What Volunteer BOARD MEMBERS DO to keep Burlington Cemetery operating efficiently and with less expenses:

The members  attend board meetings; email back and forth on issues; sell spaces; handle the receipts and disbursements and preparation of financial records; handle calls and emails from persons with questions; update maps; update the long  list of burials and spaces available (7193 to date); do research into historical items; create and update occasionally the Web page; pick up road debris if they are driving through the cemetery; handle burials with funeral homes and relatives of the deceased;  keep a Veteran’s list for burials in the cemetery up to date; put some monuments up on Find A Grave; help plant trees; clean moss, algae and other stuff off monuments;  determine road work needs and make it happen; work with surveyors to set up new lots and spaces; coordinate  things with organizations wanting to participate in keeping the cemetery looking special; help people find out where their relatives are buried and how to get to the grave site; keep the two information boards (located at the main entrance and the last entrance}  updated periodically; deal with City, Town and State representatives when the need requires; help in doing  genealogy research into the persons buried there for  persons inquiring.

 Probable total hours for all this mostly volunteer work cannot even begin to be estimated accurately, but listing the people involved and estimating what time they put in results in about 750 hours. That does not count the time organizations that help out put in with their volunteers. There also is no way of knowing the time put in by City and Town employees cutting grass, trimming around monuments, plowing roads, dealing with water line issues, and removing trees that they are able to remove. It will be nice if the Burlington Cemetery can continue to be kept looking as nice as Saint Mary’s or Saint Charles Cemeteries. That would say something about the City and Town of Burlington and the people that live there.

 If we as a Board would abandon the cemetery, the State of Wisconsin Statutes say the City takes it over. Not sure how that works with part of the cemetery land in the City and part of the land in the Township but the Statute says City.  If that happens they cannot just cut grass and plow roads. At that time a great share of the above listed volunteer time would still have to be done, especially handling burials for people who bought burial spaces already.  So, as long as the volunteers are willing and able, and replacements come forth, it would be great if they could continue to operate as they have been with the coordinated effort of the Burlington Cemetery Board, the City of Burlington and the Town of Burlington and all the other volunteers.

 By the way, the Sexton gets paid for some of his time but puts in a lot more than a normal Sexton would do, and without pay.  And his business, Jim’s Lawn and Landscape, is used sometimes without being reimbursed. The financial record keeping also gets paid but it has been only $ 150 a month and the actual billing for that time would have been substantially higher. The persons handling record keeping get paid more for their time by their employer than the receipt every month. 

ORGANIZATIONS GIVING AID:

The main entrance and the civil war monument have been beautifully adorned with flowers for as long as I can remember, and at this point the Burlington Garden Club has been handling that with much success. Other organizations doing something for the cemetery have been:  The Burlington High School Girls Tennis Team, Thrivent (Shoreline Group), BHS Girls Soccer Team, Rotary, Local Veteran Groups, and Burlington Historical Society.  We also keep a record of veterans in the cemetery. A Veteran’s group in Racine donates annually a certain dollar per veteran and spouse to our organization.

TO DO:

Finish Evergreen road, redo the last road into the cemetery when going northeast on W, and also the circle named Serenity Circle. Survey part of the area to the east of the cemetery Block 17 and set it up for burial space use and for needed roads. Determine whether to do green burial areas, and/or a cremation columbarium.  Put up signs for the main roads, but that is included in the currently proposed contract with the CITY and TOWN.  Clean off very old monuments of algae and moss, etc, where no family is currently around to keep the monuments cleaned off so they are easy to read and visibly better looking. Dig up monuments that have become buried and reposition them so they can be easily read. Update the Web page.

DONATIONS:

The website at burlingtoncemeterywi.com has a list of donations for the year 2021 and some in 2022. So far to date we have received $185,600.22 in 2021-2023. However, a good deal of that was directed to be used for restoration of the Chapel, and also for road reconstruction.  That does not include the financial aid from the City and Town related to road construction, which has been over the last 6 years   $43.346.68, breaking down as $23,673.34 from the City and $19,673.34 from the Town.  Total overall cost so far for road reconstruction has been $151,201.01. The major contributors for roads, the Chapel and other smaller items, were the Wagner Foundation, Rotary, Burlington Community Fund, Burlington Woman’s Club, the Everett Family, the Vorpagel Family, the Historical Library Group running Whispers, the Stan and Nan Wilson Family, BW Surveying, Bob Riggs Construction, Inc.,  and about 25 other individuals. If you drive out there you will see that the roads have been substantially improved. The only other road issue is on the bottom end of the first road into the cemetery, Evergreen Road.  It is done down past the Chapel but will need to be finished. A water runoff issue has stalled the project, but  $30,000 is set aside as the probable cost to finish and deal with the water issue. And see below related to Serenity Circle.

 If you are ever able to attend a gathering at the Chapel, once it starts renting out or otherwise being used, you will see how it has been improved inside. You can see the exterior improvement now. New roof to replace a leaking roof and new cement walkways. Plus a cleaned up building exterior as good as it could be done. By the way the chapel normally is open the day of the Whispers from the Past Walk and maybe will be open this year on October 8.  See the cemetery website for info, or check their info on the Library site:  burlingtonhistory.org.   Paul B.  Edwards  

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