Lois Mauk Page Updated 6/30/1999

Lois, a job well done. Dave Pickenpaugh

Saturday June 12 11:48 AM ET Cemeteries in the Way of Progress By TED ANTHONY AP National Writer CLARKSVILLE, Ind. (AP) - She seeks them out in a red Ford Windstar, scouring winding streets and ceaseless subdivisions with a self-trained eye. In the ever-expanding sprawl of the Home Depot epoch, she searches for the history that hides in the folds of today. Lois Mauk is looking for the dead, the buried. More often than not, she finds them. She finds them behind long-forgotten fences, under overgrown brush and between houses, their tombstones stacked like rubble. She finds them penned carefully into corners of a military installation. She finds them paved over by asphalt, trapped under shopping centers. Once there was unrestrained wilderness here, grass and trees to the horizon. That was 1801, when Mauk's ancestor, a Revolutionary War veteran named Bazil Prather, landed with his large family on the Ohio River's north shore to find a new life. Like so many after them, they came to Indiana to build. And Indiana got built. From the earliest pioneers to the farm-to-market visionaries of the mid-19th century to today's frenetic developers, the state constructed a society to fit the nickname it bestowed upon itself: ``Crossroads of America.'' But now, the builders of the past and the builders of the present are colliding. Indiana is still building, its suburbs and ``exurbs'' pushing out, out, out into the farmland. All over the state, tiny pioneer graveyards sit in the path of the very progress so coveted by the people who rest in them. The dead, it seems, are suddenly in the way. And here in the land of the living - at the build-and-move-on, newness-obsessed end of the 20th century - stalwarts like Lois Mauk, descendant of one of southern Indiana's first farmer-builders, are their primary line of defense. -= A giant of the Earth was he, To win his fields from stone and tree. ... It took a giant, nothing less, To wrest farms from the wilderness. -from ``Farm Funeral,'' by Indiana poet Tramp Starr, 1941 -= From the beginning, they wanted to build. They came from the east and the south, from ``civilization'' as the early 19th century saw it. They bought inexpensive land from the federal government and waded into a wilderness to shape their future. They tore through forests, felling trees, clearing thickets and displacing Indians to carve farmland. They constructed houses, cobbled together communities, planted seeds agricultural and familial. Progress was the buzzword, and Indiana's pioneers were the perfect army. When they died, they were buried in quiet corners of their land. Then the generations kept on building - beyond anything the pioneers could have imagined. Industry arrived. Houses sprouted. Main Streets became interstates. Farms became suburbs. On one hand, development was the future's lifeblood, a legacy. But history, especially in a region that so revered its pioneers, was important, too. So a contradiction was born, a tension between past and progress. Indiana songwriter John Mellencamp saw it; he vowed to ``die in a small town, and that's probably where they'll bury me,'' then lamented the endless ``little pink houses'' and the guy who's ``got an interstate running through his front yard, you know he thinks he's got it so good.'' Today's Indiana still embraces growth. It has 1,138 miles of interstate highway, and more are in the works. America's biggest shopping-mall developer, Simon DeBartolo Group Inc., is based in Indianapolis. The state population grew by nearly 300,000 between 1990 and 1996, 64 percent of it in rural areas. Those people need places to live, and the countryside beckons. Between 1900 and 1992, Indiana lost 6 million acres of farmland - 28 percent - to other uses, including development: The number of permits issued to build new, single-family houses has nearly tripled since 1985. It can be seen from the interstates at 65 mph: sub-cities rising on city edges; developments named after the things they overrun; signs along highway corridors beckoning homebuyers to visit skeletal neo-neighborhoods plopped down where crops once grew. ``New Homes! A New Life!'' one enthuses. Such sprawl - spreading so fast that states from Utah to Pennsylvania are trying to curb it - is, in this region, an expression of a time-tested philosophy: Building Indiana makes it better. ``They're still taming the wilderness here,'' says Dale Ogden, history curator at the Indiana State Museum. ``Then, you cut down the trees and planted crops. Today, you pave it over and build a mall or a domed stadium.'' In this fast-forward environment, what role is there for the eternal? Just what is meant by a final resting place in a place where nothing - nothing except death - is final? -= The traffic sweeps along its way Where once a swampy wood-lot lay... A car slows, and a voice inside Says, ``Yeh, I guess some hayseed died.'' -Tramp Starr -= To be buried in America today is, many believe, to enter sanctified space. From memorial parks to colonial graveyards, cemeteries are sacred locations in several senses - religion, family and community identity. For historians, genealogists and preservationists, old cemeteries are artifacts of architecture, attitude and art. Gravestones decode family relationships; Indiana's public libraries are filled with cemetery data painstakingly recorded by volunteers. Cemeteries are also bastions of localism, visceral reminders of yesterday's citizens and how survivors remembered the dead. ``Show me your cemeteries,'' goes a saying that graveyard preservationists attribute to Benjamin Franklin, ``and I will tell you what kind of people you have.'' What do early Indiana's cemeteries tell of its people? That a cholera outbreak killed several Dillin family members in the southwestern Indiana hamlet of Ireland, and disease-wary townspeople sealed the graves in concrete. That patriot Nathan Hale's descendants migrated to southeastern Indiana. That many pioneer cemeteries were set on hills so the dead and the living who came to mourn could, on a clear day, see forever. ``These cemeteries are little individual museums,'' muses Delbert Himsel, an Ireland farmer who restores pioneer graveyards, including his ancestors'. ``Everywhere I go around here, there's some of my history.'' Though many today consider cemeteries inviolable, the notion is relatively new. Graves have long yielded to development - usually public development. Family graveyards in North Kingstown, R.I., for instance, were moved to a public cemetery to make room for a World War II military installation. Today, America's old graveyards are squeezed by the worlds growing around them. ``What is the suburbs today was the pioneer ground of my ancestors,'' says Jim Wilgus, a 34-year-old American Heart Association executive in Indiana. As a boy, he picked tiger lilies for his mother in an old graveyard that survived the rise of his suburban Indianapolis subdivision. In Snohomish, Wash., an 1875 graveyard partially paved over by a road has been threatened by the construction of a youth center. In Castaic, Calif., bones from the family of a 19th-century pioneer oilman were unearthed by workers digging a new development. In South Carolina, historians think they've found the remains of a sunken Confederate submarine's crew - near the end zone of The Citadel's football stadium. In Indiana, preservationists say 19th-century cemeteries are under siege. They cite example after example: the Rhoads cemetery near the Indianapolis airport, where 35 children and eight adults were exhumed to build a warehouse. Wilhoit in Ireland, where a developer dug up remains and, following state regulations, had them removed to an Indianapolis anthropology lab. Hale-McBride in Clarksville, where bodies were partially paved over by a strip mall years ago. ``Everywhere you live, you're standing on someone else's civilization. I know that. But I don't want these things to be destroyed for no reason at all. And money is not a reason,'' says Dan Johnson, a retiree who, with his wife Betty, spends days restoring old southern Indiana cemeteries. This swallowing up of resting places, and the injustice that preservationists feel it represents, is where the activism comes from. It is why Hugh Dillin, a federal judge, demanded to know why his forebears' remains in Wilhoit were dug up. It is why Delbert Himsel has restored cemetery after dilapidated cemetery, mowing grass and reinforcing tombstones with caulk and steel before they topple and slip into the earth. It is why Ashley Loweth, all of 8 years old and a descendant of Nathan Hale, rode from Clarksville to Indianapolis to tell legislators about her ancestors, the ones blacktopped by the shopping center and the others whose stones sit nearby, penned in by road and parking lot. And it is why Lois Mauk, paralegal and family historian in the Indiana suburbs of Louisville, Ky., is mobilizing Hoosiers to safeguard old graves and tighten laws. Her Indiana Pioneer Cemeteries Restoration Project has identified more than 160 graveyards whose existences are imperiled, many by development. ``I want someone to be able to say, `This is where my great-grandfather's buried,''' she says. Last month, Mauk's efforts helped enact a law barring farmers from plowing over old graveyards; future legislation, she hopes, will include developers and make it harder for the state to grant disinterment permits without advance public notice. ``Developers ought to be able to, in every case they possibly can, work around the cemetery,'' says Markt Lytle, a funeral director and state legislator from Madison, Ind., He sponsored the new law and promises more to come. Lytle realizes the importance of building. ``Sooner or later,'' he says, ``some of these cemeteries in some of this development are going to have to be moved. But when they are, we want to make sure they're removed and replaced properly.'' -= No finer tribute can be paid To any dead than this; he made A barren field to bloom, his hand Brought fruitfulness unto the land. -Tramp Starr -= The red Windstar pulls into the shopping-center parking lot and Lois Mauk pops out. She is not pleased. In front of her: Hale-McBride cemetery, or what's left of it - a smattering of old stones on a bleak patch abutting Blackiston Mill Road. Telephone booths sit at its edge; a rusty shopping cart floats in a rivulet nearby. ``It makes me sick,'' Mauk spits. There is, she acknowledges, a conflict of values here: How do you remember the past when the present is important - and so immediate? Edge-city land is more economically valuable as developed property than as ancient boneyard. But what spiritual value does a cemetery hold? What does our treatment of it tell us about our place in the world? ``It is part and parcel of being a civilized society to show respect for these postage-stamp pieces of property in developments that are often so huge,'' insists John Herbst, president of Conner Prairie, a ``living history museum'' that depicts the Indiana pioneer era, circa 1836. ``Nobody's saying you shouldn't go ahead and do new suburbs if there's a need,'' Herbst says. ``But if you've got a 500-acre tract and less than an eighth of an acre of pioneer cemetery, you can incorporate it.'' That is happening as the preservation and family-history movements gain strength and as the so-called ``smart growth'' approach - developers consulting with communities rather than simply building - becomes more common. ``Good developers, the ones who are thoughtful, have already figured this out: Give the people a voice,'' says Michael Pawlukiewicz, director of environmental land use policy at the Urban Land Institute, a nonprofit organization. In Union, Ohio, northwest of Dayton, a developer who built a neighborhood around the Sweet Potato Ridge Road Cemetery in 1997 promised to preserve it. At the Avondale Mall in Decatur, Ga., a small stone building surrounds the graves of Crowley Cemetery; visitors can view the parking-lot burial ground by asking mall security for a key. And in Jim Wilgus' old subdivision near Indianapolis, the little family cemetery is still protected by residents. Indiana developers like Greg Furnish, encountering more graves than ever as they build outward, are working with municipal governments and preservationists to find middle ground. Furnish's firm is developing 164 houses on an old family farm outside Clarksville, and plans to build around three old graves. Three old graves of pioneers who were builders of Indiana, and thus, have something in common with him. ``It's such a small piece of the pie to keep everybody happy,'' Furnish says. ``That cemetery was there way before we got there.'' For Mauk, ``the stones on these graves are the only evidence these people existed. If we can't respect the dead, how can we respect the living?'' She plans to be out there on the city edges for years to come, hacking through the brush to reach long-neglected graves. She'll write down names, maybe speak them aloud. She'll rally troops to preserve the bones of community and memory. Because this is the earth where she wants to be buried. She wants to return to the ground that swallowed her ancestors, that contains her mother and pioneers like Bazil Prather - the ancestor who fought to build a home on land that, true to Indiana heritage, now sprouts houses as fast as it once sprouted corn. She wants descendants to visit, to look upon her gravestone, maybe to think of her from time to time. She wants, eventually, to rest in peace. And when that happens, Lois Mauk would prefer not to be moved.  FOLLOWING IS A NUMBER OF REPORTS OF THE PROGRESS OF LOIS MAUK'S CEMETERY PRESERVATION. To return to the Pickenpaugh Family Page https://www.angelfire.com/wa/pickenpaugh As you know, the single "cemetery protection" bill (out of 10 proposed) to survive the 1999 Indiana General Assembly session was House Bill 1522. HB 1522 passed the House several weeks ago and, earlier this week, it passed the Senate. The vote was 49-0 (there are 50 State Senators), so the vote was practically unanimous. I just received word that Rep. Markt Lytle (author of House Bill 1522) was aware of the Senate's amendments to HB 1522 and supported them being added in the Senate. Yesterday, he was to file a "concurrence" on the bill. (This is done when the bill's author is in agreement with the legislation in its current form.) As such, the next step is Governor O'Bannon signing it. This Bill will soon be signed into law. Further action will being studied this summer in the Natural Resources' summer study committee, details on which are forthcoming. I am SO pleased and proud that we've been successful in persuading the Legislature to pass this Bill. Though it falls short of accomplishing all of our goals, it remains an important and historic first step in the right direction. When HB 1522 is enacted, it will make it "illegal" to damage, deface or destroy any gravestone or cemetery marker, whether it is on public or private property and it will REMOVE the exemption previously granted to anyone involved in "any form of agriculture" to obliterate all visible signs of a cemetery. There are other provisions as well; further details at http://www.rootsweb.com/~inpcrp , which I will try to update tonight to reflect today's good news. Thanks to all of you for all your efforts and good wishes. I am so proud of all of you for everything you've done here in Indiana and elsewhere and genuinely appreciate the support you've given to this effort. Regards, Lois ------------------------------------------------ As you know, the single "cemetery protection" bill (out of 10 proposed) to survive the 1999 Indiana General Assembly session was House Bill 1522. HB 1522 passed the House several weeks ago and, earlier this week, it passed the Senate. The vote was 49-0 (there are 50 State Senators), so the vote was practically unanimous. I just received word that Rep. Markt Lytle (author of House Bill 1522) was aware of the Senate's amendments to HB 1522 and supported them being added in the Senate. Today, he will be filing a "concurrence" on the bill. (This is done when the bill's author is in agreement with the legislation in its current form.) As such, the next step is Governor O'Bannon signing it. This Bill will soon be signed into law. Further action will being studied this summer in the Natural Resources' summer study committee, details on which are forthcoming. I am SOoooooooo pleased and proud that we've been successful in persuading the Legislature to pass this Bill. Though it falls short of accomplishing all of our goals, it remains an important and historic first step in the right direction. When HB 1522 is enacted, it will make it "illegal" to damage, deface or destroy any gravestone or cemetery marker, whether it is on public or private property and it will REMOVE the exemption previously granted to anyone involved in "any form of agriculture" to obliterate all visible signs of a cemetery. There are other provisions as well; further details at http://www.rootsweb.com/~inpcrp , which I will try to update tonight to reflect today's good news. Thanks to all of you for all your efforts and good wishes. I am so proud of all of you for everything you've done here in Indiana and elsewhere and genuinely appreciate the support you've given to this effort. Regards, Lois --------------------------------- -------------------------------------- GREAT NEWS FROM LOIS: HB 1522 PASSED THE SENATE! Received 4/8/1999 Clark County Cemetery Preservation Committee - http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/5881 "Hip, hip, hooray. HB 1522 PASSED the Senate. The vote was 49-0. It now must be ratified by the House because it was amended by the Senate. Remember, nothing in HB 1522 would have stopped the legal travesties at Rhoads Cemetery or at Wilhoit Cemetery, so our work is not done. Lois" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Clark County Cemetery Preservation Committee - http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/5881 March 22, 1999 Bill Shaw's latest offering in the Indianapolis Star-News has raised numerous serious concerns about the status of legislation pending at this critical juncture of the 1999 General Assembly. As you know, 10 or 12 bills were introduced at the beginning of the year, all aimed at protecting Indiana's abandoned and neglected pioneer cemeteries. (Bill Shaw wrote last year's "Death of a Cemetery" article.) Bill's article underscores the fact that SB 280 is apparently "DOA" in the House and HB 1522 is the ONLY chance we have of getting ANYTHING passed in this session. Senator Robert Meeks has advised that the matter of amendment of HB 1522 is set for additional hearing on WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24th. If you can attend on Wednesday, 3/24/99, please let me know. As soon as I get a chance to digest the proposed changes, I will report further on these amendments. Bill Shaw's published letter is on-line at: http://www.starnews.com/news/editorial/99/mar/0322SN_shaw.html Lois ------------------------------------------------------- Visit the Indiana Pioneer Cemeteries Restoration Project website at: http://www.rootsweb.com/~inpcrp Join the INPCRP e-mail discussion group (details on above website). Respect for cemeteries of pioneers A letter from John Herbst News Sports More Services (Sun. March 7, 1999) -- It's almost too bizarre to even contemplate, but it's true: cemeteries in Indiana are being dug up, destroyed, desecrated. The main victims are "pioneer" cemeteries, some of which are so old that burials haven't occurred in them for decades, and so old that many are no longer visited by descendants of people buried there. Sometimes, these cemeteries become fair game for bulldozers and backhoes. The very idea of destroying cemeteries should be self-evidently abhorrent to all of us. Additionally, it should be illegal. Granted, there may be an extremely rare case in which the clashing values of honoring our dead and paving the way to parking lots may have to be resolved in favor of development. But the regular, purposeful, callous and profit-motivated destruction of cemeteries is not true progress. What will history say about a society that builds subdivisions on top of the graves of people who settled this land? What will history say about a society that pulverizes headstones to make way for a strip mall? What will history say about a society that allows coffins and bones to be uprooted and hauled away? But what is far more important than what history says about us, is what we say and feel about ourselves. One way that we should judge ourselves is by evaluating how we respect and honor those who came before us; destroying their graves is the epitome of disrespect for them and a shameful reflection on ourselves. Fortunately, several bills have been introduced into the Indiana General Assembly to address this issue. A reasonable outcome of this legislative activity is a new law that makes it much more difficult for these cemeteries to be destroyed. Such a bill can be crafted so that it respects the rights of property owners to develop their property as they see fit, but with a strong, clear caveat pointing out that, unless there is an overriding and overwhelming public interest to do otherwise, cemeteries must be preserved. The irony is that these cemeteries represent such minuscule portions of land in our state that developers don't even really need them. Quite often, cemeteries can be preserved without damaging the economic viability of development projects. It is fair to say that brand new suburban housing developments often appear to lack connection to the landscape, and pioneer cemeteries could provide contemplative green space connecting the new "suburban pioneers" with the settlers of old. Preserving these small spaces, and making them a part of new developments, would give added meaning, depth and connection to people's lives today. I am confident that developers can balance both their ethical standards and their practical business interests, and come to the conclusion that, "No, we don't have to destroy cemeteries and we won't." We tend to think of cemeteries where people unknown to us are buried as dark, sad, even scary places. Yet, we think of cemeteries where loved ones are buried as noble, comforting, cherished places. We need to adopt that latter attitude toward these endangered cemeteries because, in one way or another, we all are connected to, and indebted to, the pioneers who came before us and made our present possible. We are responsible for preserving our history, honoring our history and learning from our history. In doing so, we shape a better future. Conner Prairie, where I work, is a museum that re-creates frontier settlement life. Our costumed interpreters in the 1836 Prairietown Village tell the stories of the people who settled Indiana, the people who are buried in these small cemeteries scattered around the state. Listening to their stories helps you realize why the final resting places of these pioneers ought to be honored and respected. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Herbst is president of Conner Prairie, a living history museum in Fishers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SECOND UPDATE: 2/27/99 On Thursday, 02/25/1999, HB 1522 (Rep. Markt Lytle's bill) had its third reading before the House of Representatives. The Bill passed; the roll call was 254 members. 97 yeas and ZERO nays. The bill was then referred to the Senate. The first Senate Sponsor was Senator Server; the second Senate Sponsor was Senator R. Meeks. The co-sponsors of this Bill within the Senate are Senators Wheeler and Lewis. Now that both House Bills (1522 and 1226) are being considered in the Senate, now is the time to redouble our efforts to communicate with members of the Indiana State Senate to express our opinions about these Bills. (SB 280 has already passed the Senate and is under consideration by the House.) I haven't had much luck finding working e-mail addresses for the State Senators; however, most of them have webpages and from there you can usually link to an e-mail form which will permit you to send messages to the respective Senators. The website for the Senate DEMOCRATS is at: http://www.state.in.us/legislative/senate_democrats/ The website for the Senate REPUBLICANS is at: http://www.state.in.us/legislative/senate_republicans/ Lois

UPDATE 2/27/99 Well, gee! Looks like EVERYBODY wants to jump on the bandwagon now! The more the merrier! On 02/25/1999, Representatives Richardson, Oxley, Stilwell, Budak, Kruse, Steele, Cherry, Saunders, Mangus, Friend and Behning were added as coauthors. They join Rep. Bottorff and Rep. Duncan as "co-authors" of Rep. Markt Lytle's HB 1522. (BTW, Rep. Summers and Behning are the sponsors of Senate Bill 280, which has already passed the Senate and is now before the House for consideration.) The General Assembly website advises that, on Wednesday, 02/24/1999, House Bill 1522 had a "second reading" before the House and it was ordered "engrossed". Unfortunately, I STILL don't understand what "engrossed" means as the term relates to legislation. Any clues? Lois

NEW REPORT: February 18, 1999 Clark County Cemetery Preservation Committee - http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/5881 I haven't done a very good job of keeping those of you on this list up to date on the latest legislative developments concerning protecting and preserving our endangered pioneer cemeteries. The following is my 2/17/99 report. Though things are certainly looking up for those of us concerned about this subject, our job is NOT done. If you have not already done so, I urge you to call, write, telephone or e-mail your Indiana State Representatives and State Senators to express your opinion on the subject of protecting our endangered pioneer cemeteries. If you haven't visited the INPCRP website lately, PLEASE do so soon. It's at http://www.rootsweb.com/~inpcrp. There is some excellent material there that you'll find interesting. Several members of the Indiana Pioneer Cemeteries Restoration Project (the "INPCRP") and I have attended and testified at three different General Assembly hearings in the past three weeks -- one in the Senate and two in the House. Between Christmas 1998 and early February, we collected 860 petition signatures, the originals of which were delivered last week to Rep. Markt Lytle, Chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development. My sincere thanks to every single one of you who helped in that effort. It was quite a stack! There were a total of 8 bills tendered earlier in this session of the General Assembly -- two in the Senate and 6 in the House. A detailed explaination of all these bills is available on the INPCRP website. The House Bills were all referred to Rep. Lytle's Committee. One of the Senate Bills (SB 178) seems to have "died in Committee" and the second (SB 280) was passed out of the Senate and referred to the House. The five of the six House Bills have been "rolled into" Rep. Lytle's HB 1522. The sixth, HB 1226, which would create a cemetery preservation license plate, the sale of which will benefit a cemetery preservation fund, has been passed by the House Committee. These House Bills will soon be heard by the full House for vote. They will then be referred to the Senate. The existing language we have been so concerned and worried about that made it LEGAL for anyone involved in ANY form of agriculture or surface coal mining to bulldoze, plow, graze or even blacktop all visible signs of a cemetery will be STRICKEN by House Bill 1522 (Rep. Lytle's bill). This is a critically important piece of this legislation. It appears that the agribusiness lobby has expressed no objection to this landmark change in the status of the law. If fact, Indiana Farm Bureau has recently adopted a policy that pioneer cemeteries on private property should NOT be destroyed! A spokesman for the Township Trustees spoke in objection to Rep. Cleo Duncan's bill to take the care of cemeteries out of the hands of the Township Trustees and put it into the hands of the County Cemetery Commissions. I'm sure there's more to it than meets the eye, but it looked to me as if that particular bill "died in Committee". I think the bottom line was that Rep. Duncan primary concern was that -- regardless of who does it -- the cemeteries must be properly cared for. Personally, I don't care WHO does it, as long as it gets DONE! I hope the Trustees now realize how deeply the public cares about this subject and, if we can continue to work WITH the Trustees on cemetery restoration projects, then more power to them. The Committee adopted our suggestion that the party moving a grave or cemetery be required to tender photographs of the grave markers AND the site along with their detailed report to be filed with the County Recorder. Our concern was two-fold: (1) a lot of the markers (especially the sandstone ones) aren't likely to survive a move and (2) we worry about the accuracy of the notetaker in interpreting stone markings. (How many of you have abstracted a stone and, when you went back a second time, couldn't believe how far off you were? Especially with those pesky 1s and 4s!) The day will come in the not too distant future when many, many more of these cemeteries will be in the way of "progress". If the only options are to destroy a cemetery OR to move it, I'd have to opt for moving it as the lesser of two evils. The House Committee is going to establish a Summer Study Program on the issue of cemetery protection and preservation and, as I understand it, members of the Committee will travel around the state, soliciting comments and ideas from the public on the subject of cemetery preservation. I'll keep you posted on that as the plans materialize. The battle is not won yet. The consolidated, amended bill adopted by the Committee must now get past the vote of the House of Representatives and then be referred to the Senate. There's a lot more to be done in this session and in the future, but I feel VERY optimistic about the process. Rep. Lytle's HB 1522 includes pioneering legislation making it illegal to steal or traffic in stolen cemetery art, statutary, headstones, monuments, etc. Though this has not been a big problem in Indiana, it has been a increasing problem in other states. If the bill passes and becomes law, the courts will have some meaningful legislation with which to prosecute the thiefs and the sellers. One exciting (and surprising) development was Rep. Lytle's idea to mandate that all cemetery monuments created after 1-1-2000 must have engravings indicating the name of the cemetery in which they are to be placed. His thinking (which I commend as innovative) is that, in the future, if those stones are stolen, they will have permanent markings indicating from which cemetery they were taken. This would alleviate the future problem of trying to determine where a stolen stone was taken from. As modern stones become more ornate and more desirable by cemetery thiefs, this could be a big help in finding the "home" for these stones when they are recovered. This is not a solution to the current problem of cemetery art theft, but will certainly be an aid in combating the future problem. Another innovation in HB 1522 is the provision that if a person is convicted of cemetery vandalism involving graffiti, that person can lose his or her driver's license for up to one year. No small measure of the credit for the success of our efforts goes to Bill Shaw, the Indianapolis Star-News writer who has done so much for spreading the word among the Legislature, the government and the public. Several of Bill's recent articles are on-line and are highlighted on the INPCRP website. (Be sure to check out the "In the News" section.) I got the impression at the latest hearing that the Committee did not realize how easy it was for those folks in Dubois County to get a permit from the Health Department to perform a do-it-yourself-with-a-backhoe exhumation so they could build their house on that little hill. The name of Federal Judge Hugh Dillin (a descendant of the people buried in that cemetery) was mentioned SEVERAL times during last night's hearing. A friend of the Judge who happens to be a former State Representative spoke quite eloquently about the level of outrage among the descendants that this ever happened. I hope the Committee got the full impact of former Rep. Dennis Heeke's statement that the property owners got a permit to move THREE graves when, in fact, there were more than 60 graves there, mostly unmarked, and that, until the Trustee law was changed a year or so ago, the Township Trustee was tending to that cemetery despite the fact that it was on private property. Of course, after that change went into effect, the Trustee could no longer care for the site and it was shortly thereafter "moved". I think everyone came away from the latest hearing with renewed faith and trust in the "system" and with renewed expectations for what we CAN accomplish. It ain't over, but the possibilities are certainly exciting for all of us. If you are so inclined, I hope you will contact at least one State Senator and one State Representative to express your opinion on these bills. Tollfree numbers for the General Assembly members are on the "Pending Legislation" page of the INPCRP website mentioned above. Their mailing addresses are also listed. Links to General Assembly webpages are there, which will lead you to district maps if you don't the name of your Legislators as well as e-mail addresses. Thank you for your time and thank you for your support of our efforts. If you would like to participate in what we are trying to accomplish, I invite you to join the INPCRP e-mail discussion group on Rootsweb. Lois

Cemetery destruction buring past, critics say     News Sports More Services   By Bill Shaw Indianapolis Star/News INDIANAPOLIS (Feb. 7, 1999) -- A few months ago, Dubois County farmer Delbert Himsel Jr. learned the old Wilhoit Cemetery near the small town of Ireland had been dug up to make way for an upscale housing subdivision. It seemed like just another incident in a century-long pattern of destroying pioneer cemeteries, which is perfectly legal in Indiana. But Himsel, who loves old cemeteries, didn't just shrug his shoulders. One of the three graves dug up contained the bones of John Quincy Luther Adams, a Revolutionary War veteran who died in 1847 at 94. Also dug up were the skulls, bones and coffin hardware of Adams' son, David, and David's wife, Hester. Staff photo LOOKING BACK: Wilhoit cemetery (taken in 1995). Himsel quickly phoned a longtime friend in Indianapolis with the disturbing news that the tiny pioneer cemetery had been destroyed and the tombstones placed in buckets. "I knew it would upset him," Himsel said of the call to U.S. District Judge S. Hugh Dillin, the respected legal scholar and great-great-great-grandson of the patriot Adams. Himsel was right. Dillin, who was born in nearby Pike County in southwestern Indiana, was not happy. No one asked permission to dig up two generations of his ancestors. "Cemetery laws in Indiana are a mess," the angry, disappointed judge said. "This is a joke." On Oct. 27, 1998, Dillin wrote to Jerome "Todd" Kerstiens, the owner and developer of the housing development, Shiloh Estates VI. The 84-year-old judge offered to pay the costs of reburying his relatives in the nearby Shiloh Cemetery. "As to those persons other than the Adamses whose graves you disturbed, I suggest that they also be buried at Shiloh," wrote Dillin, a director of the Shiloh Cemetery Association. What did Kerstiens say? "I never had a response to my letter," said the judge. Dillin wondered what had happened. How was it possible that his relatives were dug up without his knowledge, permission, or even a courtesy call? Here's how: On May 8, irate Dubois County citizens complained to the Department of Natural Resources that the Wilhoit Cemetery had been gouged open with a backhoe. Bones were scattered on the ground near a big hole, they reported. DNR archaeologist Bob McCullough and Officer A.W. Mann investigated, took pictures and collected nine pieces of coffin hardware; a chert, which is a chiseled silica rock used to make tools; 17 long bones; 18 pieces of "skullcap"; and "1 piece of chest," the remains of Dillin's ancestors. On May 11, DNR officials met with Kerstiens and his wife, Cynthia Ann. The couple produced a valid permit from the Indiana State Department of Health giving them the legal authority to dig up the cemetery to build their home and others in Shiloh Estates VI. Confused DNR officials ordered Kerstiens to stop digging with his backhoe until they sorted it out. By then, the Dubois County prosecutor, the Indiana attorney general's office, the DNR and the Department of Health were trying to determine who had legal authority over the Wilhoit Cemetery, who approved its destruction and what exactly the law required. They all were stumped. "It was ridiculous. Nobody from the state knew what they were doing," said Kathy Tretter, editor and publisher of the Ferdinand News, a Dubois County weekly newspaper that covered the controversy last summer. On June 1, the day after Judge Dillin's wife of 58 years died, the DNR gave the chert, bones, skullcaps, chest piece and coffin hardware of his ancestors to Dr. Stephen Nawrocki, an anthropologist with the University of Indianapolis, either to hold or to study. Nawrocki works with DNR officials on anthropological and archaeological problems. It took several months for the DNR, attorney general, Department of Health and Roger W. Brown, then-prosecutor for Dubois County, to sort through the maze of vague, conflicting cemetery laws to determine who was in charge. "The laws are very confusing," said Brown, who retired as prosecutor Jan. 1. "It was a complicated mess." It turned out the Kerstienses had diligently followed the law that government officials couldn't figure out. Their Jasper attorney, Jerry Fischer, had tracked down Lucille Wood of Petersburg in Pike County, a descendant of John Quincy Luther Adams. Wood, who is in her 90s, signed a legal document giving the Kerstienses authority to dig up her ancestors. Under Indiana law, permission of one relative, no matter how old or distant, is sufficient to require the Department of Health to issue a permit "To Disinter, Remove and Reinter Human Remains" and allow Todd Kerstiens to fire up his backhoe. Which he did. "It was a miracle we found this little old lady," said Fischer. "If we hadn't found a relative, we would have had to get a court order. This was one of those deals that got out of hand." How come the Kerstienses didn't answer Judge Dillin's letter? Fischer didn't know. "That surprises me," he said. "They're a solid young couple." Dillin had never heard of Lucille Wood, although he didn't question her ancestry. "Pretty silly, isn't it? Just any relative will do, huh? The legislature needs to straighten this mess out," Dillin said. Dubois County historians and genealogists, even former Prosecutor Brown, insist there were more people buried in the old cemetery; local historians and residents always had believed the cemetery held 66 graves. A DNR excavation of the site, however, found no other graves; and on Oct. 14, 1998, DNR official Jon C. Smith gave the Kerstienses permission to resume house-building on top of the Wilhoit Cemetery. "Please contact the University of Indianapolis to arrange transportation and reburial of the remains," Smith wrote the couple. Have the remains been transferred and reburied? "I don't know," said DNR spokesman Stephen Sellers. "The remains belong to the Kerstienses. We have no jurisdiction." State Department of Health attorney Burton Garton, who approved the permit to dig up the graves, also was puzzled. "I don't know where they are," Garton said. "It's not our jurisdiction." Nawrocki, the anthropologist who accepted custody of the chert, skullcaps, long bones, chest piece and coffin hardware of Dillin's relatives, didn't return phone calls. Fischer, the Kerstienses' attorney, didn't return later phone calls. The Kerstienses didn't return several phone calls. However, in May 1998, Cynthia Ann Kerstiens told the Jasper newspaper, The Herald, that she and her husband planned to put the three tombstones and the remains down the hill from the new home in Shiloh Estates VI for their children to enjoy. "It is a piece of history for the children," she told the newspaper. "It might encourage them to look up the history of the Civil War and the Revolutionary War from which they came. "And on the lighter side ... we have the ghosts of soldiers here to protect us." The destruction of the Wilhoit Cemetery and last August's revelation that Duke Realty Investments of Indianapolis had dug up a Wayne Township pioneer cemetery to make way for a 458,000-square-foot warehouse triggered protests to the Indiana General Assembly and the office of Gov. Frank O'Bannon. The Wilhoit and Duke projects are among 60 recent pioneer cemetery cases handed "Hall of Shame" status by the Indiana Pioneer Cemeteries Restoration Project, a citizens group from Jeffersonville. It operates over the Internet and recently bombarded legislators with hundreds of petitions from Hoosiers demanding cemetery law reform. "The Duke and Wilhoit travesties are the tiniest tip of the iceberg," said project founder Lois Mauk, 45, a Jeffersonville paralegal who created the organization three years ago. "It was obvious to me we needed to get these pathetic laws changed and appalling loopholes removed," she said. Mauk and others estimate there are thousands of tiny 19th century pioneer cemeteries in Indiana. "As real estate escalates in value and the property on which these little pioneer cemeteries sit becomes ripe for development, the final resting places of our ancestors and predecessors become more and more disposable," Mauk said. "These are sacred sites," said Indiana University historian James Madison. "Not in a religious sense, but in a civic sense. They make us think about our heritage, about who we were, what we are and where we are going." Most pioneer cemeteries are on private property. In Indiana, the landowner owns the gravestones and may toss them in the garbage, or sell them in flea markets. The owner can plant corn or build a strip mall over the graves. In the case of Duke Realty Investments or the Kerstienses, permits for cemetery evacuation are obtained easily from state officials. Duke dug up 43 members of the Rhoads, Foltz, Shute and Rude families from a 360-foot cemetery near Indianapolis International Airport. The cemetery was established in 1844 by farmer James Rhoads. It contained 35 children. The remains of Thomas B. Rhoads, George Foltz, Lilian Rhoads, Elmer Shute and the other dead children were dug up under DNR permit 960062, labeled with numbers and letters and shipped, along with personal items such as bits of shoes and clothing, to Dr. Nawrocki, the custodian of Judge Dillin's ancestors' chert, skulls, long bones and coffin handles.     Reform of cemetery laws gains support _________________________________________ LATEST FROM LOIS: FEB 2, 1999

Clark County Cemetery Preservation Committee - http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/5881

Just a reminder that the February meeting of the Clark County Cemetery Preservation Committee will be on Saturday, Feb. 6, 1999 at 2:00 PM at Pleasant View Methodist Church on Highway 60, near the entrance to Deam's Lake, south of Borden.

Indiana State Representative Jim Bottorff has accepted our invitation to speak to the group.  Mr. Bottorff will discuss the status of current and proposed Indiana law with respect to the protection of our endangered pioneer family cemeteries.  Also, his visit will come just two days before the House of Representatives' Committee on Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development hearings on the half-dozen bills presently pending before the House of Representatives.

Mr. Bottorff is a co-author of House Bill 1522, a cemetery preservation bill which would prohibit a person from recklessly, knowingly or intentionally damaging personal property contained in a structure or located at a cemetery or a facility used for memorializing the dead.

        For more information on HB 1522 and the other cemetery         protection bills pending before the Senate and the House,         see the INPCRP website referenced below.

Even if you are planning to join us on Monday when many of us will be testifying before the House Committee at the State Capitol on Monday afternoon, 2/8/99, this is still a unique opportunity to have face-to-face input with a representative of the General Assembly, the body of men and women who hold in their hands the fate of many of our ancestors and predecessors' final resting places.

Clark County Cemetery Preservation Committee website:     http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/5881

Indiana Pioneer Cemeteries Restoration Project website:     http://www.rootsweb.com/~inpcrp

THIS IS AN EMAIL RECEIVED FROM LOIS MAUK THAT I WANTED TO SHARE! From: Clark County Cemetery Preservation Committee- http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/5881

Thought I'd let you know that Chris Turner, a reporter for the Fox Affiliate in Louisville (WDRB-41) who has in the past given us some fine coverage on the Clark County Cemetery Preservation Committee, did a really nice piece on tonight's 10:00 news about the pioneer cemetery crisis in Indiana.

I met Chris and his cameraman at Grayson Cemetery (http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/5881/graysoncem.html) with my friends Donnie and Carol Loweth and their children.  They shot a good deal of footage there, including a shot of me sticking a yardstick two feet down into a pit where a woman's remains were dug up 30 years ago and the hole has never been filled in.  (This is on city-owned property, believe it or not.)

My boss called me right after the piece aired and said, "Man, you're getting really good at handling the press and you've really learned how to turn a phrase!"  I thought that was pretty cool coming from him, even though I shudder when I see and hear myself on TV!

I threw a couple of my favorite lines at them --

"If we do not respect the dead, how can we possibly respect the living?"

"When your children or grandchildren come to you and ask where YOUR grandmother is buried, do you want to have to tell them she's buried under a parking lot or that her grave was plowed up years ago or that her remains are sitting in a laboratory for 'archeological research'?"

"At what point did my ancestors' remains become a 'natural resource'?" [I stole that last one from Ron Baldwin.Hope you don't mind, Ron.]

"At exactly what point do the graves of our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents become 'disposable'?"

Chris broadcast one piece tonight and intends to do at least one follow-up piece before coming to Indianapolis with us on Monday, February 8th, when we testify before the House of Representatives' Committee on Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development.

I've also invited him to attend the Southern Indiana Genealogical Society meeting on Thursday night, February 4th, and the Clark County Cemetery Preservation Committee meeting on February 6th, which State Rep. Jim Bottorff is scheduled to attend.

Have you signed an Indiana Pioneer Cemetery Restoration Project PETITION TO THE INDIANA LEGISLATURE calling for revision of current state laws regarding protection and maintenance of pioneer cemeteries?        See http://www.rootsweb.com/~inpcrp

   Next meeting of the Clark County Cemetery Preservation Committee:     Saturday, Feb. 6, 1999 at 2 PM at Pleasant View Methodist Church on         Highway 60, near entrance to Deam's Lake, south of Borden     Website:  http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/5881