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February 16, 2006Reviving a cemeteryWoman devoted to preserving family burial groundTRAVERSE CITY - Lauri Gartner has been researching her genealogy for more than 30 years. Until recently, though, her family tree was missing a branch."We never knew a single Essex," said Gartner, referring to the ancestors of her mother, Joan Essex Baynton. "My grandfather really wouldn't talk about his family." In 1998, after tracking the Essex line to Illinois, Gartner stumbled upon an item in a three-ring binder in a Quad Cities library. It led her to the Essex Cemetery, established in the 1840s by her great-great-great-grandfather Isaac Bowen Essex as a family burial ground. Located in rural Drury Township in Rock Island County, Ill., the cemetery was overgrown with weeds and long abandoned when Gartner first saw it. Much of its original two-and-a-third acres had been plowed under. Still, "it was the most peaceful place," she recalled. "I just vowed right then that somehow I was going back to fix it up." In 2001, Gartner returned to the area to work. After hacking her way through 6-foot-high weeds, she scrubbed tombstones with water and a brush, made a crude map of the cemetery and researched records at the state library. Along the way, she fell in love with the cemetery - especially after a memorable Fourth of July evening when hundreds of fireflies choreographed their own part to a nearby fireworks display. "They were dancing on the tombstones and the weeds. It was just magical," she said. Since then, Gartner, 54, has made the 500-mile trip once or twice a year to locate and map graves, reattach broken tombstones to their bases and sieve for tombstone fragments, which she plans to put together with the help of how-to books. Home base is a motel room just across the Mississippi River in Iowa, which she turns into an office complete with a computer and a copy machine. Other tools include rakes, shovels, gloves, paper, a camera, Rubbermaid containers and a large garden cart. Getting to the cemetery is part of the adventure, she said. Located a half-mile off the main road, it's surrounded by corn fields and pasture and is barred by two cattle gates. Once there, she often has to contend with sheep and goats grazing on the property. One recalcitrant animal ate the tabs off her license plate, causing her to have to make the nine-hour drive home with expired plates. "I was buying apples, carrots and celery to make him be nice to me," she said. By far the most time-consuming part of the restoration process is learning about those buried at the cemetery, Gartner said. While brick pavers buried on end throughout the area may help mark the sites, most graves don't have headstones. And the sexton's map is missing. Over the years, her search for information has taken her to courthouses, libraries, churches, historical societies and newspapers. A turning point came in 2004, when Gartner met Jean Wistedt, a genealogical researcher from Drury Township, and Dave Moeller, a metal detecting enthusiast and the Illinois City postmaster. The pair has been helping her to research old records and to locate graves using a metal detector and coat hangers as a "witching" device. Gartner said the project is similar to work she has done with the Grand Traverse Area Genealogical Society. The group has inventoried all of the cemeteries in Leelanau County and several in Grand Traverse, according to treasurer Richard Hayes. "No one else is doing it, and it's needed," Hayes said. "A genealogist is a person who cares about these things." Gartner believes the Essex Cemetery contains about 500 graves - from 1841 through the 1930s - including those of Civil War veterans and 23 of her relatives. One is Bowen Essex, a prosperous farmer who was gored by a bull and is buried there along with his first wife. A Traverse City native, Gartner attended local schools through the 10th grade then moved with her family to Grand Rapids in 1967. She returned to Traverse City in 1989 to raise her family. Because of the family connection, she has invested a significant amount of money in the Essex Cemetery project. Besides paying to have the cemetery mowed and sprayed for weeds, she hired a survey company and a lawyer to search its title. Her enthusiasm has spread to the rest of the community, including others who have relatives buried in the cemetery. A clean-up day attracted several participants, and a fundraiser generated enough money to erect a fence around the property. Thanks to a local business, a new sign posted at the gate reads: Essex Cemetery Restoration Project. Now there are so many visitors to the cemetery that Gartner has trouble getting her work done. She plans to write a book on the cemetery and the people buried there. "It's a project that has grown and grown and grown beyond what I had imagined," she said.
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