involved with an effort to prevent a highway going through the cemetery in Henderson, KY. The road expansion would have been over the burial sites of my maternal great-grandparents. We won that one - for now. And I am reminded of Milligen’s Bend, LA. where my great-grandfather fought in the Civil War. I’m told that there has been an historical marker but it was vandalized and not replaced. You can read the story of Milligen’s Bend Battle and the United States Colored Troop who fought there online. It’s a story worth reading and retelling. (I recommend looking for ancestors on the Civil War enlistment rolls. The pension files fron NARA are extremly informational). I feel that we have a responsibility to identify unrecognized places of African American historic signifigance and see that it’s recorded and/or preserved.and publicized. Many communities have oral tradition on events that happened and had a social or familial impact on the residents. The latest genealogy news on our First Lady, Michelle Obama, showed a perfect example of following the paper trail and putting life into those names and dates. It can start with a local place or event and the names of those who shared in an event. Food for thought. Don’t forget the Sumter County Cemetery. Spread the word and please send emails to the following addresses. Promote preservation!

Dick Hoffman: Dick.Hoffman@sumtercountyfl.gov

Doug Gilpin: Doug.Gilpin@sumtercountyfl.gov

Don Burgess: Don.Burgess@sumtercountyfl.gov

Garry Breeden: Garry.Breeden@sumtercountyfl.gov

Randy Mask: Randy.Mask@sumtercountyfl.gov

Thanks for your efforts and I hope to have some great news for you on this matter soon.

Peace & Love

Joyce Reese McCollum

“This unprecedented project has never been accomplished before, and we feel a strong urgency to record those that have gone before us to keep our history alive for our community,” Project Coordinator and Bradley Academy Board Member Florence Smith said.

Once completed, this project will be an important contribution to the recorded history of African Americans in Rutherford County, she said.

But record these cemeteries, volunteer help is needed to locate all the black cemeteries and burial locations, document inscriptions, and record oral histories and family stories regarding burials that may not have been marked or whose markers have not withstood the passing years.

In partnership with the Rutherford County Archives, the Center for Historic Preservation at MTSU, and the Rutherford County Historical Society, Bradley hopes to complete the project by the end of 2010.

A similar project was conducted in the 1970s to record all of the mostly white cemeteries and burials in this county and resulted in the book, “Cemeteries and Graveyards of Rutherford County, Tennessee” by Susan Daniel and published by the Rutherford County Historical Society in 2005.

Source: The Murfreesboro Post

When the Summerlee Foundation acquired the 400 acres in 2007, the tract included Bull Hill Cemetery, an African-American cemetery dating back to the 1850s and once part of the extensive Churchill Jones plantation.

“It was such a powerful experience for me. I can’t even explain the feeling I had standing there,” she said. “I felt lifted, warmed, like I was walking on clouds filled with sunshine. I cried. It changed me. I felt committed to working on behalf of all those buried in Bull Hill. Not just my grandmothers, but everybody’s grandmothers and grandfathers. I just could not leave their names unspoken in the earth. They just have to be remembered.”

The land also includes the earlier sites of Sarahville de Viesca, 1834-36, and Fort Milam. Jones moved to Falls County in 1853 from Alabama with his family and slaves. Eventually he owned 50,000 acres of prime Central Texas farmland.

Gangly trees shroud the half-acre graveyard, and a thick layer of vines, bramble and dried leaves crunch as visitors walk through. The Summerlee Foundation has plans to clear brush, plant grass and flowers, and erect a sturdy fence, once the THC researchers have finished their work.

Summerlee acquired the land from a descendant of Churchill Jones, also named Churchill Jones, of Marlin. Styles and the current Jones have become friends through their shared stories. Styles is relieved that the cemetery will be studied, documented and preserved.

“I attend genealogy meetings with other African-Americans,” Styles said. “The one place that most hit a roadblock is when they try to talk or get information from the descendant of the slave owner. Normally, the slave owner descendants are fearful of how the information will be used and if a big ‘scandal’ may come of it.”

However, Jones was open and friendly, willingly providing family papers that helped her document her great-great-great-grandparents, she said.

Descendants of those buried there have had recent reunions, the last in July. For Styles, descended from Jones’ slaves, her visit is a homecoming across the centuries. Bull Hill was an active cemetery until 1961.

Styles has been working with other family members to document all of the burials - a difficult task because of sketchy records. She has a list of 81 persons known to have been buried there, and another list of 68 who may be interred there. Countless more names have been lost because of slavery, Jim Crow laws and segregation, Styles said.

Nedra Lee, working with a grant from the Summerfield G. Roberts Foundation of Dallas, has been documenting the stories of the families represented in the cemetery. She has interviewed descendants and attended family gatherings to locate more relatives. Meanwhile, after documenting, mapping and photographing each burial, archaeologists have removed most of the stones to a safe place to either be fixed or replaced. Most burials, however, are marked with simple rocks or wooden crosses.

Archaeologists and researchers from the Texas Historical Commission have researched and documented this historic slave cemetery, untouched by urban or agricultural encroachments. The site also reveals interesting clues to 19th century African-American culture and memorials.

For Styles, Bull Hill is affirmation of all the stories she heard as a child from her parents and grandparents.

“I was shaking when I realized my grandma was telling the truth. I was so overwhelmed,” she said. “When I saw Bull Hill, I looked out over that site. I felt the spirit of my ancestors, I felt like they said, ‘Thank God, you found us. We lived the best lives we could, and we tried to pass on the best part of us to other generations.’”

Larry Smith has been looking for his father’s grave for 40 years.

Smith knows that his father, Reginald William Smith, was buried in 1950 in Section C of the historic, 22.5-acre Woodlawn Cemetery, the final resting place of many prominent African American figures of the late 19th century and most of the 20th. But badly kept records and a lack of maintenance for many years after the cemetery was abandoned in the 1960s have prevented Smith and others from locating their loved ones.

Now, a volunteer association that has worked for decades to restore the cemetery hopes a system called ground penetrating radar, or GPR, will help Smith and other survivors.

“I hope to find my dad before they put me in the grave,” said Smith, 60, a past president of the Woodlawn Perpetual Care Association board, which has owned and operated the cemetery since 1972.

The GPR machine used at Woodlawn looks vaguely like a lawn mower and acts as a sort of navigation system, locating materials underground as an operator pushes it slowly across the grass. The machine sends radar waves underground and creates an image of what is below, and the image can be downloaded to a computer and analyzed.

The technology is most often used at construction sites to detect pipes, electric lines and other metals in the ground, said Matt Aston, president of Ground Penetrating Radar Systems, a company that operates the system. Depending on the type of machine, GPR can detect objects as far down as 40 feet, Aston said.

Companies have been using GPR since the early 1950s, but the technology has advanced, and a number of cemeteries in recent years have begun to see it as a means of conducting an inventory. The system’s ability to search cemetery grounds without disturbing them helps avoid past practices of digging up graves or sticking large metal rods in the ground to search for caskets, Aston said.

Tyrone F. General, president of the Woodlawn board, has completed more than two years of training on the GPR system. He said it will take him at least three years to comb through the cemetery grounds.

GPR was not being used in cemetery searches when Smith began looking for his father in 1970. Smith was a student at Federal City College, now part of the University of the District Columbia, and longed to visit his father’s grave.

“I couldn’t get in because the gate was locked and it was full of trash and debris,” he said.

Two decades later, Smith answered a newspaper ad calling for volunteers to help clean up the cemetery and began volunteering on Saturdays. After a month, he was elected president of the association’s board, serving until 2000.

It took the board two decades to get the cemetery in decent shape, said General, the current board president. The cemetery still needs funding, repair and daily maintenance, he said, and General said the association hopes to make money through the sale of burial plots.

General, a retired Vietnam War veteran and D.C. police officer whose grandmother is buried in Woodlawn, said he hopes the $30,000 GPR system will help pinpoint caskets and unravel some of the mystery about how many people are buried there and who they are.

“I can scan the ground and tell you whether there’s something there. That’s a major step,” he said. “With the GPR system, we can accurately determine what sites are available.”

General said he hopes the GPR system will help restore Woodlawn, whose history is steeped in struggle. Started in 1895 in what was a rural part of the District off Benning Road SE, Woodlawn was one of the few places that accepted the remains of black residents. Before, black District residents had to bury their loved ones in churchyards or Maryland cemeteries, General said.

Several of the District’s most prominent African Americans, including the nation’s second African American U.S. senator, Blanche K. Bruce (R-Miss.), chose to be buried at Woodlawn. As the city made room for Metro stations and other buildings during the 20th century, bodies from other cemeteries were moved there. It is home to more than a dozen mass graves, General said. Its last burial was 30 years ago.

Records indicate that 35,000 people are buried there, but General said he thinks the number is much higher. “There has never been any verification of that number. It’s purely speculation,” he said. “I have several thousand records that indicate that there are more burials.”

As the cemetery changed hands over the past century, those selling the land did not keep an accurate count of the cemetery’s available plots, General said.

In the 1960s, Louis P. Bell and his son, Richard, who owned Woodlawn at the time, discovered bodies in sections that were supposed to be unused and abandoned their restoration efforts. The cemetery’s rolling hills quickly became overgrown with weeds and a dumping place for all kinds of debris.

Locals formed the Woodlawn Perpetual Care Association with nine volunteer board members to help save the cemetery. In 2000, the group received a $300,000 grant from Congress to clean up the site, General said.

An annual grant from National Harmony Memorial Park in Landover and private donations provide for its maintenance. But General said he hopes the cemetery might one day receive a steady source of income to help the association preserve and maintain it.

“We can’t afford to let Woodlawn be forgotten,” he said.

That is especially important for people such as Smith, who hold onto hope that the GPR system will guide them to their loved ones.

“I just want to find my daddy’s grave,” he said.

Source: Washington Post

Betty Rodgers, local historian, said it best: “The book is a work of love by those who documented and did the footwork, and is a phenomenal job by those who stood until the last of the information had been edited and printed.”

The project that got nicknamed “The Book” is a beautiful hard-bound deluxe edition of 719 pages containing nearly 50,000 names of those interred in the more than 250 cemeteries inside Jackson County, including all cities, communities and rural areas. A byproduct of the research was the discovery of lost cemeteries and, in some cases, improved cemetery care.

The first publication that includes all known African-American cemeteries, the book also has more than 50 cemeteries that have never been previously recorded.

Editor Else Martin’s footnotes add genealogical information to many of the entries. Military buffs will discover a number of military graves that have been identified. Maps are provided for many of the cemeteries. A description of each

cemetery’s location is included and often contains interesting historical information on the cemetery. A comprehensive index lists first and last names for ease of searching. In many cases, it even includes cross-referencing by maiden names of married women.

“The book itself is beautiful and would be a wonderful addition to a personal library as well as being available in public places,” said Liz Ford, chairwoman of the Pascagoula Historic Preservation Committee. “It will be a great asset to those who research for personal, business or legal purposes.”

Tommy Wixon, president of the Jackson County Historical and Genealogical Society, said recording burials from the Colonial era to the present gives a significant amount of knowledge about the people and their history of Jackson County.

“The vast majority of these records are not available from official government records,” Wixon said. “Only legions of hard workers tromping through brambles and brush could have produced such a valuable document.”

The genesis of the book came from three earlier volumes published by the Genealogical Society in the 1960s and 1970s called Requiem I, II and III. Over the years, local historians and researchers added cemeteries and updated existing ones.

The book is dedicated in honor of Thelma Estabrook and Melbaleen Lewis, and in memory of those who have passed away: Mrs. Rita Gentile Krebs, Mrs. Harry F. Wright Jr., Mrs. A.G. Shampine, V.B. Taylor, Elizabeth Alberts, Mrs. J.B. Majors, Mrs. Ted Von Sprecken Jr.; and Milton M. Walker.

Among those contributing were: Ray Bellande, who assisted with Ocean Springs records; Ivan and Linda Ellis in West Jackson County, Katie Steen, who concentrated on identifying unmarked graves; Rodgers, who checked and rechecked the work in progress; and the staff at Pascagoula Public Library, and several others who are named in the book.

Martin and JCHGS members Harry McDonald and Rodgers, who worked most on the book in recent years, were assisted by a publications committee, composed of Wixon, Doug Coulter, Joanne Anderson, Lindsay Mack, Renee Gautier-Hague, Sherry Owens and Peggy Saliba, in getting the project to press.

McDonald traveled hundreds of miles criss-crossing the county updating cemetery lists, and with the help of published obituary records was able to locate lost burial places.

“The Jackson County Cemetery Book is the greatest piece of history that has come out of the society in many years,” he said. “It will help many families find out where their parents and grandparents are buried. The locations of many small family cemeteries and so-called ‘lost’ cemeteries are now identified.”

Rodgers agreed.

“Each generation, at some point in their lives, will look for this information for their personal and historic interests,” she said.

“Genealogists use the dates found on headstones to help locate birth, death and marriage records, and, in some cases, military records on their ancestors,” said Sherry Owens, manager of the Local Genealogy and History Department at Pascagoula Public Library. “All of this information helps build a more rounded, detailed picture of their ancestors’ lives. This book can also serve as a starting point for compiling a family genealogy because of the additional information it has on the early settlers of Jackson County.”

The new cemetery book is the first major work to be published by the society since 1989 when it issued the definitive “The History of Jackson County, Mississippi,” a 438-page hardbound compilation of histories of families, places, institutions and events.

The publications committee welcomes revisions/additions to the book. They may be e-mailed to Joanne Anderson at jmanders@cableone.net, or mailed to JCHGS, P.O. Box 984, Pascagoula, MS 39568. They will be compiled and posted regularly on a Web site at a future date to be announced.

“The Cemeteries of Jackson County, Mississippi: A Requiem” is now on sale at the Pascagoula Public Library’s Local Genealogy and History Department located on the second floor. Copies are $50, plus $3.50 tax for Mississippi residents. Mail orders may be e-mailed to Owens at pggen1@jgrls.org or posted to JCHGS, P.O. Box 984, Pascagoula, MS 39568. Add $6 for shipping and handling.

Anyone who would like to share historical records, photos and/or documents for this column, the library and/or the historical and genealogical journal may contact this columnist by e-mail, jmanders@cableone.net, or Sherry Owens and Renee Hague, at Pascagoula Public Library, 228-769-3078. Photos and original documents will be scanned and returned to owners.

Source: GulfLive.com

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — A group in the Triad is trying to save history by preserving an African-American cemetery that has been neglected for years.

Graves from the people who were born into slavery but died free were left in the Winston-Salem woods unkempt for years.

“This particular cemetery came under the term ‘abandonment,’” said the founder of Vintage ‘04, Bobby Wilson. “Abandonment meant it was neglected and all the graves were in disrespect and disrepair.”

As kudzu, twigs and brush took over the deteriorating tombstones of one of the first African-American graveyards, Wilson and his nonprofit group decided to step in.

Wilson and volunteers work every weekend to preserve history and the honor of the dead by clearing and cleaning up grave sites.

But preserving history comes with a cost. Vintage ‘04 spent $40,000 since the project began in 1992.

Funds are low, and the graves are still unidentified in the woods.

Wilson said he hopes an upcoming benefit concert will help them keep the piece of history alive and help Winston-Salem residents discover a piece of their past.

Source: WXII12.com

In January 1865, a company of black soldiers was assigned the task of driving 900 head of cattle from their base at Camp Nelson in Jessamine County to a railhead near Louisville. From there, the cattle would travel south on the L&N Railroad to Nashville to provide food for hungry Union troops.

A few months earlier, nearly all of the soldiers had been slaves. When the commander of the Kentucky forces authorized the formation of “colored” regiments, area slaves flocked to Camp Nelson to volunteer.

Now the men tasted a semblance of freedom, albeit as members of the 5th U.S. Colored Cavalry.

For this assignment, the men guided the cattle along a path that became U.S. 60.

As they passed through Simpsonville on Jan. 25, 1865, snow was falling. A scout from a roving band of Confederate guerillas had learned of the cattle drive, and 15 marauders surprised the rear guard of the cattle drive, “yelling like very devils and shooting their pistols in the air. … They began shooting down the men without compunction,” according to a newspaper account in the Shelby Record.

Then, quickly, the guerillas made their escape.

Fellow soldiers toward the front of the herd were probably oblivious to the attack, but townspeople from Simpsonville heard the commotion. By nightfall, they had collected the dead - 22 by one estimate - and buried them in a mass grave. The wounded were carried into town and were cared for.

Northern newspapers dubbed the event “the Simpsonville slaughter.”

On Sunday in Simpsonville, a ceremony will be held to erect a marker at the site.

“This will be the first formal recognition of the contribution that these soldiers made,” said David E. Brown, who will speak at the event. “The official military records still show these men as missing in action. After 144 years, it’s almost as if this will be their funeral.”

Brown, who lives in Columbia, Md., has a special connection to the proceedings. Through genealogical research, he discovered that his great-great-grandfather, Samuel Truehart, was from Shelby County and served in the 5th USCC.

“He may have well been part of the regiment that was at the front of the herd,” Brown said. In any case, Truehart survived the war and lived out his days in Kansas.

Diligence and outrage

A few years ago, Brown created a Web site dedicated to his Civil War ancestor and the history of the 5th USCC. Although Brown will set foot in Simpsonville for the first time on Sunday, his Web site’s Simpsonville slaughter notes became a valuable reference tool for some Shelby County residents who began digging into the history in their own back yard.

Shelby County Cemetery Preservation Board member Uley Washburn took notice of Brown’s Web site and began his own research. As he probed deeper, his curiosity turned to outrage.

“About that time, I saw an article where we were spending thousands to send a team to Iwo Jima to search for remains of one soldier,” Washburn said. “But we were doing nothing for some soldiers that are on our own soil.”

He began an e-mail campaign to tell the story of the forgotten veterans to anyone in Frankfort who would listen. He urged neighbors to call their legislators. He passed out homemade brochures at the Simpsonville Fall Festival.

“Uley is the person that really got things going,” said Bob Bell, a re-enactor from Camp Nelson’s 12th U.S. Colored Heavy Artillery who will take part in the ceremony on Sunday.

Narrowing the search

In March 2008, the Kentucky African American Heritage Commission awarded a $5,000 Lincoln Preservation Grant to the Shelby County Historical Society to identify, rehabilitate and preserve the mass grave and burial site associated with the ambush of the 5th U.S. Colored Cavalry.

“The Lincoln grant allowed us to bring in the Kentucky Archaeological Survey to do ground-penetrating radar to try to locate the mass grave,” said J.T. Miller of the Shelby County Historical Society.

“The search focused around an existing African-American cemetery that had been abandoned for about 40 years, yet was very close to the site of the attack,” Milller said. “We came to the conclusion that this African-American cemetery probably grew up around the mass grave.”

Because of the uneven terrain and heavy undergrowth, the exact site of the mass grave has not been determined.

“Our original objective was to get a roadside marker to memorialize an incident that has been absolutely forgotten, and we’ve accomplished that,” Miller said.

Additional funding for the marker came from Camp Nelson’s reactivated 12th U.S. Colored Heavy Artillery, the Camp Nelson Restoration and Preservation Foundation and the Shelby County Historical Society.

Plans call for nominating the site to the National Register of Historic Places and placing individual headstones at the site with the names of each slain man.

Source: Lexington Herald-Leader

Published Saturday, February 7, 2009

If your deceased loved ones chose to have a traditional burial, it is likely important to you that their gravesites are kept up.

Regular maintenance, if done properly, can protect grave markers from aging and damage caused by natural elements and the unfortunate incident of vandalism.

Sadly, many gravesites in Chilton County - especially private family cemeteries - have become unsightly due to neglect or because their caretakers do not know how to properly clean them.

There is a right way and a wrong way to clean a grave marker, and the potential for damage is high.

“Water, a soft brush and elbow grease are the only three things you should use,” said Kat Reece of the Chilton Cemetery Association.

Reece was quick to add that some headstones are susceptible to damage if any attempt is made to clean them at all, and she offers a few tips for determining if a headstone can be safely cleaned.

First, rub your hand along the stone to see if it is “sugaring.” If, after touching the stone, your hand feels as if it has sugar granules all over it, do not attempt to clean the stone.

“If it’s been sugaring, you don’t need to clean it because you’re going to do more damage,” Reece warns.

If a stone is leaning badly or flaking, where moss can grow into it and force the layers of stone apart, you stand the risk of breaking it or worsening the damage.

If you proceed to clean a stone, however, you should use caution in selecting a brush. Reece recommends using a soft toothbrush, cotton swab or a Popsicle stick, which has a good edge for scraping.

“You always want to use something that’s softer than the stone itself,” she said. “Never use anything metal.”

After removing growth, soak the stone with water by dribbling water over the top. If there is no water available in the cemetery, Reece suggests using a spray bottle, preferably one that has never had any chemicals in it. Then, use a soft brush to continue cleaning (don’t forget the elbow grease).

People tend to think the stone should be perfectly white when clean. But this is a common misconception.

“You need to remember that this is a historic artifact. It needs to show some of its age to fit into the cemetery,” Reece said.

Believe it or not, some headstones are actually hollow. If a stone is hollow, it should not be cleaned. This can be determined by simply rapping or knocking on the stone.

Because stone is porous, it naturally soaks up ground water. For this reason, only lime mortar (not cement) should be used to reset a headstone into place, although bricks may be used underneath the stone to level it.

Also, when doing any major work, you might need to get a permit.

“You need to obtain a permit from the Alabama Historic Commission anytime you enter a historic cemetery to do major cleanup work,” Reece said.

Reece is available to speak to groups on the subject. For more information, call 294-2197 or e-mail to secty@chiltoncemeteries.org.

Source: Clanton Advertiser 

BY JOHN A. TORRES
FLORIDA TODAY

MELBOURNE — Through the years, Aleksander Bologna grew frustrated trying to explain to friends the location of an old African-American cemetery off U.S. 1.

He couldn’t blame them, though. Lack of money had kept caretakers from properly keeping up the cemetery throughout the years, allowing it become overgrown.

“When I took over, it was all wilderness,” said volunteer trustee John Hendley, who has held the position since 1985. “You couldn’t even see the cemetery.”

Hendley — whose grandmother and aunt are buried there — said he had no idea how many graves are there.

That’s what prompted Bologna, a 17-year-old student at Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy, to undertake the restoration of Shady Oaks Cemetery as his Eagle Scout project.

The cemetery, which dates to 1912, also is known as the J.N. Tucker Memorial Cemetery.

“We’re going to take out the all the brush, the dead limbs and trees, and we’re going to put in an archway, a flagpole and even some benches donated by Keep Brevard Beautiful,” Bologna said. “I’ve been passing this cemetery since I was 10 years old, and everyone knows it’s around here, but they just don’t recognize it.”

When Bologna and his crew of volunteers is done, the archway facing U.S. 1 will change the cemetery’s entrance. Originally, it was only accessible from Pineapple Street.

“I thought it would be nice if people cleaned it up and made it better. Then people might come and visit,” Bologna said. “Maybe someone else can build on what I’m trying to do.”

That someone else could very well be Bologna’s buddy, 16-year-old Cody Pimentel, who is looking for an Eagle Scout project of his own.

“Maybe I can finish or add on to what he’s doing,” Cody said, adding that recent work involved digging for footings for the archway and flagpole.

John N. Tucker, for whom the cemetery is named, moved to the area in 1925 and was caretaker for more than 50 years. His son, Leon, said he’s thrilled to see the improvements.

“Our entire family has their plots there,” he said. “We’re going to try and improve even further. Maybe we can get the property fenced in. It takes time, but we’ll do it.”

The Eau Gallie section of Melbourne has historic roots to the black community, including the first predominantly black neighborhood in the area, the nearby “Booker T. Washington” area.

While some physical labor has been done, Aleksander’s job is to coordinate a push this week to clear the area and plant trees and other items.

He said part of the problem is that many graves have started to sink.

“They couldn’t afford anything but wood, and now it’s all started caving in,” Aleksander said, referring to the graves. “It’s a shame.”

No one is happier about the work than Hendley, who said between five and 10 burials take place there annually.

“I think it’s so wonderful,” he said. “We’re just not able to do things like this. It’s a dream come true.”

Source: FloridaToday.com