French Creek Cemetery an active place of rest

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN CYNTHIA MARTENS
In 1887, two acres of farmland were purchased for $7 to establish French Creek Cemetery-a final resting place for families living in a farming area north of Hillsboro.

Located 1/4 mile east of Kansas Highway 15 on 220th, the quaint cemetery is 115 years old and shoulders headstones etched with Low-German names, such as Ratzlaff, Schroeder, Funk, Unruh and Bartel.

“It was a community cemetery, not a church cemetery,” said Elgin Bartel. “The people around here wanted a cemetery in their locality.”

The signatures of Peter and Maria Schroeder and Heinrich and Anna Frantz are listed on the original cemetery deeds. Each couple sold one acre of their land for a total of $3.50 per acre.

The deeds are in the hands of Bartel and Don Funk, both residents of the area known locally as Risley Township. The two men serve as cemetery board members for the French Creek District.

Bartel and wife Rubena live on a homestead east of the cemetery and store their grain in the old French Creek School house located across the road from their home.

Both men attended grades one through eight in the two-room school house.

“French Creek runs through that section,” Funk said. “That’s probably why it was French Creek Cemetery and French Creek School.”

Funk recalled the days of his youth-a time in the late 1940s and early 1950s-when the school children would play in the cemetery.

“For years, it had a big hedge row around it,” Funk said. “When I went to French Creek School, it was scary to go to the cemetery.”

The hedge trees were so big and untrimmed that the cemetery was “almost completely enclosed and very dark,” Funk said.

But over the noon hour, the school children would venture across the dirt road to play in the cemetery.

One day, a group knocked over a headstone.

“It was heavy enough that it took all the kids in school to put that back,” Funk said.

Bartel said he’s been told his father had an infant brother buried at the cemetery, but no headstone marks the spot, and the exact location has been lost to the current generation.

“I think my parents and brothers and sisters weren’t buried there because the place was so unkempt,” Bartel said.

But that situation changed in 1963, when people in the area formed a tax base to levy the community for upkeep of the neglected landmark.

The hedge trees were torn out, and the tax money has been used each year to maintain the grounds.

“The reason this (cemetery) is handled by a cemetery board and not a township board is because there was a family from the Lehigh Township that wanted to be included,” Funk said.

Reinhold Guhr, who owned a quarter-section of property at Falcon and 220th, wanted to have family buried at French Creek Cemetery.

The current owners of his property and another section north of it, are still taxed today for the upkeep of the cemetery.

“We levy a tax to the people of the French Creek District who pay a small mill levy,” Funk said. “We have appropriated in the last several years about $1,000 a year that we get in taxes.”

The money pays for mowing as needed by Milford Klaassen of Hillsboro, who is Rubena’s son.

“And we do have a couple of stones that need to be repaired and a tree that needs to be removed after we had a storm,” Funk said. “We’ve hired someone to put the stones back up and straighten some that are settling. That’s about all the maintenance.”

Bartel has served on the cemetery board for 39 years-he was one of the founding members along with Ben Plenert, Ben Funk and Henry F. Bartel.

The current board has lost two members, one to death and one to resignation. So the men said they are looking for two more people in the district to serve as they do-for no money.

“We used to have a yearly board meeting, which was to approve the budget,” Funk said. “Now we meet once with the county commissioners, which is a public hearing. And we meet with the county treasurer once. She sets our budget.”

The picturesque cemetery is surrounded on three sides by farm land and visitors are welcomed by a red wooden sign that reads French Creek Cemetery 1887.

“Just from mowing in the past 40 years, it has beautiful bluestem (grass), and it’s a very clean, respectable-looking cemetery,” Funk said.

Toward the back of the cemetery, a trio of cedar trees stands tall as soldiers assigned to guard their post.

“They’re kind of a landmark, too,” Bartel said. “You always say north of the trees or south of the trees-it helps to find (a grave).”

The cemetery doesn’t have any fence. The last demarcations of its boundary lines were the gnarly hedge trees, Bartel said.

“It’s our preference. It’s a lot easier to take care of that way.”

Each plot is about 6 feet by 10 feet.

“It costs $15 (per plot) if you are a tax payer and $20 if a non-taxpayer, that is, if you are out of the French Creek District,” Funk said.

“And that is property owners. We have some people who are living in Hillsboro, but they own property here.”

A rolled up cardboard map, with hand-written descriptions of the names on each headstone and their location, indicated that about 1,225 plots were in the cemetery. And about 314 people lay at rest there.

“Those records were made just by reading the stones,” Funk said. This was done in the 1960s, and there were no previous records.”

Poor record keeping in the past has led to current problems for the two board members.

Some plots on the map are just blank squares with no names.

“They’re probably plots, but we don’t know for sure,” Funk said. “There’s some evidence of a burial, but we don’t know who.”

When Dalke Construction digs a grave, they have to err on the side of caution as the dirt is unearthed.

“Dalkes say when they dig, then they can see if there is somebody buried there because the soil is mixed-there are layers of different soil,” Bartel said. “If they see that, they just quit digging and put the soil back in.”

Both men said they caution those who purchase plots to keep records for future generations.

“Some people claim that their ancestors bought some plots, but we have no record or receipt,” Funk said.

They’ve had “a lot of inquiries” recently from people interested in buying plots, Funk said. But only eight have been purchased since the board was formed.

Funk has purchased six plots.

“I think mine are the only plots on record as sold at this time, except for Earl Bartel who has purchased two. His wife was buried there this spring, and he bought a plot for himself.”

Funk’s grandparents and great grandparents are buried at the cemetery.

“There’s not room (for my family) in our city church cemetery,” he said.

City church cemeteries will eventually fill, prompting some in the future to begin looking at cemeteries like this one tucked away north of the city.

When they do inquire about plots, they will discover a unique little resting place.

One plot near Funk’s ancestors has a miniature fence surrounding it with a weather-beaten tin marker wiped clean of who’s buried there. The only visible writing is the date June 26, 1901.

A stroll around the headstones unveils German words, such as “geboren” meaning born and “geftorben” translated as died.

And the names of infants appear frequently on headstones-perhaps a sign of hard times, disease or inadequate medical care more than a century ago.

The David and Maria Kopper family speaks to today’s generation about the heartache of losing seven children as toddlers.

“Some of them reached a year and some not even a day,” Bartel said. “This is my mother’s uncle and aunt, so I remember a little about them. Two more children got old enough and had families.”

And little Anna Kopper offers an interesting mystery for visitors to ponder. Anna was born Sept. 17, 1885, and died Aug. 28, 1886.

“She was probably buried here before the cemetery was even organized in 1887,” Funk said.

This article also appeared in the Jan. 2 issue of the Free Press Extra. Subscriptions to this weekly publication are $12 per year.

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