Local volunteer efforts transform abandoned Ash Grove grave yard

By: 
Steve Chapman

Local shop Griffin Industries made this sign for the refurbished location.

The Hamilton-Cawlfield Cemetery, located in northern Ash Grove, has been rejuvenated by neighbor Gail Stover. Stover, with the help of others, cleared brush, installed fence and had a sign made. The cemetery is home to more than two dozen graves, most of which claim the surname Harper or Cawlfield, with many dating back to the mid 1800s. The oldest inhabitant in the small plot is William Frances Harper, born in 1790.

When Gail Stover moved to Ash Grove, one thing that immediately caught his attention was the Hamilton-Cawlfield Cemetery. The cemetery, old and abandoned, is located next to the entrance of his subdivision Serenity Valley, off Highway V. It had been neglected for some time, overgrown, littered with dead limbs and the fencing starting to fall down. Stover took it upon himself to do something about it.
 “Somebody had to do it,” he said. “I’m from Nebraska, (and) I have no relatives down here. I know no one down here. It was just at the end of our subdivision, and it just needed (to be cleaned up).”
More appeal for subdivision
Stover said he wanted to clean up the cemetery to give his subdivision “curb appeal.”
“If you’ve got a junky old cemetery at the end of the subdivision, people are going to go “Ugh” as they drive into the subdivision,” he said. “If it’s nice looking coming into the subdivision, everybody’s attitude about the subdivision is a little bit better.”
Clean up begins
Stover said he began by clearing out the dead trees and removing the fallen limbs. He removed a total of seven trailer loads of brush, which he took to a burn pile.
“I just took a chainsaw and cleaned out all the trees and got all of the junk out of there,” he said.
He also added some white vinyl fencing,—which was left over from a home-improvement project—and planted some flowers by the cemetery’s entrance. A sign which Ash Grove’s Griffin Industries created for the cemetery was also installed.
“To my knowledge, this is the first time that they’ve ever had a sign in that cemetery,” Stover said.
Stover didn’t work alone on his project. His wife, Connie, and his neighbors, Bill Wagner, Chad Cook, Roy Robinson, Terry Pennington and Mark Jacobson, all helped him.
“They all helped whenever they could, and whenever I needed some help for some things that I just couldn’t handle by myself,” Stover said.
Positive feedback
Since completing the improvements to the cemetery, Stover said he has heard a lot of comments, ranging from, “I didn’t know we had a cemetery,” to “Boy, it looks nice.”
“One guy came by and said, ‘I’ve been living here three years; I didn’t know we had a cemetery there,’” Stover laughed.
Reflecting on the feedback he’s received, Stover said it goes to show that investing a little bit of work in improving the place you live can pay back with huge dividends.
“When you start doing something like that, start cleaning up and some of the other neighbors get involved, it just shows how you can take an area and make your whole area improved a little bit.”
Stover also said he learned that there is a big difference between the soil found in the Ozarks and what he was used to from living in Nebraska.
“You don’t just get posthole diggers and dig a post hole to put post down,” he said. “You guys have got rocks.”

Category:

Lawrence County Record

312 S. Hickory St.
Mt. Vernon, MO, 65712
www.lawrencecountyrecord.com

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