CONWAY Cemetery named to national register

RIVER VALLEY and OZARK AREA — Eight-year-old Maude Ingram was the first person buried in the Oak Grove Cemetery in Conway on July 11, 1881, shortly after it was organized.

Almost 130 years later, hard work by members of the cemetery board paid off when the oldest portion of the cemetery was named to the National Register of Historic Places.

The cemetery’s board members don’t think it’s strange to call the grave markers and monuments in that area of the cemetery “beautiful.”

They believe the 24-acre cemetery on Bruce Street near Cantrell Field reflects outstanding examples of funerary art from the Victorian era.

“A majority of the older monuments found in the historic section display examples of funerary imagery, including birds, books, flowers, clasped hands, fingers pointing upward, ivy, lambs,” wrote board member Chris Odom in his proposal to the National Register.

Odom spearheaded the effort for the cemetery to be nationally recognized.

“It’s a fairly involved process,” Odom said. “During that time when we submitted our information to the state, they came out to the cemetery and took pictures. They added some research about specific tombstones.”

However, Odom did most of the research himself.

His sources included information from local news outlets, the Faulkner County Historical Society and personal interviews with relatives of pioneers buried in the cemetery.

“I felt like I was back at Hendrix. I was a history major at Hendrix, so I really had to blow the cobwebs out of that part of my brain,” Odom said.

On Nov. 4, after presenting his research to the state board and the National Park Service, Odom learned the cemetery made the list.

“When we got listed, it made me really proud of the cemetery and of the work we did to get it on there,” he said.

President of the board Chris Spatz said the designation will make the cemetery eligible for grants and other governmental funds.

Odom said the Oak Grove Cemetery is a private institution currently funded by lot sales, a voluntary tax collected by the Faulkner County tax collector and donations.

While board members haven’t made any decisions about where the potential funds will be used, they have several ideas.

“We have some brick pillars that need some attention,” Spatz said.

In recent years, several new features have been added and improvements made at the cemetery, including a gazebo in 2005 and a bronze plaque listing the history of the cemetery in 2007.

Board members said the cemetery’s goal is to preserve history.

“It’s got a lot of Faulkner County history and especially Conway history,” board member Patricia Thessing said. “These names that you see on buildings and all, they are all out there.”

Thessing said many of Conway’sfounding fathers and important figures are buried in the cemetery. Famous early burials at Oak Grove include former Hendrix College president Stonewall Anderson in 1928 and Confederate Army soldier George Washington Bruce in 1919.

Several former Confederate soldiers were laid to rest in Oak Grove’s original 10 acres. They can be identified by the bronze stars on their grave markers.

The cemeter y hosts an annual event honoring these cemetery residents, during which Conway residents play the parts of the former Confederate soldiers, Spatz said.

The cemetery’s board members are interested in continuing the tradition in the future. They plan to host an event this fall in which high school students will play the part of Conway’s pioneers.

“Small groups will go from gravesite to gravesite, where these students are playing the parts,” Spatz said.

Spatz is in charge of selling lots at Oak Grove, which is still an active cemetery.

“There are funerals out there all the time,” Thessing said.

She encourages interested Conway residents to visit the cemetery to view the unique grave markers.

“At a time when things are disappearing all over the country, it’s just kind of nice to have some things that remain,” Thessing said.

- czilk@ arkansasonline.com

River Valley Ozark, Pages 135 on 02/28/2010

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