My sister, Barb, and I visited Cambria County for the first time in 1998 when we attended the 99th Anniversary Varner reunion. On Saturday, we visited a number of cemeteries, taking pictures of the various headstones of Varners and related kin. Dunmire Cemetery was easy enough to find and Grandview Cemetery was as easy as taking a Chicago L to Wrigley Field. Mt. Hope Cemetery was almost as easy to find. What eluded us was Mt. Hebron Cemetery, which we knew was close to Mt. Hope but was not along any of the roads that we drove. As darkness closed in the after hours of searching, we finally gave up and, instead, went to dinner.
The next day was the big reunion. It was our first time in Cambria County, so we were delighted to meet dozens of cousins. We spent our time chatting with everyone, many of whom were as curious about their cousins from the midwest as we were about them. One fellow that we met was a fellow genealogy researcher and he claimed to know exactly where the missing cemetery was located, and offered to show us the place. After the end of the reunion, we followed our cousin down the road past South Fork, down to Ragers Corners, where we turned right going back towards Mt. Hope, where we had been just the day before. A hundred yards beyond the intersection, just beyond a grove of trees, our cousin slowed and turned onto what appeared to be a dirt driveway. A street sign read "Scout Road." We drove slowly down Scout Road, trying to be respectful of the few homes that lined what was really more of an extended driveway than a road.
Moments later, we pulled up in front of a hand-painted sign that read:
The three of us stared in amazement at what was before us. Other than the sign, there was nothing there to indicate that this was a cemetery. The grove was ringed by a number of massive old growth trees and, growing in the center, were younger trees and a nearly impenetrable thicket of thorns, bushes, and weeds. At first, finding the graves was an arduous task requiring us to wade through the ticket with our arms raised up above our bodies to minimize thorn cuts and so that we could catch swinging branches from the person ahead. After a few minutes, we found the tops of some headstones sticking out from the brush. Pushing aside as much of the flora as we could, we began taking photographs of the headstones, many of which were in excellent condition despite their age. Perhaps, this was because they were protected by the plant growth and overhanging trees.
The Varner headstones were all found relatively close to the cemetery entrance, an entrance only by virtue of the sign placement. Further back, at the back end of the site and to the left, under reasonably open ground due to the dense overhanging trees, were most of the Custer graves. Aside from the Varners and Custers, and a few other family names, there were not many graves in the cemetery. In fact, the number of shallow depressions that were found showed that many graves had been dug up and relocated. Our cousin told us that those people had been mostly relocated to Mt. Hope Cemetery. Small American flags placed by certain headstones which also had bronze veteran markers indicated that, in spite of the overgrown status of the cemetery, that this place still received a yearly visit from the veterans organizations in the area.
As we left the cemetery, a man who lived in the home across from the cemetery came out and greeted us. He was quite friendly and inquisitive about our being there as he had seen few people visit the cemetery in all the years that he had been living there. He explained to us the reason for the nicely painted sign. His son, needed a project for his Eagle Scout badge, decided to lead a project to clean up the old cemetery a number of years before. The Scouts went in and cut down all the vines and thorns, and made the place presentable. They even painted the sign that now graces the once-more overgrown graveyard.
Mt. Hebron Cemetery is now owned by the county after Mt. Hope Church abandoned the property several decades ago. It, like many other small cemeteries across America, may be in danger from both development and ruin from decay. Counties are hard pressed to maintain abandoned cemeteries and the pressure from taxpayers to restore the prpperty to the tax rolls is strong. Only the pressure exerted by people who respect their ancestors and make their feelings known to the lawmakers can save these sites from destruction.
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