Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Working together, inspiring partnership
Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times
Paul Washington (left) and Ronald Terry do a little cleaning up in Springwood Burial Park near the plots of Washington's parents.
The Roanoke Times | File February
Bob Bird is leading an effort to clean up Springwood Burial Park in Roanoke, which has been neglected for years. Volunteers are trying to identify graves and clear paths through the property.
Stephanie Klein-Davis | The Roanoke Times
Junius Gaither is trying to encourage folks to help clean up Springwood Burial Park, located next to Lincoln Terrace Elementary School and across the street from the Villages of Lincoln.
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Shanna Flowers is The Roanoke Times' metro columnist.
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Bob Bird and Junius Gaither were strangers when they met last spring at Springwood Burial Park in Roanoke.
Since then, the two men have joined forces, spent their own money and inspired others to be a part of their effort to restore dignity to the abandoned cemetery next to Lincoln Terrace Elementary School.
"I guess we have a lot of the same goals," Bird, 64, said last week. He quietly made the cemetery his project a year ago along with his Boy Scout Troop No. 5 from Oakland Baptist Church.
Gaither, 78, whose mother Liller was buried in Springwood in 1957, said of Bird, "When I met him, he was over there by himself. We just sort of clicked when we met each other."
The two men's perseverance is a testament to folks seeing something that needs to be done -- and doing it. A willingness to think broader than themselves. A desire to work for the greater good.
Since I traipsed through the cemetery in March with both men, they have cut down more trees with a chain saw Gaither bought for cemetery use.
Bird, who is cataloguing the location of the cemetery's 1,000 graves, turned that information over to the Virginia Room at the Roanoke Public Library in downtown Roanoke. He bought mixed wildflower seeds last month and planted them at the entry.
Gaither purchased low-growing flowers he hopes will spread up the embankment that leads into the burial ground. By inundating the entrance with seeds and plants, the men hope there will always be some type of flower blooming throughout the year.
The men have used half of a $100 unsolicited donation to buy herbicide to clear off more brush and the other half to build a gate post with a lock on it.
"We are making some progress," said Bird, a retired Roanoke municipal auditor. "We can see it. Somebody might go over there and get discouraged, but we can see it."
The burial ground sits on an 11-acre parcel next to the school and off busy Liberty Road and Hunt Avenue.
The cemetery once was a well-kept tranquil burial ground in Northwest where black Roanokers were laid to rest from 1937 to 1979.
At one time, it was operated by black funeral director C.C. Williams. After he died in 1962, it passed through a number of hands.
Developers bought the land, not knowing it contained graves. That deterred their plans. Because the land is privately owned, the city doesn't maintain it. Gaither said the land may be private, but it's also "abandoned." City records list the property owner as Samara LC.
"I tell you, I'm the type of guy who likes to piddle," Gaither said. "I'd spend some time over here in the graveyard piddling. The more I was there, I could see how much of a disgrace it was."
What began as Bird's idea has become Gaither's obsession. He estimated he spends 20 to 30 hours a month, working with a few volunteers -- neighbors, relatives and church members -- he has cajoled to join him. Bird said he tallies about 25 hours a month.
Though Bird was the catalyst for restoring Springwood, Gaither now has taken the lead. He has begun to solicit the public's help. The city accommodated him when he asked for public employees to clean up a small embankment that is city property.
Gaither solicited the sheriff's office to see if trustee inmates could help clean the property. But he said he was told that inmates cannot maintain private property.
The retired nursing assistant said he next plans to send a letter to churches to get the word out about the restoration project. He also has contacted organizers of the Addison High School reunions, assuming that most of them have relatives buried at Springwood and care about its condition.
One of Bird's Scouts, 15-year-old Garrett Maxey of Roanoke, said he has come to the cemetery about five times because he has an interest in learning heritage.
"To walk in there," the William Fleming freshman said, "it kind of gets to you, makes you sad, knowing that people have forgotten about it."
Maxey has written a proposal to earn his Eagle Scout badge by grinding tree stumps that jut up from the cemetery's winding road.
Once that is completed, Bird and Gaither want to cut more trees along the edge of the road so they can widen it.
That way, they can get a truck back into the cemetery to collect trash. They also could use it to ferry the elderly back to see the graves of long-buried loved ones.
Gaither also wants to go before Roanoke City Council members to see if they would make an exception to allow employees onto the private property.
"I'm planning to ask the city to help just like I'm asking other people to help," he said.
"In America, we honor our dead; we don't forget about them."
