[AT] funny..sorry long

H. L. Staples hlstaples at mcloudteleco.com
Sat Oct 28 19:30:12 PDT 2006


 
Good story Bear, Thanks for sharing. my Grandson Jon is making good progress
toward his Eagle Scout. 
 
H. L. Staples
McLoud, Oklahoma
USA
 
On 10/28/2006 8:39:24 PM, Bill "Bear" Hood (mmman at netscape.com) wrote: >
Farmer and Larry > I am not into genealogy, but I really feel these old
cemeteries > need to be preserved and vandalism kept curtailed. I like to
walk > around, read the headstones and get a feeling for the stories buried
with > these ancestors. > > When my son was 15 and working on his Eagle
Scout, his project was to > restore a remote West Texas cemetery. This was
the Oak Creek Community > graveyard in western Nolan County. It had 72
graves dating from 1879 to > the 1950s. The fences were in poor
repair--barbed wire on 2 sides--and > livestock were often seen grazing
there. It was a beautiful location on > the east side of the creek and
gently sloping to the west with live oak > motts scattered. All of the fence
lines were growing up in mesquite and > prickly pear. > > > Brad's project
was to fill in the sunken graves, reset fallen stones, and > rebuild the
fences. Only a few family sites were being cared for by > living families.
He called a meeting of all interested descendants and the > widow of a local
large ranch family, whose parents and grandparents > were interred there,
offered to underwrite the cost of fencing. I > hauled over 29 yards of fill
dirt and furnished a skid loader to start > the leveling. Scouts and
volunteer adults were organized over 5 Saturday work days. > > During the
first work day, another local rancher with no ties to the cemetery. >
offered to bring his dozer and push out the brushy fence rows. The iron >
fence in front was removed in order to facilitate machine work with >
damaging the fence. We brought out our compressor and potandsand blasted the
fence on another day and primed and painted it with Boy Scouts. > > > The
end results was a level, clean, manicured grounds with a new fence and > new
gate sign courtesy of another family. The community gathered on the > 3rd of
July, 1984 an
 



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