Area native Donna Patterson works to restore Old Commerce Cemetery

Donna Patterson has known the Old Commerce Cemetery since childhood, but recently, she's taken it on as a personal mission to bring it back from near ruin to a place people can come to enjoy river views or visit ancestors' graves.

Patterson says Commerce has lost a lot of tax revenue over the years, as the population dwindled and the Mississippi River's floodwaters encroached. Commerce doesn't have a floodwall. There was a buyout. People left. That hurt the town, Patterson says, and the cemetery along with it.

Patterson lives in Scott City now, but Commerce, which is in Scott County, isn't far, she says.

She is involved with Scott City Historical Museum, she says, and that got her wondering about what could be done about the cemetery at Commerce.

Patterson says the cemetery has had several names.

LAURA SIMON ~ lsimon@semissourian.com The Old Commerce Cemetery is seen on Tuesday morning, April 18, 2017, in Commerce, Missouri.

"We think it was the old Methodist church cemetery years ago," she says.

According to her records, the first burial was in 1810, 20 years after the town was founded in 1790.

The cemetery was in sad shape when Patterson started looking into restoration last year, she says.

"The grass was up to my chest when I got there," she says. "I'm 5'3"."

The river's flooding has hurt Commerce, Patterson says, but since the cemetery's on a hill, it isn't going anywhere.

LAURA SIMON ~ lsimon@semissourian.com The Old Commerce Cemetery is seen on Tuesday morning, April 18, 2017, in Commerce, Missouri.

"It breaks my heart," she says. "There are 11 military men, some babies, different people from England are buried there," she says.

"They came here to Commerce, Missouri, and settled," she says.

"It's just really sad," Patterson continues. "It broke my heart. Some trees have fallen, hit the headstones, broke them."

Patterson says one, a baby's headstone with a lamb on it, is fixable, "but it touched my heart. That's the first thing seen when you drive up, that little headstone."

The old wrought-iron fencing is another issue. Patterson says she managed to salvage some of it from where it had fallen into the gully and been damaged by falling trees or rocks.

LAURA SIMON ~ lsimon@semissourian.com The Old Commerce Cemetery is seen on Tuesday morning, April 18, 2017, in Commerce, Missouri.

Patterson says she and other volunteers have been cutting down trees, but some are too big for them to handle. They're also cutting apart logs that have fallen, working them into firewood to sell for more cemetery funds.

Patterson says the roads are washing out, so they're trying to fill those areas with old trees and boulders to divert the flow of water.

"We're really working our tail end off trying to get this done," she says.

There are Civil War soldiers buried in the cemetery, state senators from Scott County, Patterson says, and several people from the Anderson family, which was an important family in Commerce's history.

"There's supposed to be a colonel up there but I haven't found him yet," she says.

LAURA SIMON ~ lsimon@semissourian.com The Old Commerce Cemetery is seen on Tuesday morning, April 18, 2017, in Commerce, Missouri.

"About 800 people are buried there altogether," Patterson says, "but we don't have that many headstones. We do have a pretty good list going" of the people buried in the cemetery, she says.

Several graves are probably unmarked, Patterson says, and that leads to a big puzzle. Broken headstones are another challenge -- vandalism and the ravages of time were both at play, she says.

"We have military headstones going down the side of the hill, chasing headstones down in the gully already," Patterson says. "We're doing what we can but we just need more donations and more people to volunteer to help clean it up."

Patterson says her plans are not grand, but she wants to make the cemetery into something beautiful again. "I want to have gravel put down," she says, for a road through the cemetery, and she's exploring options including adding park benches between the cemetery and the river to create a park area.

Restoration isn't cheap. Patterson says she started with an initial $1,100 she raised in eight weeks, and she's created a fund for the cemetery, but they're spending money almost as fast as they can raise it.

LAURA SIMON ~ lsimon@semissourian.com The Old Commerce Cemetery is seen on Tuesday morning, April 18, 2017, in Commerce, Missouri.

Patterson says they need tools and materials for restoring the headstones, some of which are massive, requiring four strong men to move them.

"It will take quite a bit of money to get these headstones fixed -- some of them are amazing," she added.

"It's just something I felt like I needed to do," Patterson says. "When I go up there and work, it's not work to me. it's just something to my heart. This place needs me and needs to be loved and cared for and respected. Everybody deserves that."