Aug. 28, 2002 article in the Ste. Genevieve Herald

St. Agnes Parish Under Fire For Relocation Of Graves;

Archdiocese Says It Will Pay For and Install Monument

By Jean Feld Rissover

The Ste. Genevieve Herald

(Wed August 28, 2002)

The removal of gravestones at St. Agnes Cemetery – an important step in the parish’s plans for the future – has come under fire, promoting the St. Louis Archdiocese to issue a statement saying it “regrets” the situation.

It has been over two years since the church proposed the disinterment of about 90 graves in the oldest portion of the cemetery, saying there was no other practical way to deal with the parish’s construction needs. The project includes an addition to St. Agnes School, which is one of the fastest growing in the county, and the erection of a multipurpose center.

The church made a formal legal announcement in July 2001, including information about the burials, some of which date from the 19th century. Parish officials said the disinterment would be carried out under the guidance of the St. Louis Archdiocese’s cemetery office. In the period prior to the legal publication of notice, the matter had been discussed in the parish and the community.

St. Agnes Parish was founded at the Mission of St. Matthew’s on the Establishment Creek in 1835. In 1839 the name was changed to St. Philomena on the Establishment. The church became a parish in 1848. The name was changed from St. Philomena to St. Agnes in 1961. The first church was a log structure. A stone church was built in the 1860’s. The back wall of that building collapsed in 1990 and the old church was replaced by the current structure.

The cemetery had been undisturbed throughout the church’s history, until this summer, when some 90 graves were removed and a mass burial was conducted. The old headstones were buried along with the remains. Church officials say space considerations in the cemetery required that approach to the relocation.

Apparently, the fact that the stones were not placed elsewhere in the community was what spurred the critical comment, including a letter to the editor published earlier this year in the Herald.

Last week, the issue turned up on a new show on KFVS TV Channel 12 in Cape Girardeau. In a Channel 12 interview, Ste. Genevieve resident Joan Eydmann said the “the graves were all bulldozed” and put into a mass grave, along with the headstones. Eydmann remarked that “people will want to go back and look at their history, but it’s gone.” She called the headstones “a piece of art.”

Eydmann has no relatives buried at the cemetery, however she told the Herald last Thursday that she was speaking for about a dozen out-of-town people who do.

One is a Delaware man who meticulously maintains a genealogy website devoted to the Stevenson clan, a family that is tied to a number of the pioneer families in the Bloomsdale area. Tom Stevenson’s website says that he has relatives who are buried in the cemetery, and he views the cemetery as an important source of genealogical information.

Since the graves were relocated this summer, Stevenson’s website has criticized the fact that “most of the historic stones were lost forever,” calling on “descendants and other parties” to lobby the church to dig up the stones and lay them flat, elsewhere in the cemetery, or “at a minimum, to erect a monument listing the names and dates of these pioneer ancestors at the new grave site.”

Apparently, the lobbying effort has worked. In response to the criticism, the Archdiocese issued a statement last Tuesday, saying it “regrets that a portion of the [St. Agnes cemetery] was moved in a manner that leaves no markers to identify persons who had been buried in the space which the parish needed for a school expansion.”

The release continues, “Having recently been made aware of this situation and the concern it has caused for the descendants of persons buried at [the cemetery], the Archdiocese is pleased to fund the construction and installation of a monument that will mark the names and dates of persons who had been buried at the site.”

The statement continued, “Christian burial is a sacred rite that should be supported by perpetual stewardship. As such, it is only fitting that a memorial should be constructed that will mark the burial spot of Catholic forbearers in Ste. Genevieve County who helped to build a vibrant church there.”

Whether that will entirely satisfy the critics isn’t clear. But the church and Archdiocese apparently did satisfy all the legal requirements for the relocation or removal of grave sites. The church got expert advice on how to handle the relocation. It contacted all the descendants it could find to secure consent for the action, and got a court order allowing it to remove graves for whom descendants could not be located.

“I knew they had the court order to relocate the graves. I just don’t think anybody expected them to do it the way they did,” Eydmann told the Herald.

As of last week, local parish officials were referring all quests for comment to the Archdiocese.

Letter to the Editor of the Ste. Genevieve Herald

We are hoping to establish guidelines to help protect cemetery stones for future generations. Please check this page for updates, or join the Ste. Genevieve Genealogy email-list, the Missouri Cemeteries email-list or the Missouri Cemetery Preservation email-list.