By SEAN HILDRETH, guest columnist
In Brown County, we have many passionate groups working to preserve our history to honor our future generations. For the month of September, the Brown County Community Foundation will be featuring ways to help in this effort through volunteerism, financial support, and awareness of these important pieces of history.
As part of our annual community grant cycle at BCCF, I wanted to see what the great organizations of Brown County were doing with their funding. One of the first groups I talked with was Peaceful Valley Heritage and Preservation. This group, founded by Ruth Reichmann and currently led by Vivian Wolff, has been doing important work in preservation throughout Brown County with the help of many great volunteers.
Recently, they received a grant to continue restoration to the monument of former State Representative and Army veteran, William Browning. Now restored, the 12-foot Browning monument pridefully stands atop Nashville in its original Southview Cemetery location. It is work like this that is helping to preserve Brown County’s history for future generations. It is important and it is inspiring.
If you want to see inspiring yourself, look no further than the great volunteers working in the Brown County Cemetery Association. Volunteers spend their Saturdays scouting locations or working on cleanups of some of Brown County’s over 100 cemeteries.
Recently, I joined in at Zion Church and Cemetery. Massive amounts of brush were removed, trees were trimmed, headstones repaired, and even a lost stone recovered from the earth.
During my time at the cleanup, I heard stories of the people of Brown County’s past. I saw familiar family names and first names like Cinderella. I walked past stones with years from 1961 all the way back to the mid-1800s. Some spots bare where a stone once stood, others weathered and worn but still standing as part of the county’s rich past.
While we were there, volunteers worked to find resources from Brown County and beyond to help preserve the bronze bell that was in the quickly deteriorating church tower. Working with family members of those that originally brought the bell to the tower via wagon ride, resources were quickly assembled, and the following weekend, the bell was removed safely thanks to Mark Smith and Columbus Signs. This historic piece of Brown County will reside at the Brown County History Center to be used for programs, events and more.
This work is important. There are pieces of history like the bell that without this work could be lost. There are graves for veterans, founders, men, women and children that are at risk of being lost as well. The projects are ongoing, and this work will continue perpetually. All part of the past of Brown County being preserved for the future.
Someone must preserve this, and I am proud of the work of the Brown County Cemetery Association, Peaceful Valley Heritage and so many more that are working to ensure our history is there for the future.
We are helping at the foundation by investing donations this month to the Howard F. Hughes Historic Preservation Fund. This fund perpetually supports projects and programs that support preservation, restoration and promotion of Brown County’s history. Priority may be given to Brown County cemetery projects. You can donate by visiting our website at browncountygives.org or by texting PRESERVE to 44-321.
Help us preserve Brown County for future generations to have a better understanding of who we are, were, and can be as Brown Countians.
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The cemetery preservation society will have a work day in the Zion church cemetery on Saturday, Sept. 12. It’s on Three Notch Road in the Gatesville area. Work will start around 10 a.m. Bring loppers or rakes if you have them.
[sc:pullout-text-end]Sean Hildreth is the marketing, communications and outreach officer for the Brown County Community Foundation Inc. He can be reached at 812-988-4882 or [email protected].
