4-H'ers discover history in Hills cemetery 1997

CULVER, BOEHMER, SCHAEFFER, BERGLUND, COX

Posted By: Mistina Christner (email)
Date: 7/26/2018 at 11:20:28

Source: The Cedar Rapids Gazette 2/23/1997

4-H'ers discover history in Hills cemetery
Restoration project turns into 2-year quest for information
By Leah Rauch

HILLS- Efforts to restore a crumbling, barely noticed rural cemetery began as a simple community service project for members of the Sharon Center 4-H Club.
But imagined images of family life in the mid-19th century motivated club members to extend the project into a two-year quest for information.
They found that information and three members and the leader of the club, known as the Sharon Center Sensations, have presented a book they wrote about the cemetery to the Iowa City Public Library, the Iowa State Historical Society and the Johnson County Historical Museum.
The cemetery, which dates to 1846, is near old Highway 218 outside Hills.
During their research, the authors discovered the land was a cemetery for the family of Henry Earhart, one of the first settlers in Iowa.

The Book details the genealogy of the Earhart family and the club's efforts to restore the cemetery.
Amber Culver, one of the authors, said members first learned about the cemetery while looking for a community service project in 1989.
She said one of the members suggested the group clean the burial sites, which were in desperate need of restoration.
"Basically, it took a whole day to clean it up. It was in really bad shape," Culver, a freshman at Kirkwood Community College, said.
"There was a lot of garbage everywhere, and you couldn't even really see that it was a cemetery because of all the trash."
The youngsters continued to clean the cemetery for about five years before their curiosity caused them to begin their research.
Eight of the nine headstones in the neglected cemetery were marked, so members began looking for information on those people at the State Historical Society of Iowa library and the Johnson County Courthouse.
Author Kally Boehmer said the writers spent numerous hours searching through documents from the mid- to late-19th century.
Although she had to devote a large part of her spare time to the book, Kally said uncovering information about the cemetery was rewarding.
"We looked at census records, old newspapers, marriage records, death records and wills," said Boehmer, a seventh-grader at Mid-Prairie Junior High in Kalona.
"The best part of all of this has been being able to find out about these people and knowing that all these long hours of work were worth something," Boehmer said.
Besides Henry Earhart, at least five other member of the Earhart family - including Henry's first and second wives and three of his four children - are buried in the family cemetery.
Two other marked graves bear the names John and David Schaeffer. The authors could find no connection between the Schaeffers and Earhart family.
"The only thing we could come up with is that the Schaeffer family had been traveling through town and needed a place for burial," Culver said of the mystery.
Boehmer said the group thinks the cemetery also might include several unmarked burial sites.
Henry Earhart, a farmer, was born in Virginia in 1814 and moved to Iowa City, where he resided on Kirkwood Avenue until his death in 1890.
Boehmer and Culver worked with Emily Berglund, a student at Ellsworth Community College and Diana Cox, the club's leader, to write the book.