Beloved Community Cemetery Updates

 

On Thursday, April 9, at 7:00 p.m. at they Hyder House, Melissa Timo, Historic Cemetery Specialist with the Office of State Archaeology, will share her expertise in the restoration and care of historic cemeteries. Maintenance is the biggest challenge. Collecting the stories from descendants is the fun part.

On Saturday, April 25, from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., we will clean up the wooded area by removing leaves and limbs. Tombstones, or pieces of tombstones, will be left where they're found. We need blowers, rakes, chain saws, and willing workers. Come for as long as your schedule and stamina permits.

Please let the Church & Society Committee know if you plan to participate in either or both of these events by emailing pgumcchurchsociety@gmail.com.

​

..........

​

The “beloved community” was a dream of Martin Luther King Jr., and is a term used by the United Methodist Church to describe a fair and just society.  When awarded a Peace with Justice grant from the conference Board of Church and Society, the PGUMC Church & Society Committee chose to call its new project the Beloved Community Cemetery.

 

The cemetery behind the church is the legacy of a history that began in the 1840s. The cemetery is segregated by the color of  the skin of those resting there. The section toward the back where the darker skinned ancestors rest has grown into a wooded area where time has left tombstones broken and unreadable.

 

Over the months ahead, we will use the PGUMC cemetery to learn more about the social issues that led to a segregated cemetery. Besides reviving the neglected section, the committee will host lectures, workshops, or classes about issues of race and various other-isms; that is, any system that promotes some humans as less than others.

 

For us now, the beloved community includes the congregation, the neighbors of dogwalkers and playground visitors who use the church grounds, nearby churches, and the descendants of those interred in the cemetery.