Nodaway Cemetery Kids Dig Up History
When summer starts, so does “the digging season” in graveyards across Page County.
“The kids use that phrase, and I tell them it sounds kind of creepy since we’re working in cemeteries,” said Trish Okamoto, curator of the Nodaway Valley Historical Museum in Clarinda. “But they have a point: We’re digging up history about people who are buried there.”
Trish’s middle and high school students — a group of young historians known as the Nodaway Cemetery Kids — are part of her museum’s “Adopt a Grave” project, which combines preservation and research. It started a few years ago with a tour through a Clarinda cemetery and grew from there. The students wanted to know more.
So Trish took them to pioneer cemeteries and other graveyards across Page County to decide which ones needed the most help. So far they’ve worked in the Clarinda, Hawleyville and Davis cemeteries, and they’ll tend to the Butler Cemetery this year — mostly during their summer break.
“We’ll be cleaning and digging up stones and replacing what needs to be replaced,” she said. “We’ll weed and clean out flowers, and we’ll scrub grave markers. But the kids know they can’t use anything on a gravestone that they can’t use on their teeth. So they have their own set-up and supplies.”
Along the way, the kids adopt their own stones, as Trish calls them, and check on them throughout the year while learning about the people who were laid to rest underneath.
One of those stories emerged a few years ago when a participant adopted the grave of Flossie Schenck Stafford, who died at age 19 during the Spanish influenza epidemic in 1918. Her infant son, Donald LaVerne Stafford, was adopted by Flossie’s sister, “but we didn’t know she changed his last name — or what it was changed to — so we were kind of stuck,” Trish said.
But the group shared the information with contacts around town and discovered the baby’s adopted last name was King.
“And I was like, Vernie? … Our Vernie? Vernie King? He was 98 years old and still lived right here,” Trisha said. “So we asked him to come out for one of the cemetery walks and sit by his mother’s grave and share her story. The kids were fascinated.”
The group also dug up another story that touched Trish in a more personal way. They adopted the grave of a woman named Stella Spicer, who had died of cancer in her 60s after raising 10 kids on her own. She lost two sons to World War II: Dean Spicer died during the war and is buried beside her, and Clarence Dennie Spicer died from his wounds after the war.
But another son, Herb, served overseas and returned to the States to become a high school history teacher. He was a longtime mentor to the journalist Tom Brokaw.
“We contacted him, and he came all the way from Nevada to visit,” Trisha said. “He sat with the kids, and they were mesmerized. He’s in his mid-80s and he brought a photo of Stella with her laundry.”
Trish added: “He calls me every two weeks or so and says, ‘Hello, Mother,’ and I say, “Hello, my Herby.’ He’s a donor to the program now.”
As the Cemetery Kids work through this year’s digging season, they’ll re-map their cemeteries using GPS coordinates that will help them — and future researchers — identify the location of each grave. They’re using a free website at www.findagrave.com.
“So if someone is here from New York, they could go to the Hawleyville Cemetery and use the free app, hit the tombstone of their family member, and it will GPS them right to the right stone because these kids use their technology,” Trish said.
Right now, a dozen students and 20 adults participate, but they still have plenty of work to do — and new recruits to do it.
“Really, the kids are the ones who get the adults out there,” Trish said. “The best part is that any community can do this. All they need is somebody to get it started, and it takes on a life of its own.”
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The Nodaway Cemetery Kids will discuss the innovative program with Trish Okamoto during one of the many sessions at this year’s Preserve Iowa Summit, set for June 8–11 in Fort Dodge.
— Jeff Morgan, Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs
