FLORENCE, Ky. — A slight distinction within the route of a bunch of headstones despatched Hillary Delaney on a search to see who was really buried within the Florence Cemetery.
Whereas main a tour group via the cemetery, one thing struck Delaney as odd.
“I began to appreciate that a few of the graves are dealing with the fence, as an alternative of historically dealing with the trail, like the remainder of the graves are,” she stated.
Delaney is not the groundskeeper of Florence Cemetery. She does not even have household buried there. However she will be able to inform you a lot concerning the who’s who of the cemetery. And generally she will be able to’t.
“This one is Edmond, he additionally served within the Civil Warfare. This girl proper right here, she’s driving me loopy,” Delaney stated. “It simply says spouse of Thomas Worth, proper? And we do not know who she is.”
Delaney is an worker of the Boone County Public Library. She’s been on a four-year mission to search out out who’s down beneath. This last resting place with about 10 headstones within the space really holds 127 souls and counting. These individuals stayed segregated in life and in dying.
“I do not need to re-traumatize anybody and establish these individuals as enslaved individuals solely, however I wished to level out to the group that individuals who have been enslaved their complete lives discovered freedom and constructed the group,” she stated.
Folks like Thomas Thomas.
“He really was a landowner right here after he attained his freedom in 1865,” Delaney stated. “Then he based the church a couple of block and a half from right here. It is the earliest African-American church in Boone County.”
However Delaney laments not understanding a lot about Catherine Dunson and her youngster, Winfred.
“She was 17 and she or he had a 2-year-old who died a yr earlier than her,” she stated.
On Thursday, Nov. 2, all her laborious work will repay. The Boone County Public Library will maintain a ceremony dedicating a memorial to recollect the individuals buried at Florence Cemetery, including richness to the city’s story.
“That historical past is basically ignored, and it was traditionally ignored and so it was type of omitted, forgotten, unnoticed,” Delaney stated. “I really feel like as a historian who focuses on native historical past, that is an enormous disservice to our group to go away out all of those individuals who had been as soon as right here.”
The general public is invited to the memorial dedication. The ceremony begins at 2 p.m. contained in the cemetery at 199 Heart Avenue in Florence.
