SD31 - The Problems of Small Community, Family-Type Cemetaries
Executive Summary: The Department of Historic Resources responded to the General Assembly's request for an examination of small community, family-type cemeteries by retaining Martha Little of Charlottesville to conduct the study and prepare a report on her findings. Ms. Little is a graduate student at the University of Virginia who is pursuing advanced studies in urban and environmental planning. She has a particular interest in historic preservation and has conducted previous research on the preservation of cemeteries in the United States and Great Britain. The Department determined that, within the time and resources available to conduct this study, there was no way either to amass a complete database on all of Virginia's small cemeteries or to reach definitive conclusions on all of the measures necessary to insure their appropriate care. Instead, the object of this study has been to seek a sampling of the kinds and condition of Virginia's small cemeteries, to get some gauge of public interest in this particular resource, and to put forward some thoughts on the appropriate next steps for the Commonwealth to take. Consequently, Department staff worked with Ms. Little to design a questionnaire that would be broadly distributed among groups and individuals likely to have some interest in small cemeteries. The questionnaire was designed not only to gather information on the cemeteries, themselves, but to solicit public opinion on the cultural value of the cemeteries and on the need for some publicly sponsored effort to encourage their proper care. A copy of the questionnaire follows these introductory remarks. Following that questionnaire, we present Ms. Little's report. She has done an excellent job of synthesizing the results of the questionnaire and of drawing logical conclusions from the combination of the questionnaire data and her own independent research. The inclusion in her report of citizen comments taken directly from the survey forms also presents a strong testimonial to the emotional value Virginia's small cemeteries represent. Additional evidence of public interest in the preservation of small cemeteries lies in the fact that well after the deadline established for receipt of data to be included in Ms. Little's analysis, scores of additional survey forms have continued to come to this office from people who know they missed the deadline but who hope that the state will maintain some ongoing interest in this resource. The basic question posed by Senate Joint Resolution 177 was whether there is some appropriate role for the state to assume in the care of this fragile resource. Based upon the information that has been gathered in the conduct of this study, the Department of Historic Resources fully agrees with the author that the Commonwealth should undertake a program to locate and record its small community, family-type cemeteries. Creating and publicizing such a record is the obvious first step toward appropriate care of the cemeteries. Such a record also serves as a repository of information that will otherwise be lost when some of these cemeteries inevitably are destroyed. While such a recording project would be a massive state undertaking if conducted by paid, centrally headquartered Department staff, we agree with Ms. Little that an effective survey could be mounted by adding one or two Department staff whose jobs would be to draw on and coordinate the efforts of what appears to be a fairly large volunteer labor pool interested in this resource all across the state. We would also expect such new staff members to be professionally able to assess the comparative value of the cemeteries being recorded and to make recommendations as to which cemeteries should be singled out for special recognition, such as addition to the Virginia Landmarks Register. Finally we would expect such staff to be involved in fostering local educational efforts aimed at increasing appreciation among Virginia's citizens for the importance and fragility of small cemeteries. Ms. Little's report also addresses possible changes in the Code of Virginia to provide greater protection of small cemeteries and to provide for a family's access to the graveyard of its ancestors in cases where it no longer owns that graveyard. While the Department of Historic Resources has not been able to pursue any in-depth research on the various legal questions pertaining to cemeteries, we certainly commend Ms. Little's conclusions to the General Assembly for further consideration. There is little doubt that Virginia's laws could be redrawn to reflect a greater sense of the value and vulnerability of small cemeteries: the Code could provide for greater penalties for malicious damage to cemeteries, and it could guarantee access to cemeteries for those who would care for them but are now prevented from doing so. Finally, Ms. Little addresses the question of state financial assistance for the maintenance of small cemeteries. As she notes, there are several administrative schemes by which such assistance could be provided: a program administered by the state based on individual applications, or allocations to locally administered funds, for example. The Department of Historic Resources would certainly agree with the fundamental premise that providing some financial assistance would greatly encourage the preservation of these cemeteries; it would also be our expectation that average assistance payments for any given cemetery would be quite small. However, without the further work described above to locate and record more of Virginia's small cemeteries, the Department is unable at this time to offer a recommendation on a specific amount of funding to address the need effectively. We note that precedent for such an assistance program already exists in Virginia: pursuant to Section 10.1-2211 of the Code the Commonwealth currently provides some $45,000 per year to be distributed among a large number of local private groups to assist in the care and maintenance of Confederate cemeteries and individual graves. The information gathered from this study project is now on file at the Department of Historic Resources. While the material is only a beginning, it does form a useful and interesting data bank. The Department encourages anyone with a particular interest in the preservation of small cemeteries to visit the office and examine the materials that have been collected so far. |
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