UNION TOWNSHIP CEMETERY

The Union Township Cemetery was started as a private cemetery by Albert Blush Frink, who wished to be buried on his own farm. He died 12-18-1891 and was buried, according to his wishes in the area designated. His wife was soon informed that this could not be and so she sold the ground to Union Township for the cemetery.

However, the deed for the family lot was dated Sept. 5, 1896; in the same month four others were recorded and one of those was to Charles Gutzell, who was one member of the Nomadic Tribe.

February 20, 1912 another lot was sold to Charles Gutzell. There is no record of sale, but the cemetery plot shows a lot purchased by H. & E. Jeffrey. About this time all the lots purchased by the Gutzells and Jeffreys were enclosed with a cement base and a foot or so higher cement railing. There was a small ornate gate as an entrance into the lots.

This story, which has piqued the interest of Iowans for years, had its beginning back in 1896 when Alanzo Gutzell, a young man in a wandering, dark-skinned group of travelers, died of tuberculosis in Union Township. The Gutzell group generally camped about a mile south of the Norton place near a stream in the woods on the Frank Thompson place. (this would be a few rods south of the D.A.R. marker for Gopher College). They probably camped there that night, but when they realized the boy was dying, moved him to a clump of willows east of the Norton place because of some superstition they may have had about death occurring at their usual camping ground. In the morning the wagons made ready to move on, leaving the body of Alanzo on a mattress in the road. Frank Riebhoff, who lived just south of the Norton place, stopped the lead wagons and tried to make the drivers understand that Alanzo must be buried. However the law enforcement agencies from Algona had to be called out before the people would do a thing.

The “Old Queen”, as we always called her, claimed they were Catholics, but the priest refused to allow burial in their cemetery, because Alanzo was not given last rites. Just why they chose to purchase a lot in the Union Township Cemetery is not entirely clear, unless it was that the lot was much cheaper and in a remote place. And so, in August, 1896, Alanzo was buried in the Union Township Cemetery.

The Gutzells continued their semi-annual visits to the cemetery on their trips north in the spring and back south in the fall.

In July, 1911, Oliver, a brother of Alanzo, was brought back for burial. This was when the second lot was purchased in the name of Charles Gutzell, the fence added, and perhaps another tree or two set out.

Soon the “Old Queen” died, and with her passing the number who came back each year grew less.

On October 1, 1912, Albert Jeffrey, the 10 year old son of H. & E. Jeffrey, and a grandson of the “Old Queen”, was buried in the family lot. The late Rev. A.H. Wood, then pastor of Good Hope Church, had charge of the services. Each fall Mr. Jeffrey would bring a box containing a hair wreath to be stored at the Frink house during the winter months. In the spring he would call for it, and again it would be placed among the stones and shells which had been some of the playthings of little Albert.

There was a fifth grave, which may have been a child killed by a man grading the road.

On Sunday, March 11, 1923, a sensational prize-winning story written by an Algona girl appeared in the Des Moines Register. It was well-illustrated and a couple of photographs were also used. Soon the Jeffreys returned, very highly-incensed, and took strong exception to the story, claiming they were not and never had been gypsies.

One day a great flock of crows was noticed over the cemetery, and upon investigation it was found that the graves had been opened. The markers, shells and stones were all gone. The date of this happening was not certain, but it was thought to have happened between March 1923 and November 1926.

Time may yet be able to tell whether this is to be written as history of folklore, but whichever it becomes it still remains one of the interesting stories of Kossuth County, and especially Union Township.

Interesting as it is, people must remember this one thought, that the Union Township Cemetery is not and never has been a a “gypsy” cemetery just because five bodies were there for a few years. It is an unfortunate connotation which must be forgotten instead of publicized.

Just because they did purchase lots in the Union Township Cemetery did not make it a “gypsy cemetery” anymore than the purchase of a few lots in any city cemetery anywhere in the state would give people the right to call it a gypsy cemetery instead of its original name.

The trees have grown tall with the passing years, but they and the uneven ground enclosed by the original railing and the closed gate are all that are left to bear mute testimony to the story of the Gutzell and Jeffrey families, who claimed not to be gypsies but did once roam this area.