Picture courtesy of No Sleep in Helena
In March of this year, Postmarks traveled to Helena to interview Carrier Lisa Gray, who had saved an elderly woman from drowning. While we were waiting for Lisa to return from her route, we chatted with some of the other Helena Postal employees, who casually mentioned that right behind the Post Office was an old graveyard full of unmarked graves that somebody was just beginning to restore. Small markers had been placed on the plots that had been discovered so far, we were told.
Despite the fact that it was a rainy afternoon, we couldn't resist the urge to step back there and investigate. Upon first glance, it just looked like a wooded area with tiny flags here and there. This is the picture that was taken and all that we really noticed until later that afternoon.
However, when we returned to the office and began a closer inspection of the pictures we had taken earlier, in a picture that was taken more from a distance, we noticed at least 11 of those markers in a very small area. Look closely at the picture below and see how many you can spot.
Dalton Sparks, a young man working hard towards becomming an Eagle Scout, took on the restoration of the cemetery as his Eagle Scout project. According to The Shelby County Reporter,
"Sparks is asking for volunteers and donors to help restore a minority cemetery that he plans to name after Pvt. Norman Smith, a World War I veteran buried on the west side of the 1.5- acre plot.
Located in plain view between the Municipal Building and the Post Office is a wooded strip of land, overgrown and neglected, that contains some 60 graves — some marked with headstones, others indicated only by a projecting rock and sunken rectangle."
If you would like to read more about the cemetary and this project, you can visit the Helena Cemetary Restoration website, where you can see lots of pictures, learn the history of the graveyard, and see a list of names of the buried.
