New trees, landscaping among improvements to cemetery

Another season of outdoor work has ended for volunteers and caretakers of the St. John's and Prairie Home Cemeteries north of New Rockford.

Among the highlights of this year's work is the new landscaping around the Veterans Memorial. Paid for by the Post 30 American Legion Auxiliary, the landscaping adds life to the memorial in the middle of the grounds, which is blanketed by St. Johns to the east and Prairie Home to the west.

Tree planting efforts continue, to replace the many lost in the 2018 wind storm. This year, there were 41 new trees planted in the shelterbelt on the north side of Prairie Home Cemetery, which borders the golf course. Species planted include Common Hackberry, Ivory Silk Japanese Tree Lilac, Thornless Cockspur Hawthorn, Triumph Elm, Redmond Linden and Scotch Pines. In addition, six new memorial trees were planted on the St. John's side.

In Block 3 of Prairie Home Cemetery, all the grave lots were filled in and tombstones leveled.

The Women's Auxiliary Cemetery Association engaged in their annual letter-writing campaign and raised funds to purchase a brand new John Deere utility tractor. This new piece of equipment is important to the work of the caretakers, Jake and Chad Clelland.

Volunteers have also made progress on unmarked graves. Readers may recall that the Transcript published a list of reported unmarked graves, which wascompiled by Evans Funeral Home in the 1990s and then refined by volunteers before it was published last December. Since then, Women's Auxiliary Cemetery Association President Kathy O'Connor has gone through the list and conducted research on each individual, in many cases finding obituaries and discovering their connections to the community. Readers called her with corrections and additions to the information published, and she has refined the list and added interpretive information about the individuals buried.

Watch for a new series coming soon to this newspaper, titled "Ashes to Ashes- Dust to Dust." O'Connor will tell the stories of the buried and note clarifications she has discovered, including those who do have markers. Information about one block will be featured each week, starting with the St. John's side. She also plans to include information about at least one individual that was prominent in New Rockford history in each segment.

If readers have additional information or corrections, they can contact O'Connor by phone at (701) 302-0148 or email [email protected].