Below are photos my daughter Kate & I took while on a trip to
Fort Massac for the 100th celebration of the George Rogers Clark Statue and
dedication while in Metropolis, IL. On our way home which was Sunday, November
02, 2008, we had such a beautiful day we stopped at cemeteries along our route
home. This was one of them. My most outstanding thing we found here were many
many bases without their tops. to my amazement they had been put out to pasture
with the cows.
they
are supposedly there for storage while the church is in the process of restoring
this cemetery. And I mean they are literally put out to pasture. I got on the
horn and a friend of mine, Marty Miller, went down to the church and asked them
on Wednesday of this week. here is what they said:
> Foxie,
> I went to the St. John's cemetery this afternoon, did a walk through and took
pictures. My fist observation was that a restoration project was started to
recondition the cemetery. I did find stones that were behind the fence where you
said they were. I call the pastor of St. John's Church and talked with him about
the stones. He claims that the stone were so un-level that they had to be
removed for safety reasons.
Foxie's observations on Sunday:
There were no signs of any restoration project in process that Kate &
could see. Nothing to indicate they would be putting stones back on their bases
from the storage area of the cow pasture. and who in their right minds stores
someone's precious stone in a cow pasture that is sunken into the ground. take a
look at my photos below. Further more it
took a great deal of strength to lift those stones from the ground and carry
them from their original places and then to top it off over a fence and into a
pasture.
> The church was concerned about them falling on people. The pastor also claimed
they consulted with a attorney about removing the stones, but would not give
information of what attorney or firm. Nothing was mentioned about any permits
for the removals.
> I was told that someone started restoring the cemetery today and
that these stones will be put back on grave sites
if they can remember
where all stones go.
I'm not sure of any wrong doing in this matter. If the church obtained
all permits to remove these stones and they are in the process of restoring the
cemetery, I don't see what can be done
> here...Marty
You be the judge here. Also, many of them are written in a foreign language
of which I have no idea if it's German or not but looks like it to me or could
be Latin since it is a Lutheran church.
Here
you can see where they are many bases in this part of the cemetery with no tops
to them. You can also see the tree line behind them with a fence. The tops were
thrown there and we found some of them there. I'm not sure how many are there
you can also tell the stones are leaning many of them still & does that mean
they will soon loose their tops to put out to pasture????? more on the next
page.
St. John's Lutheran Cemetery Page Two
St. John's Lutheran Cemetery Page three
