Yale Cemetery

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Yale Cemetery

Yale Cemetery
Light House Temple-Church of Christ, Pittsburg, adopting the task of restoring the all-black cemetery
C. Cottrell/The Morning Sun

Elder Walter Simpson and Deacon Clarence Grayson of Light House Temple-Church of Christ, Pittsburg, KS. survey damaged headstones at Yale Cemetery, just east of Yale on Wednesday. The church is adopting the task of restoring the all-black cemetery more than 110 graves to a more respectable condition after years of abandonment.

Above, the decaying headstone of Jessie A., son of I. A. & G. Sanders, lies on half buried. Some black cemeteries have been plowed under or remain hidden in the Kansas and Missouri undergrowth.

There are about 20 headstones left in the cemetery, which is located in a farm field east of town, just across the Missouri state border. Omicron Delta Cappa Honor Society and the Black Student Association both of Pittsburg State University will aid in the restoration project

YALE -- A group of Pittsburg State University students are using modern satellite technology to help preserve a piece of the past. Students in Michele Barnaby's introduction to geographic information systems are preparing a computer map of Yale Cemetery.

Debbie Swindle, an administrative specialist for the PSU Department of History, and members of the Lighthouse Temple Church of God in Christ in Pittsburg are working to restore and maintain the cemetery. According to Swindle, the cemetery, located on the Missouri side of the state line on 600th Street, was the burial place for black coal miners and their families from Yale and the surrounding area -- and many of the graves are unmarked.

he church has worked on the upkeep of the cemetery since last spring, but the cemetery's rough terrain caused by sunken graves damaged mowers, prompting Swindle to begin filling the depressions.
While spring rains slowed improvement efforts, Swindle decided to suspend filling in the graves.
"I realized that I was destroying evidence that there is a grave without putting some sort of marker," Swindle said.
She then turned to the geographers for help.

Barnaby, a geography instructor, said she has spent the semester preparing the class's seven students for the project.

"This is their last project for the term and what we are hoping to accomplish is to make a digital, very accurate map of that cemetery so that she can fill in those areas where the ground has subsidized and they can mow around," Barnaby said.

The students embraced the project but expressed some hesitance because they realized the importance of their work, Barnaby said."The students have really taken this serious," she said.

The class is using a global positioning system satellite receiver to map and electronically record the locations of the graves for storage on a computer map.
"What that does is track the points and we are trying to put a point where we think there is a grave," Barnaby said.
The students are also placing flags at the head of the graves.
"By using that technology," Barnaby said, "hopefully we are going to plug it into a computer and produce a digital map that she can have that forever."
The digital map will also contain any information currently known about each grave.
"As soon as we finish the map we plan on going back and filling in the graves but we want to have documentation first where the graves are before we continue on," Swindle said.

Swindle said the cemetery opened in 1893 and the final burial there was in 1963. It sat abandoned for decades before Swindle began researching it in the early 1990s. She said there is evidence of 248 graves. Swindle has confirmed the names of 117 people buried there, with a list of more than 200 more unconfirmed.

Western Coal and Mining Co. founded the cemetery after it brought coal miners in from the South and an active black community formed in southeast Kansas, Swindle said. Many of the miners later moved on to other coal mining regions and the town and cemetery faded.

"I take it for granted that I can go and visit my family's graves but here for years these people have not being able to because the community died out," she said.She said it was overgrown and unkempt for decades.
"You couldn't even see the stones," Swindle said. "It was like walking through a jungle because the weeds were taller than an adult."
Located in Missouri but historically tied to Kansas, preservationists and scholars overlooked the cemetery.
"It had fallen through the cracks as far as being researched on either side," Swindle said.
Swindle said she became interested in the cemetery because she wanted to find some way to document who is buried out there for people who are working on their genealogies.
In the fall of 1990 the brush was burned off the cemetery.
"We were amazed at the rows and rows of unmarked graves," Swindle said.

Some of her findings have been published on the Internet at www.library.pittstate.edu/docs/PSU/yale.html ( bad link)

She is still seeking pictures and information on the cemetery. She can be reached at history@pittstate.edu or (620) 235-4312.
"It's definitely collaborative effort," she said. "There is no way one person could do everything that has been done out there."
Swindle said she is discussing further improvements with the landowner and complimented those working for the cemetery's future.
"Everyone working together is what makes it happen," Swindle said.
Staff Writer Jeff Wells can be reached at jwells@morningsun.net or at (620) 231-2600, Ext. 137.

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