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Paying Their Respects, Volunteers Put Historic Cemetery Back On The Map

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By SHERRI LONON

IN THE LOOP

Published: March 4, 2009

For years, the Mt. Carmel Cemetery sat at the heart of Ehren, a bustling sawmill town with two churches. The last body was placed in the ground in the 1950s, long after the mill burned down. Over time, the community of Ehren faded away and the cemetery fell into disrepair.

The tract of land off Ehren Cutoff Road in Land O' Lakes was deeded to Pasco County in the 1980s, but no one stepped up to take care of its maintenance. Tombstones were broken, bones surfaced to the top of the soil and overgrowth was so thick that only longtime locals really believed the property was anything more than part of an extensive cow pasture.

That picture changed a few years ago when local historians and county officials began looking into the cemetery and its past. Then the United School Employees of Pasco stepped in to make sure the dead were properly honored.

On Feb. 21, volunteers from the community and the school workers' union joined forces to complete the fourth cleanup of the historic cemetery. A team of about 50 people turned out to pull weeds, rake leaves and hang a sign that now officially pronounces the cemetery's existence to passersby.

"It's been a great outreach," said Robert Moore, a union vice president.

The union learned about the cemetery through a member who also is part of the Black Caucus of Pasco County. Cleanup efforts began in October 2007 and have continued ever since.

"We had no clue what we were getting ourselves involved in," joked Frank Roder, the union's instructional vice president. Roder explained the cemetery was in a terrible state of disrepair and heavily overgrown when the work began.

The cemetery also is on the radar of local historian Jeff Cannon of Hudson. Cannon said that a 2006 survey of the cemetery turned up about 45 burial sites. About six tombstones have been recovered, Cannon said, but most of the markers were wood and rotted years ago or were destroyed during the decades the cemetery was not maintained.

Preserving what remains of Ehren and its cemetery is important for helping Pasco keep its roots strong, Cannon said.

"It's history," explained Cannon. "We are dealing with a new generation that doesn't know the history of the area," said Cannon. This is what the USEP volunteers and others hope to change.

The town of Ehren was predominately a black settlement whose school at one point boasted 61 children. The cemetery was part of Mt. Carmel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Ehren itself was well established by the 1890s, but began to die after a 1920 fire claimed the mill that provided employment for many of the community's residents.
Roder and Moore have organized the cleanups and are also working with others to create a nonprofit organization to oversee the maintenance and preservation of the cemetery and the historic site of the Mt. Carmel church. A sign to mark the entrance to the cemetery, which is about four miles off U.S. 41, was unveiled Feb. 21. A more formalized historic marker will be installed at the site in the near future.

After four cleanups, Moore and Roder say the work is now mostly down to maintenance. With the gravesites marked out and the overgrowth cleaned up, the property is looking good, they said.

Ola McClendon agrees. Her father, B.E.W. Dawkins was one of the preachers who called the pulpit at Mt. Carmel home years ago.

"This is beautiful," she said as she surveyed the cleaned up site. "It's coming along."

For volunteer Caity Daugherty of Pasco High School's Teens Against Discrimination Club, making the trip to help out on a Saturday morning was just the right thing to do.

"We felt like people kind of forgot about this (place)," she said.

For more information on the preservation effort, contact Moore or Roder at (813) 996-2119. To learn more about Pasco County's historic cemeteries, visit Cannon's Web site at pascocemeteries.org.

Editor Sherri Lonon can be reached at (813) 948-4287 or slonon@mediageneral.com.

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