CEMETERY MAP

TRANSCRIPTION

Evergreen Cemetery in Anita, Iowa was organized in May, 1879 when four men formed a non-profit association for the purpose of buying land and selling lots for burial purposes. The four men were Levi Huff, Horace Denton, L. P. Frost and Charles H. Whitmore. The plot was later sold to the Evergreen Cemetery Association and three parcels of land have been added to the original ground. It is located near the center of the west half of Section 22. The first cemetery, almost due south of the present one, was south of Turkey Creek on what is now Gilbert Wehrman's farm. There is still one stone left here with the name, AFTON, Died Feb. 14, 1879, and also places where bodies have been exhumed. This is in Sec. 27. A ladies' auxiliary looked after the maintenance for a number of years. There is now a perpetual care fund which provides the necessary funds.

The first burial was Jay McMahon in 1880. The first burial in the new part of the cemetery was Dr. H. E. Campbell, who set my broken collar bone when I was about eight years old. A babyland was established in 1966 and is used for infants. In 1977 there had been 2,585 burials in this cemetery.

A stage coach inn was started by a Dr. G. S. Morrison, the first white settler in that area, in Section 29, or Section 32. A cemetery was supposedly started here. However, I can find no information as to its location or number of burials. On a recent visit to the Wiota Cemetery, I found Dr. Morrison's grave, his wife's, Lura, grave (an early township in that area was named Lura) and a child's grave.

Evergreen Cemetery is located at the east edge of Anita: 75233 White Pole Road. This cemetery was walked by the Cass County Genealogical Society (CCGS) in the summer of 1982, and it was re-walked and updated in the summer of 1985 by Marietta Peterson and Berneice Ihrke for the CCGS. In 2015 Carolyn DeLay re-walked, transcribed and photographed the cemetery as an update for the Cass County Genealogical Society.

Contributed by Carolyn DeLay and the Cass County Genealogical Society, February, 2016.