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Group assures Clayton County’s pioneer cemeteries aren’t forgotten

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Ellen Collins (front, left to right), Myra Voss; (back) Bruce Collins, Lee Embretson and Lee Lenth make up the Clayton County Pioneer Cemetery Commission. Frank Phippen (not pictured) serves as a friend of the commission. The group, which is appointed by the Clayton County Board of Supervisors, oversees the county’s roughly 100 pioneer cemeteries, sites in which there have been 12 or fewer burials in the past 50 years. (Photo by Audrey Posten)

This map shows regular cemeteries in Clayton County as well as some of the pioneer cemeteries.

By Audrey Posten, Times-Register

 

Iowa law defines a pioneer cemetery as one in which there have been 12 or fewer burials in the past 50 years. Legislation over two decades ago allowed each of the state’s 99 counties to create a county cemetery commission whose aim was to rescue some of these untended pioneer graves and cemeteries and take responsibility for their upkeep.

 

Although not every county has since developed a commission, Clayton County was an early adopter. The board of supervisors appoints the commission, which today includes chairperson Lee Embretson, secretary Bruce Collins and members Ellen Collins, Lee Lenth and Myra Voss. Frank Phippen serves as a friend of the commission.

 

Voss has been involved since the beginning, and her interest in cemeteries long pre-dates that, when an ad-hoc group of volunteers traveled the county researching and tending the historical sites.

 

“We began around 1990—even prior to that,” Voss recalled. “With all the inquiries that were coming in, I was constantly gathering information on cemeteries. Then we’d come up with these cemeteries that were listed, but where on earth were they?” 

 

Voss remembers Mary Homewood and Alice Fox Miller, who she called the “cemetery ladies,” driving around Clayton County at their own expense.

 

“They would stop and talk to farmers until they finally found where that pioneer cemetery was. Then we started taking pictures and updating information,” she said. “We were not sanctioned, just a committee of interested people.”

 

Embretson said Lawrence Fox, a county secondary roads worker and original commission member, was also an important asset. 

 

“He got around to a lot of the roads and pinpointed where a lot of these cemeteries were at,” Embretson noted.

 

“He even knew where there used to be a cemetery but it was graded over,” added Voss. “We had several like that, but thanks to Lawrence, we knew it was once there.”

 

According to Voss, one of the commission’s goals is to keep other pioneer cemeteries from disappearing.

 

“We’re trying to keep cemeteries from being plowed over or graded over. That’s one of my fears,” she reflected. 

 

In Clayton County, there’s a long list to protect. 

 

In addition to the 60 or 70 regular cemeteries maintained by churches, townships, cities or other entities, the commission has documented at least 96 known locations of pioneer cemeteries. Voss estimates there are another 18 on record but not located.

 

“Some cemeteries are very small, just one or two burials,” Voss said.

 

Commission members can’t compare Clayton County’s pioneer cemetery total to others around the state, but believe it ranks high due to the county’s proximity to the Mississippi River. It was a popular point of entry for settlers heading west.

 

“This area was such a corridor for people, of immigrants, to come in. There was McGregor, Guttenberg, where they came across the river,” Lenth shared. “And we went through all the early epidemics, like diphtheria, where a lot of people died suddenly and overwhelmingly. I’m sure there are many undocumented graves, or information that never survived.”

 

“It was one of the first settling areas of Iowa,” Voss added. “And, of course, we’re all rural, so we don’t have great big cemeteries, just a bunch of little ones.”

 

Clayton County Pioneer Cemetery Commission projects over the years have included repairing and replacing tombstones and erecting signage.

 

Discussions at the group’s March 19 meeting touched on signage at the Patterson Cemetery in Wagner Township, gravestone maintenance and marking at the Redman Cemetery in Millville Township and the placement of panels to create a perimeter around the McClelland Cemetery in Garnavillo Township. Members also inquired about the status of the arch at the Eastman Cemetery in Mendon Township, which was damaged by a 2017 tornado.

 

“You don’t get them all done in one year. It’s an ongoing thing,” Embretson stated. “We visit other ones and have not done much other than recognizing them. Signs are a big thing.”

 

“Signs are a visual clue that, ‘Hey, there’s a cemetery here,’” noted Ellen Collins. “Maybe that would prevent people from plowing or mowing over them in the future.”

 

According to Embretson, the commission has a county-funded budget for signs and materials. While monetary donations are uncommon, property owners and other members of the public have given stones or flag poles and volunteered their time.

 

“We do what we can here as a commission, but it also takes other people who aren’t on the commission,” said Bruce Collins.

 

Although Voss has a trove of records the group is now working to digitize, Phippen hopes information on individual cemeteries can continue to be documented.

 

“Over the years, a lot of energy has been spent improving these cemeteries, which is obviously the purpose, but I think there’s also a need to have a record, as much documentation as we can come up with,” he said.

 

Commission members encourage the public to share information about pioneer cemeteries. “Even if it’s, ‘I heard this in 1985,’” quipped Voss. “We want documentation.”

 

Information can be about known cemeteries or even those that have yet to be recorded or located.

 

“The general public may have knowledge of a pioneer cemetery that they think has been disregarded and not taken care of, and they can get a hold of the commission to see what we can do about it. Perhaps we’ll learn about more that aren’t known,” Lenth said.

 

A listing of the Clayton County Pioneer Cemetery Commission members, along with the group’s meeting agendas and minutes, are available on the county website at www.claytoncountyia.gov/345/Pioneer-Cemetery-Commission. The chairperson, Lee Embretson, can be reached at (563) 783-2436.

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