More History Uncovered in Fairview Cemetery

Due to the efforts of the Fairview Cemetery Project and volunteers joining in, you can now see much more of Fairview Cemetery from the road for the first time in about 25 years. Several headstones that were hidden by trees and vines have been photographed.

Fairview Cemetery Project July 2014 Clean Up Day, photograph by Jim Ravencraft.

People passing by have nothing but praise for all those who are devoting sweat and labor to keep this project going. When you drive down Holman Street approaching the cemetery several of the stones along the front of the cemetery are now completely cleared of overgrowth.

Photograph by Robin Foster, August 13, 2014.

Several more family plots have been revealed as well the sad site of broken headstones and headstones that no longer stand. This clean up effort is only the beginning. Work to keep the vegetation at bay is ongoing, and graves are in need of extra cleaning and gentle work to uncover graves lying just below the surface of the ground.

Anyone that would like to help, but needs to only do light work can volunteer to remove the vines along the ground and place refuse in the dumpster on site.

While the work of clearing was taking place this month, Jan Mitchell Edwards of Genealogy! Just Ask! and Fairview Cemetery Project team member worked for 30 days searching obituaries for those interred at Fairview Cemetery and other nearby cemeteries. She has contributed over 2000 obituaries. Each memorial on Find A Grave that has an obituary has a note to forward a request to me to see the obituary: robin.savingstories@gmail.com.

Ther are now 832 memorials on Find A Grave for Fairview Cemetery. We have also begun the process of researching obituaries and adding death certificate information to other surrounding cemeteries. Stay tuned to learn more about this.

Another great accomplishment has been linking these indivduals to spouses and parents who also have memorials on Find A Grave. See Essie Johnson Gilbert for an example.

To learn more, visit Fairview Cemetery. Here are a few headstones that were discovered recently: