DAY SPENT AT CEMETERY IS REWARDING

On Saturday March 25, the telephone rang at 7 a.m. It was Mary Daume.

"Some of us are going to meet at 9 a.m. to work at the Arnsberg Cemetery. Do you think you can come, too?"

"Mary, Vernon has his head immersed in income tax and I can't come either."

Then I thought, "That little crew of workers are accomplishing so much They need helping hands to cheer them on."

My daughter, Donna Criddle and I, were soon t the cemetery, being greeted by Leonard Adams and Paul Lowes. They were scattering straw over the bare spots where seed have previously been applied.

Paul showed us that Vernon's great-grandparents, John and Caroline Kiepe's flowerboxes were sunken. The soil should be one inch from he top of the granite flowerboxes.

We pulled out the henbit weeds and removed the periwinkle, a little blue flower, often found in cemeteries. Paul dumped in a wheelbarrow of dirt. Then Dennis Hennecke muscled in three more loads. Donna scattered the mulch on top so weeds couldn't grow. Little spots were cleared and periwinkle reset so that someday the graves would be beautiful.

Paul and Norman Tuschoff showed us one of the most beautiful tombstones. It was gleaming white with a willow tree at the top. Before the men worked his amazing feat, it had been buried about two feet and broken into little and large pieces. They cleaned the pieces and used special concrete to join them. White pipes down the sides were filled with concrete for strength.

The name on the stone was "Enry Hoffman." Where the "H" should have been, there was a hole. Donna said that was a peephole. Was it for us to peep into the grave or Henry to peep out? They couldn't find the little piece. Paul and Norman were happy to show us that the underbrush had been cleared out of the woods. I exclaimed that I was glad I wasn't there for I was allergic to poison ivy. A man I know went tot he doctor and got a $90 poison ivy shot and $40 medicine.

Paul was happy, though, that the woods contained no poison ivy.

Donna and I saw something in he cemetery that we couldn't believe. There are many unmarked graves. Well, Paul has an unusual gift. He uses two-yard-long shiny wires with bout six inches of them bent down for handles. He walks along with the wires straight ahead, about shoulder height and a foot apart. He's hunting for lost graves. When eh walks over lost graves or even marked graves, the wires suddenly cross up to his chest. He is like the Coast Guard which can detect the six foot of disturbed soil of long ago graves.

A few months earlier May was digging around in the cemetery. She found a small partial circle of stones. It dawned on her -- she must have jumped up and down -- she had found the old cistern.

You might think just a few stones -- no big deal, but Mary has been leaving no stone unturned to find why the town of Arnsberg disappeared. She has people searching their attics. One of Mary's assets is her memory of the ancestry of her friends. She can tell the descendants of many buried in the Arnsberg Cemetery also.

Donna and I have to go back tot eh cemetery again for we rescued a beautiful six-inch cedar tree from a grave and planted it inside the west woods in a bed of periwinkle. Now we have to check its progress.

We turned around. Everyone, plus Leonard's big truck and a pickup were gone. No! From behind the tombstone came a lady -- Val Tuschoff. Her back was causing her hip to give a very painful limp. We had to admire her. She couldn't' do heavy work, but she could clean stones.

We found that the crew had gone to Mary's farm, which has a spring. By this spring lived Indians. The pioneers moved in. A plantation house was built with lave labor. The many rocks underneath were laboriously carved by slaves. The house decayed and the rocks used under other buildings. They, too, passed beyond use there and placed well-like in an oval ring for a flowered around the new cemetery sign.

One rock from an old smokehouse had 1904 etched on it and was placed in a visible area.

Everyone left weary of body, but with highs elf-esteem. They had done worthwhile work.

Is it true that some unknown day a great choir will sing forth "What a day that will be when my Jesus comes to me."?