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Payson has walked through the Cemetery many times and was struck by a number of things. Weeds had overtaken the entire cemetery. Nearly all of the gravesites with metal markers had no information on them. The only identifiable sites were those with cement or stone markers, and many of those had fallen over. It was truly a sad site.
Rotary got busy! On Saturday, March 19, 11 members of Frontier Rotary, 3 members and some friends representing Prescott Rotary, 5 members of Bradshaw Mountain High School Interact, and about a half-dozen concerned citizens, and along with some help from the City, got the main side of the Cemetery cleared. All of those participating were left with sore arms from running the weed-whackers before the mowers could be brought in!
Payson has spent many hours researching this cemetery, and has spoken directly to many knowledgeable people on this subject, and, as yet, no plot map for the Cemetery seems to exist. However, the search continues. In an ideal world, if one could be found and gravesites could be identified, it would open the possibility to putting some type of permanent marker on them.
While presenting to the organizations about the proposed clean-up, Payson asked how people would feel if their relatives were buried in this Cemetery in the condition it was in. At the Saturday clean-up, there were two brothers and a wife whose aunt and uncle are buried in Rolling Hills, fortunately with permanent stone markers. This was a very emotional experience for them, to see the Cemetery restored to the honor it deserves.
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