Stafford Historical Society working to restore 19th-century grave potomaclocal.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from potomaclocal.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
| Credit: Woodland cemetery cleanup volunteers
Over at Woodland, a dedicated group of volunteers had already begun making headway, including Kathleen Harrell, a first-grade teacher at Shady Grove Elementary School.
Harrell tells PEOPLE she was shocked to discover two years ago that Ashe was buried in Richmond, and that her surprise inspired her to dig deeper into the local, long-forgotten cemeteries.
An initial trip to Woodland shocked her: I saw grass six feet tall. I saw briars. I could tell that they were headstones, but they were completely covered. I just felt like I had to do something, she recalls.
After rounding up family and friends, she managed to clear some trees, and soon found herself returning each weekend with a growing group to uncover headstones, pick up trash, mow grass and remove fallen trees. Both she and Harris also credit the efforts of volunteer John
Julia Bina of Minnesota uses a machete to cut a large vine wrapped around a tree in Evergreen Cemetery. Ms. Bina leads a group of nine young people with the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps who have been working since Thanksgiving to help clear vegetation and overgrowth from the historic cemetery. Photo by Jeremy Lazarus
Drive into historic Evergreen and East End cemeteries, and it is immediately evident that the 12 years of restoration work is paying off.
The vines, weeds and other overgrowth is gone from large areas of the neighboring African-American cemeteries that date to the 1890s.
Instead of the mowed lawn look of modern cemeteries, these are more naturalistic places, with the headstones and marked graves â some elaborate and others modest â clearly visible and large, open pathways.