STORY, VIDEOS AND PHOTOS BY EMILY BECKMAN
The weathered headstone that belonged to 7-year-old Isabel Johnson sits on the bottom shelf of a display case in the Eudora Community Museum.
At some point, the headstone became dislodged from its original cemetery placement and was briefly lost before resuming its place in Eudora history.
The headstone, which was found on private property several years ago, was donated to the museum in 2017. It likely originated from the Southwest City Cemetery, said Ben Terwilliger, the museum's executive director.
The story of Johnson’s headstone is reflective of the broader story of the Southwest Cemetery, a piece of land that barely looks like a cemetery today but is rich with history of African American culture in Eudora in the 1800s.
Members of the Eudora Area Historical Society want to revive the cemetery and educate the community about its significance.
Although the city mows the property, Terwilliger said the cemetery fell into disuse over the last few decades and has been somewhat neglected.
“Hardly any of the descendants of people buried there still live in Eudora,” Terwilliger said. “They’re all in different places, so nobody really takes care of it anymore, which is sad because it’s an important landmark in Eudora and it’s one of the very few visible reminders of Eudora’s once large black community.”
Ben Terwilliger discusses the Isabel Johnson headstone.
History of the Southwest Cemetery
The Southwest Cemetery, founded in the 1850s, was the first cemetery in Eudora. It was originally used for burials of most of the Eudora community before the town decided to segregate its burials in the 1860s, Terwilliger said.
When Eudora founded the Eudora City Cemetery, which is still used today, the Southwest Cemetery became the city’s African American cemetery.
“A lot of the white people that had already died were dug up out of the ground at the Southwest Cemetery, the black cemetery, and they were moved over to the current City Cemetery,” Terwilliger said. “And so the Southwest Cemetery was generally used throughout the late 19th century and early 20th century by members of the black community in Eudora, which used to be a sizable community here.”
The Southwest Cemetery quietly sits in a now-residential neighborhood in the 1500 block of Cedar Street. Jim Harris, who has called Eudora home for 81 years, moved to a house across the street from the cemetery just under a year ago.
Harris said he knew about the cemetery growing up, but then, it was outside city limits and considered to be in the country. He said he’s surprised there are lifelong Eudora residents who don’t know about the cemetery.
“They don’t know it’s there,” Harris said. “It’s not something you really notice. It just looks like an empty lot.”
National Efforts to Preserve Historic African American Cemeteries
The Southwest Cemetery is just one example of the numerous African American cemeteries that have been neglected throughout the United States.
Raphael Morris, president of the Greenwood Cemetery Preservation Association in Hillsdale, Missouri, knows the challenges of restoring and maintaining a historic African American cemetery.
Morris spends an average of about 36 hours per week at the Greenwood Cemetery, he said. The cemetery was founded in 1874 and fell into disrepair after it stopped being used for burials in 1993, Morris said.
“When I started working out there four years ago, I’d have people come by and say, ‘Oh, I didn’t even know this was a cemetery,’” Morris said.
More than 50,000 people are buried in the Greenwood Cemetery, and there might be records for between 35,000 to 40,0000, Morris said. There are thousands of headstones – including a number of fallen stones – at the cemetery, and none of them were visible when Morris got involved in restoration efforts in 2015, he said.
“The cemetery was in such disrepair, you couldn’t take two steps into the cemetery because the growth was 15 [to] 18 feet tall from the street all the way back as far as the eye could see,” Morris said.
Although Morris has a number of relatives buried in the cemetery, what really moves him is that people are now able to find their loved ones’ graves, he said.
Morris said the Greenwood Cemetery is an important and historical place, and it’s painful to see it neglected.
“You look at the way the enslaved people were treated. The conditions they were forced to endure in their lifetimes,” Morris said. “And then you look at how they’re disrespected in death. And it’s just not right. There’s nothing right about that.”
In February, the African American Burial Grounds Legislation Act was introduced by Rep. Donald McEachin, D-Va., and Rep. Alma Adams, D-N.C. The act would authorize the National Park Service to identify and preserve African American cemeteries.
A number of organizations nationwide endorsed the act, including Preservation of African American Cemeteries Inc., a nonprofit, volunteer organization based in Arkansas. The organization, formed by genealogists, works to locate, document, research and preserve African American cemeteries.
Tamela Tenpenny-Lewis is a co-founder and president of the organization and a former national president of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society.
Tenpenny-Lewis said cemetery preservation is challenging work, but it provides a history of the past that might not otherwise be told.
It’s important to do research ahead of time and know how to properly preserve cemeteries, Tenpenny-Lewis said.
“A lot of times people – they mean well and they want to go out and clean the stones and clean the property – but a lot of times if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing, you may cut away items that were planted when a person was buried,” Tenpenny-Lewis said. “You may throw away a piece of a fence that may be 100 years old because you think it’s junk, trash or something that’s been discarded.”
Tenpenny-Lewis said the organization started its efforts to preserve African American cemeteries because many of them are being destroyed – by vandalism, developers or nature – because they have been abandoned.
“We’re all genealogists first, so recording history and writing histories of these cemeteries and the communities was our focal point,” Tenpenny-Lewis said. “And then comes along the cleanup and the preservation and the restoration.”
Tenpenny-Lewis said people should remember that they not only have ancestors in cemeteries, but they will likely be in a cemetery one day too.
“It’s our responsibility to take care of those that came before us. To me personally, it’s disrespectful to not tend to their graves,” Tenpenny-Lewis said. “But you also have to put yourself in that same spot and say, ‘What have I passed on to my children? What have I passed onto my grandchildren? Are they going to take care of my burial spot?’”
Restoring Eudora’s Southwest Cemetery
Stephanie Jones, secretary of the Eudora Area Historical Society, became interested in preserving the Southwest Cemetery after she and her husband moved to Eudora about two years ago.
“When I finally saw it, I thought, ‘It needs some love. It needs some help,’” Jones said. “Because tombstones obviously have been broken over time. A lot of them sank. A lot of them, if they are there, we can’t see them because they may be under grass and things.”
Jones became involved in the restoration of the cemetery after cleaning up Johnson’s headstone at a workshop provided by the Douglas County Heritage Conservation Council last year, she said. She has helped lead the restoration efforts and wants to help preserve the cemetery and learn the stories of the people who are buried there, she said.
“I think we’ll find out some different, really neat information,” Jones said. “And especially it will be nice to honor those people that are buried there, and clean up their tombstones and repair what’s needed to be repaired. And hopefully preserve it for future generations.”
The restoration efforts are in early stages, Jones said, and the goals are fairly broad.
Jones said she hopes to add a sign that explains the cemetery’s history, add a fence and repair damaged headstones.
She would also like to have a group of volunteers who could help clean up the cemetery regularly, and have a bigger group of people keeping an eye on the cemetery and helping to maintain it.
Terwilliger said the records of who is buried at the cemetery are limited and likely only include a portion of the people who are buried there.
“I think most of the names on that list come from the tombstone census, which was published in Douglas County in 1989 and that really only lists all the tombstones,” Terwilliger said. “It lists the people who actually have existing stones, so there’s a lot of names that got left off that tombstone census. So I think those are the names we know of, but there could be way more people out there that they just don’t have any marker and there’s no records.”
According to records obtained from the Eudora Community Museum, there are about three dozen known burials, and 27 other people who are believed to be buried in the cemetery. There are 27 visible markers at the cemetery, but not all of them are legible.
Eventually, Jones would like to do ground penetrating at the cemetery to see where people are buried.
“At least we would know there’s something here,” Jones said. “And we may not know exactly who, but we would know to place something there to say, ‘This is a grave.’ And that would be a great thing.”
But ground penetration radar is expensive, Jones said. So in the meantime, Kirk Brinkman’s map will be helpful.
Brinkman has lived in a house across the street from the Southwest Cemetery since 1994, he said. He has done some research on the cemetery and made a map of where he thinks people are buried. He used the property lines as references, and then used a 100-foot tape measure to create the map, which he said could be as much as a foot off.
Brinkman calls himself neighborhood watch and keeps a close eye on the cemetery.
“[When] I see someone in that cemetery, I say, 'Excuse me, can I help you? Who you trying to find?’” he said.
Harris has been involved in the Eudora Area Historical Society in several capacities over the years, including serving as the president, vice president and treasurer. He said it’s important to consider the long term when working to restore the cemetery.
Primarily, Harris said he’d like to see efforts to recover any headstones that have been buried over time.
“I would like to see them come in to do ground penetrating. Kirk kind of can tell you where the bodies are. I’m sure there’s some headstones buried over there somewhere,” Harris said. “I’d like to find those and bring them back up.”
But Harris said he’s not sure much can be done to restore the cemetery.
“It’s made it 150 years or how many. So if you can give it some recognition and keep it from the realtors, you could preserve it,” Harris said. “It doesn’t hurt anything just laying there.”
Leslie Herring, assistant city manager of Eudora, said she’s happy to see community members working to revive the Southwest Cemetery.
“We really appreciate the opportunities that we have to honor the past,” Herring said.
Jones encourages community members to get involved in the preservation efforts and to share any stories or memories they have of the cemetery. To follow the efforts or get involved, find the cemetery on Facebook or email Jones at eudorakssouthwestcemetery@gmail.com.
The headstone that belonged to 7-year-old Isabel Johnson sits on the bottom shelf of a display case in the Eudora Community Museum. Executive Director Ben Terwilliger said the headstone likely originated from the Southwest Cemetery. Members of the Eudora Area Historical Society are hoping to revive and preserve the city’s oldest cemetery. Many of the headstones have weathered, fallen or started to sink over time. Stephanie Jones, secretary of the Eudora Area Historical Society, hopes to use the proper techniques to clean and repair stones. The map that resident Kirk Brinkman created of the cemetery will be helpful in knowing where bodies might be buried.
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