WOODLAND TOWNSHIP CEMETERIES

JOHNSON, ADAIR, MERICLE, PATTON

Posted By: Nancee Seifert (email)
Date: 10/16/2014 at 13:02:56

WOODLAND TOWNSHIP CEMETERIES.

Thanks so much, Meredith, for sharing this information... I can't imagine
trimming around all the headstones by hand -- GO MOM!! That must have taken
a lot of time. I give heartfelt praise to all of you local folks who took
care of the cemeteries - for such a small amount of pay. Hindsight is
always perfect -- but I should have had you give me the directions. Did you
know Miles Leeper back then? He and his wife mow and trim the cemeteries
now. He said he'd lived where he does, all his life. (He has a zero turn
John Deere mower and his wife uses the gas string trimmer).. I got a good
laugh out of your mower catching on fire -- even though it probably wasn't
funny at the time... My Best Always, Nancee
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Nancee:

Glad you enjoyed the cemeteries of Woodland Township. Back in the early
50's my mom and I were the caretakers of the 5 cemeteries in Woodland
Township for a few years. We had to put in a bid each spring with the
trustees to win the job. Ususally about $325 dollars for the summer. The
township furnished the mower and we furnished the labor. I mowed and Mom
trimed around the stones. Trimming was quite a job before string trimmers
so I had the good deal.

I remember one time while mowing the Beavers cemetery the mower caught on
fire. Fire was shooting out of the vent hole in the gas cap about 4 feet.
I hauled out of there and watched until it was over. I was glad to see
that one go. It had a Clinton engine and they sucked. Got a new one with a
Briggs and Stratton.

As you mentioned, the Shields and Lentz cemeteries were on dead-end roads.
The Shields was just west of the Bert Adair place. A lane on the west
side of the Shields cemetery went south to an old bachelors place, Charlie
Johnson. He never had a car. Always went to Woodland in his wagon behind a
team.

The road to the Lentz cemetery was a through road at one time. When I was
little it ended about a quartere of a mile or so south of the cemetery.
The last family I remember living at the end of the road was the Mericle
family. The Pattons (Deles and Velma and their kids Nile, Gary, Doris, Fay
and Dorothy) lived on the corner where the road went south.

Meredith Johnston
Spencer