4/2/2023 0 Comments Sarah beem![]() ![]() For instance, I restored the grave of Uriah Hawkins, the second person to settle in my home county of Harrison County. Often people told me of gravestones that they had found in retaining walls, backyards, and road ditches. ![]() Apparently, the VA expected me to erect the gravestone in Magnolia Cemetery, which I did. To my surprise a two-hundred and fifty pound segmented-top marble tablet came crated to my doorstep. I petitioned the Veteran’s Adminstration to get a gravestone for Lucius T. One of those 1812 soldiers did not have a gravestone. I worked with the Daughters of the War of 1812 to commemorate three 1812 soldier’s graves buried in Harrison County: Jesse Purcell, Lucius T. Standing from left to right: two unidentified women, State Representative Johnnie Hammond, Douglas Rife, State Senator Jack Hester. Taken March 20, 1986, Governor's Office, Des Moines, Iowa. In March of 1985, a bill protecting Iowa graveyards was paased by the Iowa General Assembly and later signed into law by Iowa Governor Terry Brandstad. I lobbied the Iowa General Assembly for three years for passage of a law in Iowa that protected cemeteries in the state. I soon realized that the graveyards of Harrison County and Iowa were in jeopardy of being destroyed. I joined the Association for Gravestone Studies. When I began I had no idea that I would become so involved in cemetery preservation. I wrote my master’s degree thesis, “Gender Differences in Harrison County, Iowa Cemeteries”. After that, I decided to begin my own research into the cemeteries of Harrison, County, Iowa. Because Professor Nutty was on campus, I went to talk to her. ![]() I became interested enough in cemetery art and symbolism to check out an Iowa State thesis research and written by Coleen Nutty. One of the readings was the groundbreaking article, “Death’s Head, Cherub, Urn and Willow,” written by James Deetz and Edwin S. I was studying introductory anthropology. It was years later in college when I developed an academic interest in graveyards. They were places where my father told stories of his family and mine and I felt the flow of generations past. But as my Dad used to say, “It’s not the dead ones you have to worry about it’s the ones who are still alive!” To me, graveyards were a place of comfort and warmth. Many people thought graveyards were creepy, all full of dead people. It was in that graveyard that I grew to love family history, storytelling, and cemeteries. Often, on that day when other people were speaking in hushed tones, they would stare at us because we would be laughing and enjoying the trip to familiar graves. We would spend hours just walking around the cemetery and I would watch my father, his arms flailing and his robust voice booming, tell some animated story about someone he knew and remembered. My father would spot the grave of a friend or relative and then tell me a story about this cousin wet the bed and that childhood friend died in the war. Five generations of his family and countless friends and acquaintances were buried there and it was always a lively outing. On Memorial Days, my father and I would visit the Little Sioux Cemetery to decorate family graves. I first experienced graveyards as a child.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |