Indianola Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) Cemeteries

INDIANOLA IOOF CEMETERY is located about 480 feet south of the Indianola corporation line on both sides of Highway 65-69 in the northeast quarter of the northeast quarter of Section 36 in Lincoln Township.

The oldest burying ground in Indianola was known as the Old City Cemetery. The first burial in this cemetery was probably made about 1849. The early graves were marked with simple wooden markers, which soon rotted away, or were not marked at all. There was no plat of the cemetery nor rules to govern its use so relatives and friends had the privilege of burying their loved ones wherever they chose. At first the cemetery was covered by a thick growth of trees, underbrush and weeds. During the early 1880s, the brush and weeds were cleared away and later many of the trees were removed. The Indianola City Cemetery was conveyed to the public on August 19, 1899 and is recorded in Plat Book 1, page 101. Old City Cemetery records were destroyed by fire in 1907.

An Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) Cemetery of two acres was purchased around 1857 and was located one-half mile south of the center of the village of Indianola. At that time there were seven graves of early pioneers in the cemetery and three of them were unidentified. This original plat of ground for the IOOF Cemetery joined the City Cemetery on the east. In 1865 four acres of ground were purchased to add to the IOOF Cemetery and in 1878 more land was bought to bring the total to ten acres. On November 6, 1915, fifty-six lots ten feet by twenty-two feet with a four foot alley numbered from 561 to 616 were added to a Manoah section of the IOOF Cemetery along the north side of the original area with a twenty-two foot drive.

A list of names and death dates (and/or burial dates) for this cemetery was compiled in 2010 by Harvey W. Henry from original records of Merrill D. Butler, IOOF Custodian and Caretaker. Mr. Henry allowed this list to be available on the Warren County GenWeb site. Harvey Henry died in 2011. In 2014 birth dates were added by Karon King, Warren County GenWeb Coordinator.

Much of this history was copied from the book, Cemetery and Death Records of Warren County, Iowa, Warren County Genealogical Society, Missouri: Walsworth Publishing Company, 1980.

A cemetery map was drawn by Harvey W. Henry with the assistance of Merrill D. Butler and a Google aerial view of the Indianola IOOF Cemetery shows the outline.

View records submitted to the Iowa Gravestone Photo Project for the Indianola IOOF Cemetery.