Cemetery survey project helps students develop research skills, community connections

Cemetery survey project helps students develop research skills, community connections

Through census records, newspaper archives and other genealogical materials, Miller learned Wilson, who was born in 1812 in Pike County, Ohio, moved with her family to Nodaway County in 1864 as one of the earliest settlers in the area. She died in 1902 at the age of 89.

"She was known for her strong Christian faith, dedication to her family and respected role in the community," said Miller, a sophomore from Omaha, Nebraska, who is pursuing a bachelor's degree in social studies-history with a minor in public history and museum studies. "Newspaper accounts described her as a kind and intelligent woman who left a lasting impression on those around her. Her life reflected the experiences of many 19th-century settlers who built communities through perseverance, faith and hard work."

The research was part of a multi-year series of cemetery projects, led by Dr. Elyssa Ford, a professor of history at Northwest, to digitize records and create biographies of the people buried in cemeteries across Nodaway County's rural landscape.

Ford began the project several years ago by studying grave markers at Oak Hill East Cemetery in Maryville with an interest in providing biographical information to family researchers beyond just the indexes of names typically provided by cemeteries.

She continued the project with students majoring in public history and local history as well as students in Northwest's honors program. Their research, which is limited to people who died before 1950, is published on websites for the Ohio Cemetery and Oak Hill East Cemetery.

Ford, who is departing Northwest this summer to join the faculty at Washington State University, hopes students who worked on the project honed skills in historical research, source analysis and writing. She also hopes they developed a sense of community by learning about Nodaway County residents.

"It's a really useful activity for students because they're engaging directly with materials from the time period and figuring out how to do research, and then also learning about the community where they live," Ford said.

Taryn Clevenger, a junior radiologic sciences major from Kansas City, Missouri, conducted research about Joseph Thurman Graves. He was born in 1865 in Ohio and later moved with his family to Burlington Junction, where he met and married his wife, Emma. They had seven children, although two died at birth.

Clevenger learned that most of the couple's adult lives were spent in Wyoming on an 800-acre ranch where they raised cattle and crops. Local newspaper archives, however, detailed their frequent returns to Burlington Junction to visit family and take care of business. Thurman, as he went by his middle name, died in 1941, and a car accident caused Emma's death in 1950.

"It helped me build stronger research skills, especially using the Northwest library resources and learning how to dig deeper into things like census records and old newspapers," Clevenger said of the project. "It also helped me learn how to take small pieces of information and connect them to understand someone's life as a whole."

Like Clevenger, Aura Lynch, a native of Gretna, Nebraska, who graduated from Northwest this spring with a bachelor's degree in psychology, said she gained an appreciation for the research skills that historians use regularly - research skills that are different from those employed in other career fields.

Simultaneously, students learned about some of the symbolism embedded in headstones and the architecture in cemeteries - from obelisk designs to depictions of olive branches, lambs and broken branches.

"Participating in history research is a unique art that we take for granted," Lynch said. "I can Google facts about famous figures because historians have done the difficult work to make this information widely available."

Lynch focused her research on Flora Newlon, an active Maryville resident and member of a farming family. Lynch learned Newlon was elected to a lifetime membership in the Order of the Eastern Star, a co-ed Freemason-affiliated organization. She was born in Iowa in 1856 and died in Maryville in 1949 at the age of 93.

"You have a limited amount of information - a name and where an individual died - and you have to find out as much as you can about them," Lynch said. "It also cultivated an appreciation for and enjoyment of this experience. It was fun to piece together someone's life and learn all you can about someone."

Elaina Holtkamp, a junior elementary education major from Mount Pleasant, Iowa, studied Rolla A. Dicks. Born in in 1887, Dicks grew up in a working-class family and took on responsibilities early in his life after his father's death. He worked as a laborer in brick yards and later in bridge construction to help support his family.

Holtkamp learned Dicks survived a serious workplace accident in 1917 while helping build a bridge near the cemetery. A year later, he was drafted into World War I and served in France as part of the 313th Engineers. He died of pneumonia in October 1918, just weeks before the war ended.

"This project helped me strengthen my research and storytelling skills by using sources like census records and newspapers to piece together a person's life," Holtkamp said. "It also pushed me to think critically about how small details connect to larger historical events."

Students said the project helped them realize how seemingly ordinary people played important roles in shaping the communities that make up northwest Missouri.

"History is not just about major events, but about ordinary people and their experiences," Holtkamp said. "Studying Rolla showed me how one individual's life can reflect bigger themes like family responsibility, hard work and the impact of war."

Miller added, "Cemeteries are valuable historical resources because they preserve local stories that might otherwise be forgotten. They provide insight into families, migration patterns, religious beliefs and the lives of ordinary people who helped shape their communities. By studying gravestones and the records connected to them, I realized that cemeteries serve as important links to the past and help keep community history alive for future generations."