By David Slone
Times-Union

Shown is one of the new banners at Oakwood Cemetery in Warsaw. Photo Provided by Oakwood Cemetery Sexton Hal Heagy.

WARSAW — Oakwood Cemetery is more than just a graveyard.

It’s also a park where people go to run, walk or even have picnics.

And this year it’s celebrating its 150th anniversary.

At the Oakwood Cemetery Board of Regents meeting Thursday, Feb. 1 — which met before the first meeting of the Cemetery Walking Tour Committee — the board heard about ongoing improvements at the cemetery, as well as about the anniversary.

No date had been set for the Cemetery Walking Tour as of the board meeting Thursday.

Ken Locke, board president, said with this year being the 150th anniversary of the cemetery — 1874 to 2024 — there were probably two times they really wanted to celebrated that milestone: Memorial Day weekend and the Walking Tour weekend.

“I don’t think we want to do more than that, but I don’t want to speak for everybody,” Locke said. “But, obviously, Memorial Day is the showcase for the cemetery … and then the Walking Tour would be the other.”

He said while none of the board members were here 150 years ago, “it’s definitely a significant event for the cemetery.”

Sexton Hal Heagy suggested they could get banners for the 150th anniversary to fly on posts throughout the cemetery to promote the milestone.

“If you think about, yeah, we’re a cemetery, but we are a park also. We have maybe 200 and some (visitors) a day during the summertime. People have picnics out there, they walk,” he said.

Money to help make the cemetery look more beautiful comes from lot sales, not tax dollars, Heagy said.

Locke said they all agreed that Oakwood is one of the nicest cemeteries around and they want to keep it that way.

“It is something to celebrate, so we definitely want to do that as significantly as possible,” Locke said.

Currently, Heagy said there are 19,110 guests residing in the cemetery.

“There’s some significant history out there at the cemetery,” Locke said.

That’s why Heagy is pretty excited about the Walking Tour, he said. Heagy said he hopes it’s such a success that every couple of years they can do it again. “We can go on and on and on. It’s never going to be the same,” he stated, adding that they could focus on different people for each Walking Tour, like mayors, fire chiefs, etc.

Heagy said he would love suggestions on the Walking Tour.

“And if people know significant things about Oakwood, we would love to hear that,” Locke said. “There may be significant events people remember, whatever, we would certainly want to catalog that and keep it.”

In his report to the board earlier in the meeting, Heagy said the flooring in the chapel is being updated. The carpet that’s in there is the original carpeting and new carpet and tile have been picked out. The side entrance where people come in will be tiled for several feet wide and go all the way back to the bathrooms, with the rest of the chapel carpet.

Brackets for banners have been installed and summer banners have arrived for this year’s display, replacing the hanging flower baskets in the cemetery.

“We have hanging baskets that hang on the posts down Central there. They look nice, don’t get me wrong, they take a lot of work,” Heagy said, but he wanted to simplify the decorations and have a little less work. “So these banners that you see hanging out around town that people use for advertisement, I went to Graycraft (Signs), worked a deal out with them. Bought the posts, we put them in.”

There are six different prints and the banners will hang all the way down Central and Legion roads in the cemetery. Heagy said he bought 24 banners and 22 were put in so he has two extra. He has six prints of flowers, and then for Memorial Day they will take every other banner out and replace the flower prints with flag banners.

Graycraft currently is working on winter print banners for the cemetery, he said. While the banners are a little expensive upfront, Heagy said they will last a few years.

“It will lower the flower expense, the maintenance to do them. It’s just kind of getting more efficient,” he said.

The flower baskets were not thrown away and the cemetery could use them again if they chose to.

Board member Max Mock brought up the custom burn barrel the board had discussed at their January meeting. He said he got an email from a friend in Florida asking why they needed a burn barrel in the city.

“We’re not burning trash,” Heagy said. The burn barrel will be for the American Legion Post’s flag-burning ceremonies.

“It’ll be a really good addition,” Locke said.

Heagy said it won’t be “just a barrel,” but a way to honor the flags. It will be lockable so people can’t try to burn other things in the barrel. “As it sits there, I want it to be a memorial for the Legion, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

Planning is underway for redoing the cemetery entrance to make it more efficient than what it is.

“The bushes are nice, we put flowers in it. The big thing is, and this is not a bad thing because I love kids and people in the cemetery, they’ll ride their bikes through the stone and throw it all over the place,” Heagy said.

He’s received a quote to tear it all out and do it in paving bricks so it’s solid. “We’re going to do some diamond shapes and then put (in) some flower pots,” he said. While he didn’t have a quote for the board yet, Heagy said he thought it would look nice. “I am going to try to save the bushes but there’s no guarantees.”

Board member Ellen Hoffer asked if the fence would be repainted. Heagy said it was repainted last year.

“It’s mainly just the two front entrances. The grant stays, the Oakwood Cemetery stays. I’ve already put light poles in there, if you’ve been by there,” Heagy said about the work that’s being done to the entrance. “So it’s just taking the bushes out and all the stone that everybody just kind of dumps stone on top of stone. We’ll just take all of that out and put in the right stuff and it’ll be walking paths.”

Under new business, Heagy said the cemetery is starting to get ready for spring.

“We’re starting to clean … raking, picking up stuff and getting ready to get on with summer,” he said.
Trash cans have been rebuilt and painted, and the color has been changed to a rusty red.