Time, elements not kind to historic African-American cemetery near Dutchtown

Shady Grove Cemetery began in the 1800s as a burial site for slaves, former slaves and their children in Cape Girardeau County.

At the end of a county road off Highway 74 near Dutchtown, the cemetery now stands in peaceful remembrance of those who lived and died.

The cemetery doesn't have official records going back to the first burial, but Louise Duncan, 86, of Cape Girardeau said her father and both grandfathers each worked as sexton or caretaker for the cemetery. African-Americans in Cape Girardeau County were buried at Shady Grove Cemetery when the region still was racially segregated.

Duncan said she once set out to write down the names of all the people she could remember being buried there, and the list came to about 200 people, including about 70 of her relatives and ancestors.

Only about 50 graves are marked, and many of the markers don't have names, said Elroy Kinder, the current caretaker of the property.

Elroy Kinder poses for a photo at Shady Grove Cemetery Friday in Dutchtown. Shady Grove, named after the former Shady Grove School, is an African American cemetery that dates back to the late 1800s, with at least 240 confirmed burials.Andrew J. Whitaker

Kinder said he began working on the site in about 2009. At the time, the cemetery was overgrown in brambles, weeds and junk trees so thick, he said he couldn't get in at all.

"For the first two or three years, we had a lot of people come out to help," Kinder said.

Local historian Frank Nickell had a group of Southeast Missouri State University students help out twice over the last several years, Kinder said. The students helped map the cemetery, using imaging tools to find grave shafts and disturbed earth.

All told, Kinder said, there are about 240 grave sites that have been discovered, but that doesn't tell the whole story.

Several unmarked graves are in the surrounding woods, maybe as far as 150 feet onto private property, Kinder said.

White crosses mark burials at Shady Grove Cemetery in Dutchtown.Andrew J. Whitaker

Furthermore, one grave shaft is not necessarily one person's resting place, Kinder added.

Duncan agrees. She said she remembers some women who died in childbirth being buried with their stillborn child, for instance.

More children and infants are buried in an area between the cemetery and an old logging road, Kinder said, indicating an area mounded over with periwinkle, referred to as "Jesus' Garden."

Duncan said she could remember at least two infants in her extended family buried in that area.

Duncan best remembers the cemetery on Decoration Day, now known as Memorial Day.

A tombstone of Eugene Anthony is seen Friday at Shady Grove Cemetery in Dutchtown.Andrew J. Whitaker

"It was like a picnic," she said, with the women bringing food, the men working to clear the cemetery of encroaching vines and brambles and children playing.

Duncan said food would be laid out on the floor of the old Colored Abernathy School, where children were educated and church services sometimes were held, at the cemetery's entrance.

The building deteriorated and has been gone for decades, Duncan said.

The cemetery's history is evident, with at least one veteran of the Civil War and World War I and II. Their stones are legible, but leaning.

"Graves do tend to fall in," Kinder said.

Trees do some damage as well. In April, a tree about three feet in diameter fell almost directly across the dividing line between the older and newer sections of the cemetery.

It didn't do as much damage as it could have, Kinder said, but it was enough.

Kinder said he hopes the volunteer who's cutting the tree away, piece by piece, will be done soon, although he's already cut a section wide enough to allow their mower.

The graves in the older section all face east, Kinder said, toward a pond at the foot of the hill. In the newer section toward the back of the property, the graves face more northeast, Kinder said.

Several graves were marked using concrete blocks, bricks and even a railroad tie cut into lengths that now stand not quite two feet high.

"Of course, there are no names on those," Kinder said.

That makes identification next to impossible, he said. Although the cemetery association has a list of people buried there, they don't know where each person is.

Kinder said he hopes the cemetery eventually will be designated as a state historic site.

For now, he and other volunteers are keeping the cemetery clear, leaving trees and graves as they are.

"We do what we can," Kinder said. "There is a lot of work to be done."

mniederkorn@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3630

Pertinent address: County Road 211, Dutchtown, Mo.