Mercer cemetery records updated to digital age

By TOM LAVENTURE

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MERCER, Wis. - A Mercer official has spent the better part of a year updating the records of a 110-year-old town cemetery.

Opal Roberts, who has been an Iron County Board Supervisor since 2008, was appointed the Mercer cemetery sexton following her election to the Mercer Town Board of Supervisors in April.

Roberts said she was familiar with the cemetery as the Mercer town clerk from 2003-2013. As sexton, however, she became apparent of problems with mapping, plot sale and burial records.

"I was appointed sexton, so that meant I was in charge of all the records pertaining to the cemetery," Roberts said.

This isn't about blame, she said.

The oldest section of the graveyard dates back to 1909 and the cemetery has since expanded into six sections. The sextons over the years have been town supervisors who are replaced every few years and there is no depth of experience with the role, she said.

"Most small towns with cemeteries have this problem," Roberts said. "There is just no continuity of record keeping and no passing on of information from one to another."

The record system was still a file cabinet but even that didn't seem to be complete, Roberts said. Through sales calls and families seeking information on existing burials it became apparent there were burial permits for people without corresponding information on the burial site, or of a known burial with a missing permit.

"I knew that we had to have more of a record than what we had," Roberts said.

The only way forward was to inventory all records along with a survey of the entire cemetery, she said. The work took the entire summer and fall.

Roberts said that cemetery records software is too expensive. She created her own database and merged decades of information including forms, gravestone photos and other official information onto a laptop computer provided by the township to provide the sexton with immediate access to cemetery information.

During the research Roberts has corrected name spellings, birth and death dates, added maiden names and parents names from death certificates and burial-transit permits from the Wisconsin Department of Health. The information might help future sextons and family researchers, she said.

"That is a big accomplishment and the next person should have a much easier time of it," Roberts said.

With so much family genealogy available online today, Roberts said she wanted to ensure the information she gathered was available on websites like Find A Grave. There are headstones already photographed by others for the Find A Grave website but she said her work provides additional information to help researchers establish the relationship they need for the genealogy.

"I have scanned 800 photos and almost 1,500 documents since my appointment as the cemetery's sexton," Roberts said.

The discoveries over the summer about missing or incorrect information tended to be with un-deeded burial plots in older sections of the cemetery, she said. It's safer to assume that unsold plots in the older sections already belong to people, she said.

This past summer an out-of-town couple contacted Roberts about burying a loved one in a plot located in an older section, she said. There was no record of the plot sale from the 1950s but the family produced the proof and they legally owned the plots, she said.

The plots had since been sold to another family, she said. It was fortunate the plots were not yet used and the family was agreeable to take plots in another section, she said.

As a result Roberts said she won't make any new sales in the older sections.

"We were very fortunate," she said.

There are around a dozen mysteries to solve regarding graves without records or permits without a grave, she said. The missing information usually involves the eight-grave family blocks, where sometimes an infant, or an urn was buried long ago without a marker and the township was not notified.

"Sometimes they didn't erect a stone so you don't know it's there and then later they submitted the burial permit," Roberts said.

The importance of mapping was illustrated this summer when four plots were nearly sold in a section of the cemetery that is a dedicated road, she said. Mapping also prevents plot sales in areas with large trees and root systems that prevent use as a grave site, she said.

"Mapping is important," Roberts said. "If you're even one-and-a-half feet off the stones will be out of place."

Next summer Roberts plans to place metal stakes with markings at each plot and block location to make it easier for future sextons and for families not familiar with the cemetery. The township board has also mentioned plans to improve the cemetery roads.

"I'll be busy the next couple of years," Roberts said.

Roberts is looking to form a Friends of the Cemetery group to help improve the grounds starting next spring. The group would help with the staking, cleaning headstones and taking photos.

"The work is generally to help make a more beautiful cemetery," Roberts said. "As a kid we had Decoration Day when all the families came to clean the cemetery and the headstones. They brought a picnic lunch and had fun doing all this."

For more information on joining the cemetery group, contact Roberts at 715-476-2844.