Cemetery caretaker familiar with task
On a rainy Sunday morning, Kevin Wilson carefully cut around faded headstones on the sloped lawn of West Union United Methodist Church in Morris Township, Greene County, with a weed trimmer.
Wilson, 59, took over as caretaker at the cemetery two months ago, but it’s not the first cemetery he has tended.
When Wilson was 11 years old, he started cutting grass and tending the gravesites with his brother at Centennial Cemetery in Aleppo. The boys earned 65 cents an hour.
“Our next-door neighbor, Wesley Moniger, was the caretaker there. He came to my dad and said, ‘Do you think these boys can mow a cemetery?’ My dad said, ‘If they can’t, they’ll learn,'” recalled Wilson, an electrician for Consol.
Wilson had another reason to visit the cemetery. His mother, Sarah Catherine Wilson, died of breast cancer when Wilson was 10 years old and is buried there.
“Every time I cut the grass there, I’d get to go visit my mom,” he said.
Under Moniger’s careful tutelage, the boys learned to maintain the grounds and the gravestones, and the importance of their job.
“He was very particular, and he took his job very seriously,” Wilson said. “I learned a lot from him. For example, you do not blow grass on a stone, and if you do when you trim, you’re picking that grass up immediately. That’s out of respect for the people and the families who have loved ones in the cemetery. That stuck with me.”
Armed with lunches and jugs of water, Wilson and his brother spent hours pushing a mower up and down the cemetery’s steep hills and trimming around gravestones, using old-style sheep shears and a file. When the blades dulled, Wilson would sharpen them and continue cutting. He’d place the clippings in a bushel basket and dump it.
Wilson worked at the cemetery for about seven years, until he graduated from high school in 1974.
Wilson and his wife, Meg, are taking over duties at West Union Cemetery for Meg’s sister, Jo Shields, and Jo’s husband Bobby, who had served as caretaker for 12 years. The couple recently moved to Idaho, where their daughter lives.
Groundskeeping at the cemetery is a family affair: For the past half-century, Meg’s grandfather, father and sister have served as caretakers.
The Wilsons are members of West Union Church and serve on the cemetery board, and Wilson didn’t hesitate when he was asked to become caretaker.
He spends at least 15 hours a week carefully tending to the cemetery.
Seventy veterans who served in major wars – among them the Civil, Revolutionary, Korean wars, World War I and World War II – are among the fewer than 300 people who have been laid to rest at West Union Cemetery, said Wilson.
The cemetery association was formed in 1902, but some of the gravesites date to 1707. One of Wilson’s goals is to clean up and repair many of the markers.
He also plans to contact California University of Pennsylvania to see if a group of students will visit the cemetery to locate any unmarked gravesites, using special equipment.
Wilson Wilson feels an obligation to upkeep the cemetery.
“They pay me, but I’m not doing it for the money, believe me. Memorial Day is coming up, and I want the cemetery looking nice,” said Wilson. “Whether they paid me or not, I’d do this.”