Foreston Cemetery

Foreston Cemetery is located in Forest City Township. From Lime Springs you take County Road A23 East to Quail Avenue, turn left (North) and proceed to 25th Street, turn right (East) and proceed for a short distance. The cemetery is on the right side of the road.

Exact data on the establishment of the Foreston Cemetery is yet unknown, however, Forest City was considered the center of the Welsh community in the 1860s. The oldest (known) headstone is marked in 1856 (Albert Miner, row 5, #8). The cemetery was in much use all during the late 1800s but there were only six internments in the first 10 years of the 20th century and only one burial in 1999 has taken place since 1924.

For many years the Foreston cemetery was neglected. In the mid 1970s the Lime Springs Boy Scouts began the task of cleaning up the cemetery and restoring the broken headstones to their original location. Thereafter the Lime Springs Boy Scouts mowed the cemetery three or four times a year.

Clarence and Donna Ihns volunteered to take on the task of mapping and measuring the cemetery in 1999, as the Foreston Cemetery was one of the older cemeteries in Howard County with no real information available. In 2000 Gene Pisney from the Lime Springs/Foreston community began a voluntary labor of love with an intensive restoration of headstones and the cemetery grounds. Many headstones have been repaired and cleaned. Melba Jenkins assisted with headstone readings and transcriptions, and photographed of all the headstones in 2002.

The data shown in the Foreston Cemetery Listing was gathered as accurately as possible even though many of the markers are difficult (if not impossible) to read. Many of the markers are in the Welsh dialect and contain Welsh inscriptions. Photographs of all the markers have been placed on the Iowa Gravestones in Howard County website. If you would like detail photos taken or more detail information about any of the headstones you may request this from the County Coordinator.