Politics & Government

Town Moves Closer To Creation Of Historic Cemetery Commission

Local historian Alan Clarke updates the progress in creating a town cemetery commission and alerts us to a meeting Sept. 5 to form a new governing board for the Glenwood Cemetery.

This article was written by Alan Clarke.

Last Monday evening's Town Council meeting held the second hearing of three required for the formation of a town Historic Cemetery Commission. East Greenwich is one of the last municipalities in the state to form such a commission. It is also one of the few municipalities in which a full two-thirds of its historic cemeteries are overgrown and untended. Most have damaged and toppled gravestones. Many haven't seen any care for decades. Still, they get United States flags, even if they are only placed at the gates because those who place flags cannot get to the veterans' graves for whom they are meant to stand in honor.

As the town's Historic District Commission decides what windows may be used and what façades are acceptable on buildings within the historic districts, not much has done about those other examples of our town's significant historic provenance: our graveyards. It is time for that to change. People whose lands contain or abut historic cemeteries have sought help and have questions about how to care for them. I've gotten calls for years. And we did recently form volunteer groups to tackle cleaning up a few, but it was clear that a handful of volunteers is not enough. Education about what these graveyards are, what they mean, and who is in them is not only an important agenda item, it is interesting information about our forebears and the lives they lived here before us. They formed and governed the town we take for granted and enjoy today. Letting people know what can and cannot be done with our ancestral resting places should be the new commission's first effort. That will be easier than actually getting all the overgrown and damaged cemeteries cleaned and rededicated. But it will be a start and I hope the entire town of East Greenwich takes an interest in the new commission as it applies itself to the task ahead. 

The commission will have five members who will be appointed by the Town Council after being interviewed. Times for such interviews will be announced in several venues such as the town bulletin boards and website, EG Patch, the newspapers, and here in Grave Concerns [Alan's blog]. All must be voters residing in East Greenwich. You do not have to have relatives interred in town. You must have an interest in working with others paying homage to the past by honoring those who remain there. We do owe these people a great deal. 
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Soon the weather will cool and the foliage will retreat. It will be a good time to attack a few more overgrown cemeteries and get them cleaned up. I will lay out some cemeteries that can reasonably be cleaned over a weekend or two before the weather becomes too cold. We have two requests for help with cleanups and we also should revisit those we did last Fall and Spring to see that they do not revert to what they were when we found them. Volunteers, raise your hands! Look here for future cleanup schedules. Those who have adopted cemeteries: do you need any help wrapping your cemeteries up for the year? Email me with your concerns.
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On another grave concern ... Glenwood Cemetery, at the corner of Cedar Avenue and Middle Road, is a private corporation whose membership is made up of people owning burial plots in the cemetery. As you might have read here previously, the Board of Directors for Glenwood Cemetery Corporation has not held a meeting in over three years. The corporate by-laws call for an annual meeting to be held each spring. Enough time has passed so that everyone sitting on the board has had their term expire. Therefore, there is no board of directors. The custodian/groundskeeper has had trouble collecting money for his efforts and complaints have rolled in concerning unfinished grave sodding, mounds of dirt left graveside, and a general dearth of maintenance. The lawns have been mowed but often the bills have gone unpaid.

There will be a meeting to form a new governing board of directors taking place in the meeting room at the East Greenwich Library on Peirce Street on Sept. 5 at 5:30 p.m. Everyone with an interest in Glenwood should attend the meeting and help reform this governing council. Board members must have a deed or represent an immediate family interred at Glenwood. If your deed(s) have been lost, we can check the records and re-issue you a new deed based upon the status of the plot. I might add that being on the board of Glenwood is only as much work as you want to put into it. Historically, there have been those who only go to the annual meeting to vote and those who also attend to chores within the cemetery. What is required is your interest and diligence. There is no pay, no fees, no dues. Just the desire to pick up where more responsible boards have left off.
Again, that meeting will be:
September 5th, 5:30 PM at the EG Free Library meeting room. 
It will be an unofficial meeting to discuss reforming a board of directors and determine when to have an official meeting to elect that board. Please attend if you have personal or familial interest in Glenwood. We need your help. 
My interest in this is personal as I have deeds to gravesites at Glenwood. My parents, grandparents, and many relatives are interred at Glenwood. My seat on the RI Advisory Commission on Historic Cemeteries has nothing to do with what part I play in forming a new govering council for this cemetery.—AFC


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