The Perry Historic Preservation Commission and the St. Patrick’s Knights of Columbus joined forces Wednesday morning to prepare the grounds at Violet Hill Cemetery in Perry for Monday’s Memorial Day services.
About half a dozen volunteers from each of the organizations gathered at 10 a.m. to coordinate the project, with the goal of raising a flag at the grave of each U.S. veteran buried in Violet Hill and also noting any veterans’ graves lacking a flag-holder medallion.
The historic commission recently completed its researches into the county’s veterans records and now has an accurate count of veterans buried in Violet Hill. The cemetery as a whole contains about 10,500 graves, and 1,162 are graves of U.S. Veterans, some having served the flag as early as the War of 1812.
“We had quite a time of it,” said Perry Historic Preservation Commission President Jeanette Peddicord. “The records aren’t alphabetized in any way. Entries were made simply in the order that people died in the county. Finding the Perry graves took a lot of steady work by a lot of dedicated volunteers.”
Four new planters grace the grounds of Violet Hill Cemetery this year thanks to the efforts of the Perry Historic Preservation Commission. The flowers were donated by local retailers Jim Lutmer of Shopko, Ron Harland of Ace Hardware and Matt Rohe of Hy-Vee and were planted by commissioners Ronda Onken, Gary Martin, John Palmer and Gene Peel.
“Those three businesses were really fantastic,” Peddicord said. “They were right on the spot about agreeing to help us, and we had a committee that likes to plant flowers, including the firemen’s planters out there.”
