Kalamazoo’s historic Mountain Home Cemetery will get some much-needed attention. A group called the Grave Issues Squad plans to clean some of the markers this summer and fall and inventory them next year.
Mountain Home Cemetery on West Main Street in Kalamazoo dates to about 1850. It is the city’s oldest active burial place. With green, rolling hills, intricate monuments and towering trees, Mountain Home is “absolutely beautiful,” said City of Kalamazoo Historic Preservation Coordinator Sharon Ferraro.
But time and vandalism have left many of the markers in tenuous shape.
“What we were hoping to do with the cemetery was to create greater respect for the cemetery itself so people would speak up when they saw people, other people doing something wrong in the cemetery,” Ferraro said.
Regina Gorham is a member of the city’s Historic Preservation Commission.
“We can’t stop the fact that people’s names are starting to be rubbed off the front,” she said. “But what we can do is try and make sure we have their name written down now so that somebody in 100 years could still go back to our records and go ‘Oh, this is actually my great-great-great grandfather.”
The group says volunteers including kids can help with the cleaning. Ferraro said the work is simple but has to be done correctly.
She said chemicals including bleach and vinegar, as well as metal brushes can damage old graves.
