P.C. students take grave mapping to Weston -- From Illinois

P.C. students take grave mapping to Weston

This amazing story comes from Illinois.  It truly is a must read for anyone who either maps cemeteries or would like to learn more about mapping them.  A link to where the maps themselves are located comes at the end of this article.  

"Waterville, Whitehouse, Waterville Township Move Forward On Union Cemetery Plan"

Sharing this quite insightful and educational news story from Waterville, Lucas County Ohio. 

 It is a story worth reading for its details of how a city and township can collaborate together in order to take care of five cemeteries through an arrangement known as setting up a Union Cemetery District. Utilizing this method just might be the most effective answer for some situations where lack of funds to properly maintain a cemetery, or multiple area cemeteries, has become a pressing issue that requires a resolution that works well for all involved.

BY KAREN GERHARDINGER | MIRROR REPORTER — 

"In a gathering described as monumental and impressive, leaders from Waterville, Waterville Township and Whitehouse met on October 23 and agreed to quickly move forward on a shared plan to manage five area cemeteries.

The only township-owned cemetery is a tiny, closed one on Winslow Road. For years, however, township maintenance employees have mowed, trimmed and maintained the cemeteries in exchange for keeping the fees from opening and closing graves at Wakeman and Whitehouse cemeteries.

Township trustee Brett Warner and fiscal officer Jennifer Bingham both shared how fees aren’t covering the costs for Richard Ludwig and Andy Artiaga to spend about 55 percent of their overall time on cemeteries. In addition, the two active cemeteries need road repairs and other capital improvements.

So earlier this summer, Warner approached Waterville administrator Jim Bagdonas and Whitehouse administrator Jordan Daugherty about options. One idea quickly rose to the top: a union cemetery similar to one formed with Perrysburg and Perrysburg Township in 1877. 

A union cemetery is a separate political subdivision, governed by a board with members from each municipality and abiding by real estate and consumer spending laws. A clerk would track day-to-day expenses, and existing employees could submit their work hours to be paid out of the union cemetery fund.

Based on anticipated expenses, the board would set the amount of the inside millage to be collected from property owners’ annual taxes, explained Waterville’s solicitor, Phil Dombey. Inside millage is un-voted property tax authorized by the Ohio Constitution and established by the General Assembly. 

Using a projected $70,000 to $120,000 a year to cover the costs of the employees’ wages and benefits, capital improvements and equipment repairs, plus income of about $25,000 from plot purchases and fees, Bagdonas estimates a need for $103,000. This would require .35 mills, which would cost the owner of an average Waterville home, currently $186,000, about $23.15 a year.

When he learned that residents wouldn’t have an opportunity to vote on the matter, Whitehouse council member Richard Bingham said that it’s “taxation without representation,” especially considering the number of other taxes residents are asked to pay.

“We (Whitehouse) have money to pay for it, and we’re going to tax our citizens again, when they’re being asked to approve a tax for a jail and so many other things. Where does it end?” he said.

The majority disagreed with Bingham, calling the care of the cemeteries a community service. 

“It’s the duty of the governmental body to take care of those who have gone before us,” said Dombey, who spoke emotionally about families visiting cemeteries to pay respect to veterans from the Civil War through the war in Afghanistan. “Cemeteries are where those families go to remember their loved ones.”

Whitehouse Mayor Don Atkinson agreed, noting that his family visits a Kentucky graveyard where his father and grandfather, both veterans, are buried.

Waterville council member Tim Pedro said he doesn’t like to be taxed, but municipalities are expected to be stewards of funds and use them wisely. He suggested looking for grants to care for the graves of the many veterans in each of the cemeteries.

“We need to look at solutions and work in the spirit of forming a district,” Pedro said.

While Waterville council member Barb Bruno said she’d like a cost analysis before making a decision, Mayor Lori Brodie and Bagdonas agreed with Jennifer Bingham that solid numbers aren’t available, as the maintenance workers didn’t begin recording how much time they spent on the cemeteries and other duties until this year, and they still don’t record how much work is done at each cemetery. When Jennifer Bingham took over the job in December 2017, she found that many of the records were difficult to track.

In preparation for the meeting, Brodie spent time with Ludwig, who joined the township in 1985 and serves as sexton. He is in charge of tracking available spaces, ownership, the opening and closing of graves and the location of each family’s grave markers.

Wakeman is by far the largest cemetery. Although the first and second additions are full, the third has 200 spots remaining, and the fourth, if platted, could hold up to 400 more 4-foot by 10-foot plots, Ludwig estimated. 

Whitehouse is the second largest and remains open. 

Three closed cemeteries include the township-owned one on Winslow, the Whitehouse-owned Mennonite Cemetery on Finzel, and Rupp Cemetery at the corner of Cemetery and Weckerly roads.

With a positive response to the formation of a union cemetery, each municipality nominated members to form a subcommittee, including Rod Frey of Waterville, Bagdonas, Louann Artiaga and Rebecca Conklin Kleiboemer of Whitehouse, and Jennifer Bingham and Warner from the township. The group planned to meet on October 25 and return soon to their respective councils to outline a plan. Afterward, each municipality will seek more public input.

Whitehouse Council member Mindy Curry said she’s already received positive feedback from residents who want to see better care taken of the cemeteries. That can be done with more reliable funds, she believes.

The plan calls for the union cemetery board to hire Ludwig and Artiaga as contract workers for the time spent on cemeteries. In the meantime, both Brodie and Whitehouse representatives promised to lend people or equipment to help care for the cemeteries.

The spirit of cooperation between the entities is encouraging, Warner said.

Whitehouse council president Bill May agreed.

“We should do this more often,” he said."

 

The above news story is from "The Mirror" newspaper.

113 W. Wayne St., Maumee, Ohio 43537

Ph: (419) 893-8135 • Fax: (419) 893-6397

November 18, 2018

 

Union Cemetery Districts:

Ohio Revised Code:

http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/759.341v1

759.341 Union cemetery district.

The legislative authority of each municipal corporation and the board of township trustees of each township that has united in the establishment and management of a cemetery under section 759.27 of the Revised Code, by an affirmative vote of a majority of each legislative authority and board, may form a union cemetery district comprised of all of the territory within the united municipal corporation and township for the purpose of levying taxes within the territory of the district for the establishment, operation, and maintenance of the cemetery. The legislative authority and board, acting jointly, shall constitute the taxing authority of the union cemetery district. Notwithstanding sections 759.37, 5705.19, and 5705.191 of the Revised Code, in order to adopt a resolution to levy a tax in excess of the ten-mill limitation within the district, a majority of the members of each legislative authority and board of township trustees constituting the taxing authority must vote in favor of the resolution. In all other matters, when the legislative authority and board are acting jointly as the taxing authority of the union cemetery district, each member of the legislative authority and board shall have one vote as described in section 759.37 of the Revised Code.

Effective Date: 10-20-1987 .

  

Stow mourns loss of 'Kourageous Keith' who lived with cancer for half of his 12 years

Stow mourns loss of 'Kourageous Keith' who lived with cancer for half of his 12 years

Silver Springs Cemetery on Find A Grave.

Wreaths project comes to Tyn Rhos Cemetery

Wreaths project comes to Tyn Rhos Cemetery

From Gallia County, Ohio

The WPA Cemetery Plat Maps for the Windham Cemetery, Windham Township, Portage County, Ohio

Sharing the WPA Cemetery Plat Maps for the Windham Cemetery located in Windham Twp., Portage County, Ohio.

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Below is a Complete Legend of

the Wars up to and including World War I

with the identifying numbers

for veterans of those wars which are

denoted on the WPA Cemetery Plat Maps.

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These maps are located at the Portage County Engineer's Office.  

Jason Copeland

 Engineering Technician

 PORTAGE COUNTY ENGINEER

 5000 Newton Falls Road

 Ravenna, OH 44266

 

 

 

 

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The Windham Cemetery on "Find A Grave"

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Soul searching

Soul searching: PERRYSBURG — A dedicated group of people has grave concerns about a former parish cemetery that they believe has not been properly cared for over the years.

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Saint Mary Mother of Sorrows Cemetery in Wood County, Ohio

on "Find A Grave"

"Epitaph" - "Forbidden Twin" - Henry Clay Cooper - 1858 - 1913

Sharing from Eli Allen, President of the Scioto County Genealogical Society.:

"We think of cemeteries being conveniently located open spaces. Places where passers-by would contemplate their mortality and family members would commune with those gone before, but the places and how we travel has changed much in the last century. 

Folks once navigated the ridge lines instead of the valley floors, and there they buried their dead. 

Shawnee State Forest has many of these burial grounds. Here they were placed not because it was unfarmable waste ground because hillsides and tops were farmed as well, but because the ridges were free of flooding and were the highways of their time. 

Here is the Clay Henry Cooper burial ground, high above the valley in Shawnee State Forest." 

 For more information: https://forbiddentwin.org/2018/01/27/epitaph/

Spotlighting Cleveland's Channel 5 Investigative Reporter Joe Pagonakis' Follow-Up News story, Revealing Additional Problems at Resthaven Memory Gardens in Avon, Lorain County, Ohio

"Families are calling for more cemetery oversight after experiencing issues at local funeral home"

By:

Joe Pagonakis

 Nov 8, 2018

Sharing this follow-up to an earlier news story citing additional customer complaints about Resthaven Memory Gardens' improper and unsatisfactory customer service practices that have caused several families of departed loved ones buried there to seek legal help in order to resolve their issues; or planning re-interment of their loved one to another cemetery in order to have their deceased loved one's remains' treated properly, and find closure for themselves.  

News5 Cleveland's investigative reporter, Joe Pagonakis, has researched these complaints quite thoroughly.  His interviews of a former cemetery employee and an owner of a large local monument company provides important information that might not be brought to light otherwise.

Here is a link to his original report published online on September 4, 2018  

Joe includes a link to one of the Ohio Revised Codes pertaining to cemeteries that provides some details of the most recently passed legislation, effective October 29, 2018 - HB168.:  

4767.09 [Effective 10/29/2018] Reasonable maintenance.

 

4767.10 [Effective 10/29/2018] Cemetery grant fund.

Resthaven Memory Gardens in Avon 

on "Find A Grave"

Halloween was more than Ghosts & Goblins in Greenfield! Recapping the October 31st Old Burying Ground work session

John King and Scott Andersen were undaunted by the threat of rain on the last day of October, 2018 to proceed and conduct a work session where over a dozen gravestones were repaired and restored by them. 

Below are 'sneak peek' photos which illustrate the type of  preservation work that John and Scott, and other volunteers from the Greenfield Historical Society, have undertaken throughout their 5-year total restoration project of Greenfield Ohio's earliest burial ground.  

The historic cemetery is adjacent to the historic Travellers Rest. 

 

Above composite photo courtesy of the 

Greenfield Historical Society

October 31, 2018 work session

Old Burying Ground - Greenfield

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From the Greenfield Historical Society's web page

for the October 31, 2018 "OBG" work session:

"Volunteer Session - October 31, 2018"

"Halloween turned out to be another productive morning at the OBG. Although it looked like rain would drown us out, we managed to work on over a dozen stones before quitting just minutes before rains came. 

Scott Andersen and John King leveled and straightened tombstones and planned for the next area to address in the cemetery. Venus Andersen stopped by to offer encouragement and bring us soft drinks. This might have been the last session for the year, but maybe with a break in weather later in November or December we might be able to do some more work in 2018. This was probably one of the more productive years at the cemetery! 

Many thanks to ALL the volunteers who help throughout the years making this a very successful project."

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Old Burying Ground Restoration Project  

Photos below from the June 9th, 2018

Old Burying Ground Work Session:

 Above - Left to Right:  

John King, Jackie Doles, 

and Michael Lee Anderson

June 9, 2018

Photo belong is a scene from

the June 9, 2018 work session

Check out the Past Events Page

for "OBG Preservation" to

view the Recaps and photos 

of each of the work sessions

at the Old Burying Ground

since 2014! 

Be sure and check out!:

The Old Burying Ground in Greenfield

on "Find A Grave"

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25 new memorials have been added

by Scott Andersen in the last 30 days

at the Old Burying Ground

many with grave marker photos!

Total burials at the "OBG" on "Find A Grave"

now at 801!!!