Group works to preserve old county burial grounds

Fri, Nov 20, 2009    to del.icio.us

EASTMANVILLE — The Friends of Ottawa County Parks group is taking a look into the past and preserving the final resting place of those who were buried on the grounds of the Eastmanville Farm Park.

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"We have a public responsibility to keep those grounds from being stampeded," said Marjorie Viveen, a Grand Haven resident who is chairing the group in charge of the project.

She said prior to any work beginning on the project, tall grass obscured the view of some of the tombstones on the property.

The county recently turned a portion of the park into an equestrian trail, meaning people and animals could potentially walk on the grave sites without knowing it.

"Knowing the precise location allowed us to avoid disruption of any individual grave — by pedestrians and equestrians enjoying the park," Viveen said.

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To help the group determine where the bodies were located, they employed the use of some advanced technology — ground penetrating radar. A Paw Paw resident donated the use of this equipment to the Friends of Ottawa County Parks for use on the project.

"I can't tell you how important that was to us because ground penetrating radar is very expensive," Viveen said.

In addition to the radar equipment, the group also had assistance of individuals who mapped the graves, and also paired the maps with aerial photographs that they had taken of the site.

"We realized the cemetery is a lot larger than what we imagined," Viveen said.

The group was able to determine that there were 50 graves on the site containing 55 bodies. This included a mass grave with five people inside, one with an adult and a child and someone on their side.

Of the 55 people who were discovered with the ground radar system, they have records for 53 of them, Viveen said.

"We think, we speculate, that the other two are babies," she said.

The individuals buried on the site were known at the time as inmates of the Ottawa County Poor Farm — a place where indigent individuals and families ended up.

"Ottawa County has owned this land or 143 years," Viveen said.

The term "inmates" isn't the same as inmates today, Viveen said, and instead it was more of a social security type of program for individuals who were facing hard times.

Once people died on the property, they were buried there; their bodies were collected by family members, or, in some instances, they were used for medical research.

Viveen said if someone was not picked up, they were sent to the University of Michigan where they were used as cadavers.

"We have identified nine individuals who were cadavers and served the public in that way," she said.

Powered with locations of individuals who are buried on site, the group wants to mark each grave site and also place story boards there to preserve the history of the location.

"We have a temporary stake at each grave head, and then each is marked with orange tape," committee member Shirley Draft said.

She said work will be done in the spring to make these improvements to the site, and the group also plans to add items such as benches for visitors.

The group has already received an endowment from Texas resident Elden Kramer for maintenance of the site once it is developed, according to the Friends group's idea.

Other key players in the project, according to Viveen, include Mike Cary, Anne Dingman, Alice Hoban, Jim Ponshair, Jan Sluka and Bob Wassink.

This isn't the first time work has been done to preserve the poor farm, but it is the most successful effort thus far.

"In 2002, there was an effort, but a series of events caused it not to happen," Viveen said.

According to Curt TerHaar, Ottawa County coordinator of park and planning development, the work being done to preserve the grave site would normally not be possible without the help of the Friends group, however, the scale of the project is bigger than what they are typically known for.

"This is a little bit unusual for them to take on a project like this," he said.

TerHaar said in the grand scheme, the project will fit in nicely with other parks in the area, including the Eastmanville Bayou Park. These parks make up the Grand River Greenway — a chain of parks along the Grand River between Kent and Ottawa counties.

People interested in contributing to the Friends of Ottawa County Parks efforts can send contributions to P.O. Box 84 in Lamont.