Trending
As you may have noticed, The Juniata River Valley Chamber of Commerce, The Juniata River Valley Visitors Bureau, The Mifflin County Historical Society, the Lewistown Borough, and a dedicated committee of community volunteers, have been working the last few months to preserve the local history found in our cemeteries. We have specifically focused on the restoration and improvement of the African American Memorial Cemetery located near the entrance to Victory Park in Lewistown.
I just wanted to talk a few moments today about the "why" of this project. Why are we spending countless hours researching, educating, scrubbing, digging, fundraising, landscaping, etc.? It is because collectively, we believe that often our cemeteries contain the last tangible evidence of those who lived here before us -- those who built our community into what it is today. They are remarkable outdoor museums that call to us to come and discover the many secrets and stories waiting there. These are our ancestors, our founding fathers. They beg us to question who were the people behind the stones? What was their life like? How did they die? Were they rich or poor, famous or unnotable? These are all questions that circle through your mind as you read each epitaph. These are not just cold, hard stones, they represent lives. Can you picture their loved ones standing right where you are, mourning the loss of someone precious to them? These were individuals with hopes and dreams who experienced hardship, love, and loss, just as we do.
Understanding their lives and accomplishments also instills a sense of pride that these individuals were part of our community, our history. Just by living here we have become part of their story.
Not only do we desire to preserve the history and memory of those who died, it also our desire to improve the surroundings, providing a well-maintained, respectful, peaceful place for visitors to stop and think about the shared history found there. We can only truly understand the future, if we are willing to look to, and learn from, the past to ensure that avoidable tragedies experienced throughout our history are not repeated.
I would like to ask you to join us as we take on this project of the African American Memorial Cemetery. It is home to several African American Civil War Veterans as well as other African Americans who made their homes here in the Juniata River Valley. Let's make it a place where visitors, as well as our children and our children's children, can visit and read about its history and understand its significance.
We have been given a wonderful gift with this cemetery and we need to be good stewards of it. If you would like to join our efforts, we would appreciate any amount of contribution you can give. The total cost of the project is budgeted at just more than $14,000, and to date we are nearly one-third of the way there. Checks made payable to the Juniata River Valley Chamber of Commerce, with cemetery project written in the memo can be mailed to:
Juniata River Valley Chamber of Commerce, 1 West Market St., Lewistown, PA 17044.
You can also contribute via PayPal by going to www.jrvchamber.com and clicking on the Cemetery Restoration Project banner.
Thank you in advance for joining us in this very worthwhile community project!
¯¯¯
Rhonda S. Kelley is executive director of the Juniata River Valley Chamber of Commerce.