I got burned again today. Every once in a while, I prepare to write a story, only to find out that the date included in our German Family Tree is incorrect. Today, I thought a birth date for the main character was May 8th, but I just discovered it was actually May 9th. At least I am not at a total loss. That story will be told tomorrow.

Today, I will compose this short post describing an activity that went on at the Trinity Lutheran Cemetery here in Altenburg yesterday. Recently this congregation, of which I am a member, chose to set up a cemetery committee that was charged with the task of dealing with several issues that require attention at our cemetery. That committee decided its first task was going to be the beginning of some clean-up and maintenance efforts. Yesterday, a small group of Trinity members showed up at the cemetery for a work day.

First of all, let me say that several months ago, some new signs were made and installed on the gateposts of our cemetery. The photo of the gate that is on our cemetery’s Findagrave page shows the old signs.

Here is what the new signs look like. There is one on each gatepost.

One of the tasks that was accomplished yesterday was the cleaning of the white fence surrounding much of this cemetery. Along with an appropriate cleanser, a power sprayer was used to get the job done.

Several gentlemen on the work crew went about the task of straightening up tombstones that were leaning. I found a photograph I took a while back that shows some samples of leaning stones.

Much progress was made in the older portion of the cemetery where most of the leaning stones could be found.

Rev. Gotthold Heinrich Loeber’s gravesite needed some work. That site has an old gravestone that has fallen over and has been lying horizontal for a lot of years. Some in the Loeber family have replaced that stone with a newer one. Additionally, there was a footstone lying on the ground. The men decided to get that footstone vertical once again.

Not much was done about cleaning the gravestones, but it is in the plans to put more effort into that task in the future.

The cemetery committee has also discussed how we might come up with a map that would assist visitors in finding a desired gravestone. Also, we have discussed the possibility of a plan to mark the graves that are unmarked. Much needs to be done, but at least now we have made a start.

I actually was planning to write this story about the cemetery clean-up tomorrow because while I was at the cemetery yesterday, I noticed a certain gravestone. It happens to be one of the most notable stones in our graveyard because it is the tallest. It is not one that needed any repair. That tombstone marks the grave of Zacharias Mueller, who has been mentioned on this blog several times. I took the photo below of that stone.

This is another one of those gravesites where some family descendants have placed another marker at a later date. It enables a person to read what might be difficult to decipher on the original stone. I noticed that Zacharias had a birthday of May 9th.

I have to confess. I attended yesterday’s work day, but I did not do much work. Much younger men with much younger backs were handling the work much better than I could. It turned out I spent most of my time telling stories about some of the folks that are buried in our cemetery. Kind of like I do on most days on this blog.