Writings from the "Soule": Act #13

Jeff and I must have driven by this cemetery at least a couple thousand times over the last few years and neither of us have really taken notice of it...until a couple of months ago. We were stopped at the light at Shallowford Rd and Canton Hwy and I look over and see this overgrown piece of land. Had I not been able to make out a sign that said "Old Noonday Cemetery" on it, I would have never have known what it was, it was that bad! I have to admit that part of me was a little irritated that a cemetery would be left to get like that and that no one was maintaining it. I wrote down the number on the sign and decided to do some research, determined in the end to give someone a piece of my mind when I did track them down! Here are some before pics, the after pictures are at the end of the blog...

Yes, there are grave sites within all this mess!

View from the road

If you look close enough you can see Jeff on the left of the picture, the weeds and little trees are as tall as he is

At first I thought it might have been Noonday Church that was responsible for the upkeep, especially since they were next door and because of the name of the cemetery. They emailed back and said they thought it was City of Marietta's responsibility. A two minute search on their website and I checked them off the list. So I googled the phone number and it came up "Settler's Memorial Cemetery Preservation"."Some preservation they are doing", I thought! I decided to call the number and a very sweet, older sounding lady answered the phone. I explained I was calling about the Old Noonday Cemetery and was trying to find who was responsible. She said, "I am and I know it must look dreadful right now because I am the only one looking after it and I just can't do it by myself anymore"...well of course I just felt like a big old heel after that. Here I was, dead set on giving someone what for just 2 minutes before that.

Her name was Gayle and she went on to explain to me some of the history of the cemetery. It dates back to the 1850's and holds the remains of soldiers from just about every war and that most of the front of the cemetery is black slaves. She is supposed to maintain that and a couple other cemetery's but relies on donations, which just haven't been coming in. I told her that my husband and I would like to get a volunteer crew together and try to clean it up a little bit. You might as well have told her she hit the lottery, she was just so happy and grateful. She wanted to be there when we came out, so I gave her my information and set a date.

The next day I went to work and started to email a few landscaping companies around the area to see if they had anyone that would like to volunteer with us. The ONLY response I received back was from Property Masters which is basically located across the street. Kyle Cooper (CEO) told me he goes by there 5-6 times a day, is very familiar with the location and would love to help! We were set to go on August 24th and then Adam from Property Masters called me a couple days before and asked if we minded if he sent a crew out the day before so they could get 80-90% done for us and we wouldn't have to worry about as much the day of. Well of course not, please send them!

Thank God they did come the day before because after about 30 minutes into the cleanup we realized that we might have bit off more than we could chew had they not! Jeff's parents, his sister Tammy, her daughter and a couple of friends came to help. We were there from about 8-12 and only got about a third of the more detailed pick up complete. It was hot, there were pieces of rebar sticking up to mark grave sites and they were just eating up the weed eater string. There is a Mimosa tree which sprouted 5 million other baby Mimosa's all over the place which would have to be cut with a chainsaw and is impossible to do without killing your back! We decided we needed to come back with some stronger/better equipment, but we are limited on what we can use since most of the grave sites are marked with small, triangle shaped rocks or pieces or rebar. Below are after pictures of what was done so far. We are not nowhere near done yet, we are just trying to find a free weekend day, some volunteers and some good equipment we can get our hands on! More updates to follow...