cemetery restoration

Recommended reading, no. 20: Cemetery Citizens.

I have not yet sunk my teeth into Adam Rosenblatt’s Cemetery Citizens, but can’t wait to share it with you. The breadth of the community of people working to reclaim African-American cemeteries is both heartbreaking and encouraging, and I have learned so much from their experiences. Durham’s Geer Cemetery and Richmond’s East End Cemetery have histories and present challenges very different from Wilson’s Rountree, Odd Fellows, and Vick, but those of us working in those spaces grapple with the same fundamental questions. I was honored to sit for an interview for this book and to contribute to the conservations around this form of social justice work.

Lane Street Project: connections to Green Street Cemetery.

I’ve sung the praises of Iredell County Public Library and its commitment to Green Street Cemetery and was thrilled to be asked to speak about my family’s connections to that historic burial ground.

I was overjoyed — see how I’m grinning?– to see my 91 year-old cousin Natalie Renwick Marsh (who always so fly!) and her eldest daughter Angela Miller. Nat’s mother and my grandmother were sisters, born and raised in Statesville.

I got to Statesville early enough to visit Green Street Cemetery for the first time in nearly a decade. Fewer than ten percent of the 1800+ graves in the cemetery are marked with headstones.

But my great-great-grandfather John Walker Colvert (1851-1921) and his wife Adeline Hampton Colvert (1864-1940) have a fine gray marble double headstone flanked by concrete planters.

A few feet away, a small monument at the grave of their daughter Selma Eugina Colvert, who died in a house fire.

The broken headstone of siblings Lena and Raymond Tomlin was uncovered after radar detected it just below the soil’s surface. They were my great-grandfather Lon W. Colvert’s maternal half-siblings. I knew of Lena, but this is sole record of Raymond’s short life.

Eugene Stockton was my great-grandfather’s paternal half-sister Ida Mae Colvert Stockton’s second husband.

Dillard Stockton was her first husband (and Eugene’s half-brother.) He was killed in a sewer cave-in two years after they married.

After ground-penetrating radar pinpointed the locations of graves, volunteers turned out en masse to mark each unmarked grave with a steel disk. As explained: “The marker consists of a ten inch (10”) bolt with a three and a half inch (3.5”) disk at the top. Once installed, it will lay flush with the earth allowing maintenance to continue as usual with no disruption or damage to the markers. In time, when the ground cover grows over the markers, they will still be identifiable with a metal detector, similar to markers used by land surveyors. They are easy to install by pushing the bolt into the ground by hand or using rubber mallets.” What an idea. (Looking at you, City of Wilson.)

Photos by Lisa Y. Henderson, February 2024.

Lane Street Project: more about Statesville’s Green Street Cemetery.

More from the fine folk over in Statesville.

This clean-lined little newsletter arrived in my email box a few days ago, chock-full of the latest news of the city’s historic African-American cemetery, developments made possible by inspirational public-private partnerships. Here are highlights, and the full issue can be found here.

Be inspired, Wilson.

Lane Street Project: Alice Pierce Maynor.

The Tate family plot lies near the northeast corner of Odd Fellows. Its markers are generally in good shape, but my eyes were often drawn to a small rim of marble barely visible above the soil.

Billy Foster of Foster Stone and Cemetery Care recently prised it up to reveal the handsome little marker of Alice P. Maynor.

Alice P. Maynor Born Apr. 24, 1888 Died Apr. 15, 1915.

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On 6 January 1910, Walter A. Maynor, 19, of Wilson, son of Robert L. and Mary Maynor, married Alice Pearce, 22, of Wilson, daughter of Andrew and Alice Pearce, at Noah Tate‘s residence in Wilson. Levi Jones applied for the license, and Missionary Baptist minister Fred M. Davis performed the ceremony in the presence of F.S. Hargrave, E.P. Reid, and Mrs. M.J. Foster.

In the 1910 census of Wilson, Wilson County: on Nash Street, Walter Maynor, 19, barber, and wife Alice, 23. [The couple had two children, Harriett V. Maynor Whitfield (1910) and Walter Alfred Maynor Jr. (1912).]

Allice Maynor died 13 April 1915 in Wilson, Wilson County. Per her death certificate, she was 26 years old; was born in Wilson County to Andrew Pierce and Alice Knight. Informant was Hattie Tate. Her cause of death was pulmonary tuberculosis.

Photos courtesy of Billy Foster, April 2023.

Lane Street Project: sponsor a marker, round 2.

Want to help Lane Street Project, but you’re nowhere near Wilson? Adopt a headstone!

For the discounted rate of $50, Foster Stone and Cemetery Care will clean, stabilize, and reset a headstone in Odd Fellows or Rountree Cemeteries. Billy Foster has more than “20 years of experience honoring the memory of loved ones” and has already transformed the appearance of Odd Fellows. White marble grave markers now stand upright, gleaming in orderly rows.Though there is much work to be done, the front section of the cemetery no longer looks abandoned.

Odd Fellows Cemetery, cleaned and straightened. (Somebody stole our big pot of pansies though. Sigh.)

If you’d like to make a direct and immediate impact on the ongoing reclamation of Odd Fellows, please donate — CashApp $blackwideawake, Venmo @lanestreetproject, PayPal, Zelle, whatever works for you. No amount is too small; we can pool funds.

Here are a few markers that need your help:

Lane Street Project: Nunnie Barnes, pt. 2.

Nunnie Barnes‘ striated gray headstone is one of the most striking in Odd Fellows Cemetery. Although the grave marker itself is in good condition, Barnes’ grave was not. With no vault to support it, the soil above her casket subsided and eventually collapsed, leaving a gaping hole. As part of the restoration work they’re doing in Odd Fellows, Foster Stone and Cemetery Care not only reset Nunnie Barnes’ head and foot markers, but filled and leveled her gravesite.

Your generous donations make this type of work possible, and Lane Street Project thanks you.

Photo courtesy of Billy Foster.