At least 150 volunteers and professionals turned out Saturday at Chelsea Cemetery to set up head stones and clean during a work day organized to repair the cemetery following the vandalism earlier this summer.
Several community members, organizations and business people came out to lend a hand.
“The citizens of our community are just unbelievable,” said Dick Morris, who organized the cleanup day.
One of those helping was Carl Cooley, who also experienced a family reunion during the work.
Cooley, who is from El Dorado and recently moved back here after living in California for several years, has family buried at Chelsea.
His grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts and uncles are there.
He recalled visiting the cemetery when he was a kid before Memorial Day.
“We would come here and clean around the headstones and put out flowers,” he said.
After he had seen the damage to some of his family members’ headstones, he said he was going to have to figure out how to erect the stones himself.
“I really think it’s great,” he said of the volunteers, “and I’m very appreciative.”
He also was helping clean up during the event.
“I felt since Dick Morris was doing this, I could at least come and be a part of it and volunteer my time,” he said.
It was while at the clean-up that he met Bob Cooley, who turned out to be his cousin.
“We are cousins and I didn’t even know it,” he said.
Helen and Larry Chambers also have family members buried in the cemetery, and they were the ones who found the damage earlier this year.
“We had brought our granddaughters out because my mother died in April,” Helen explained.
They had come out in June and discovered the vandalism, from which about 90 of the headstones were knocked over.
“I was horrified,” she said.
Larry said they called someone on the Chelsea Township board to report it.
“I have a lot of family here and this is where we plan to be,” Helen said.
She was appreciative of the volunteers.
“It’s wonderful,” Helen said.
Greg Wiley also was out helping with the cleanup. He too has family in the cemetery and recalled coming out as a kid and having a picnic and decorating the graves.
David Stackley is the Township trustee for Chelsea Township and was helping with the cleanup as well.
He said after he heard about the damage, he came out to see the cemetery and spent several hours looking at it.
“It’s such a pretty cemetery and just absolute dumbness,” he said of the damage.
This had happened about 15 years ago as well, but he said they caught the people responsible for that damage. That time it only included a few headstones.
He was grateful for the volunteers, saying it was a tremendous help.
“As a trustee of the township, it is my job to not spend the money and get the maximum amount of work,” he said.
They already had to raise the mill levy half a mill to cover upkeep of the cemetery.
“With this kind of help we can really get something done,” he said.
“I’m just proud that the good people outweigh the bad,” he said
looking around at all of the volunteers. “That’s the encouraging thing.”
It is his hope when someone sees another doing something wrong they will step up and call them on it.
The damage also was personal to Stackley.
Stackley said his great-grandfather is probably one of the people who helped set up the cemetery.
He recalled his grandfather taking them there and putting flowers on the graves, including one of an unknown child.
“Grandpa knew everybody in here,” he said.
Two monument companies also came out and brought the necessary equipment to set the headstones back up.
Dan Hill, with Heartland Monument, was one of those.
“It’s just terrible anyone would desecrate a cemetery like this,” Hill said.
He said he couldn’t see having the taxpayers have to pay the bill to repair the damage, so he offered his services free of charge.
“I knew the El Dorado community would jump in,” he said.
That included his own employees. Hill said he was going to pay them for the day’s work, but they said if he was donating his services, they would too.
He also had people stop by his office and ask what he needed to do the work and brought by supplies.
“Everybody is helpful and happy,” he said.
In addition to setting back up the headstones that had been knocked down, they also were straightening any that were crooked.
He said they were going to stay until it was done.
“The cemetery looks 100 percent better just coming in trimming the
trees and opening it up,” Hill commented.
Jim Wiens, with Doric Concrete Vaults out of Newton, also brought over some equipment and workers to help right the headstones.
He said he knew Morris and after he heard what happened and went out to look at the damage, he wanted to help.
“It’s really neat to see as many volunteers as possible,” he said.
In addition, the Elks Lodge from El Dorado, provided a free lunch of hotdogs, chips, cookies and drinks to the volunteers.
Further help was offered by nearby neighbor David Powell, who mowed the ditches around his property so people would have a place to park and used his truck and trailer to take people from the parking area down to the cemetery.
One final piece of the work will be done this fall, when Morris said he has plans to return to have a big bonfire with all of the tree limbs trimmed and say a prayer.
There also was a headstone commemorating the day created which will be placed in a flower bed.
