Pompey Hill Cemetery
The Problem with Perpetual
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Up in the hills southeast of Syracuse sits the community of Pompey.
Originally divided off as part of the Military Tract,
This land was attractive to Military Tract Settlers as there was plenty of farmland,
plenty of waterpower as the creeks wound north over the Onondaga Escarpment,
And it was high above the swampland of Bogardus Corners,
Later Syracuse.
Located in Lot 65 on this map,
Many military tract settlers found reasons to leave their homes among the coast and
make there permanent home here.
Pompey was another name from classical Greek and Roman Literature.
More about Pompey
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompey
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompey
As a side note, wouldn't you love to go back in time and inform Pompey that one day he'd have a town named after him 4300 miles away from Rome?
I'd love to see his reaction.
But I digress...
It didn't take long for the grave decisions that each community needed to decide:
Where do we bury the dead in Lot 65?
Where do we bury the dead in Lot 65?
The first burials in Pompey Hill Cemetery occurred by 1806.
One by one, each of the Revolutionary War Veterans
including...
Thomas Dyer
and
John Jerome
And all of the kinfolk...there were many Jeromes that
settled here
Lived and died.
These Jeromes are distant cousins to
Winston Churchill.
Sir Winston Churchill's great grandfather
Sir Winston Churchill's great grandfather
is buried at Oakwood Cemetery in Syracuse
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/85659075/isaac-jerome
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/85659075/isaac-jerome
his grandfather in NYC
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/3333/leonard-walter-jerome
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/3333/leonard-walter-jerome
his mother in England
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/2194/winston-churchill
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/2194/winston-churchill
Important people settled in Pompey.
There was the main Genesee Road that went through the village.
There was Pompey Academy to educate your children.
There were churches and taverns and stores.
A proper place to call home.
By 1859, it rivaled Syracuse in its sophisticated gentry
who called Pompey home.
The Pompey Hill Cemetery is
on the lower right
of the above
map.
But burying has always, sadly been a dividing subject.
Protestants buried in cemeteries,
but didn't always see the land itself as sacred ground.
Catholics did.
By 1874, the Catholic communicants had their own cemetery
By 1874, the Catholic communicants had their own cemetery
Pompey Hill.
Sacred ground for the church family.
Both cemeteries side by side,
but with different views of burial care.
Little Olive Case
died at 2 years old.
Note the carving of the small bird
who represents a small death.
Mrs Olive Newell Case Cleaveland lived to be
the oldest resident of her time in Onondaga County
when she passed away at 103.
Her first husband, Norris Case, died at 44.
Her second husband, Merrill Cleaveland, lived to 94.
She outlived them both.
She remembered first coming to this area as a child
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/105346182/olive-a-case
She remembered first coming to this area as a child
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/105346182/olive-a-case
Another stones has canal links to the north.
William Kasson was a carpenter.
And left his signature at one of the limestone blocks supporting one of bridges
he built that once crossed by the Lodi Locks.
It is now in the Lock Square Monument on Erie BLVD East.
Scattered throughout the old cemetery
is a carpet of blue flowers in the Spring:
Forget Me Nots
A lovely tribute to those who have gone on before us
A lovely tribute to those who have gone on before us
A floral plea to be remembered.
Long ago in the northeast corner of the cemetery
someone, probably during the Civil War,
someone, probably during the Civil War,
placed a scythe in the tree
with the hopes of returning one day and retrieving.
He never did,
For whatever reason,
It was forgotten.
Forgotten
The opposite of Forget Me Nots.
There is a common misconception about cemeteries:
That care for the graves is part of the deal.
Some people even paid long ago for
"perpetual care"
But what they didn't realize is that perpetual
did not mean eternal.
But where did this idea come from?
Good intentions,
too long ago.
A fun video about how other places
in the world view cemetery permanence
and what is covered in the US:
Memorial Day originally was Decoration Day.
Families took the day to spruce up their family plots
and keep them looking tidy.
Then the focus moved to Veterans on that day.
Families moved away.
(an old repair)
Families forgot.
As the day took on new meaning,
the understood concept that caring for the plots
was the family's responsibility
slowly was removed from
collective memory.
An new idea was born:
If you couldn't care for your family's cemetery plot,
you could pay someone else to do it!
More than a century ago and up into the 1960s,
people could pay a yearly expense or have a trust fund
set up to have their loved ones grave kept up.
Some would always looked maintained because
they were "Zinkies".
But the vast majority would need yearly maintenance.
But the meager funds ran out long ago.
And no one was left to mow the grass,
let alone care for the markers.
So what care is covered?
"All cemeteries must cut the grass on all graves and provide some degree of maintenance to other types of final resting places. Some cemeteries also sell “endowed” or “perpetual” care services. This means the buyer pays money to the cemetery and the cemetery holds that money and invests it. The cemetery may use the income on that trust, but not the principal, to pay for care beyond basic grass cutting, such as trimming plantings or cleaning the monument. The contract between the cemetery and the buyer will show what care will be provided. The term “perpetual care” can be confusing. When a family has bought perpetual care, the cemetery must provide care only when the income on the trust (meaning interest and dividends) is large enough to cover the cost of caring for the space. Where the perpetual care account does not generate enough income to cover the cost of care, the cemetery may ask, but may not require, the family to increase the amount of money in the account. If the family does not increase the amount of money the cemetery may stop providing care shown in the contract." ~NYS Cemeteries
A few years ago, the board for Pompey Hill Cemetery fell apart.
The cemetery was on the brink of being declared abandoned.
Only by the dedicated work of a handful of volunteers
has this cemetery,
which holds so great a history
within its borders,
been kept open.
Here is a video about a woman who helped care
for the cemetery her family is buried in
and bring it back from abandonment:
But now the work begins to restore,
and mow,
and rake,
and do
the basics.
There is no endowment.
That was spent years ago.
When well-meaning people of yore sold
"perpetual care" they had rose-colored glasses
when it came to understanding just how expensive even
just mowing would become.
A good read about this from someone who
professionally goes to care for family plots:
Cemeteries try now to be VERY clear that they do NOT cover marker maintenance.
"What is Perpetual Care
Perpetual Care is an endowment given to the Albany Rural Cemetery at the time of the lot purchase by a lot owner. This endowment is intended to help care for that specific lot in accordance with the New York State Non-for-Profit Corporation Law and Cemetery Law. The interest generated from the endowment is what is allowed to be used to help maintain the lot. This small amount of interest helps to pay for the cutting/trimming of grass on the burial lot on an annual basis.
Note that Perpetual Care does not cover any costs for gravestone monument or mausoleum maintenance upkeep or repairs. Those are the responsibility of the lot owner and their family members." ~Albany Rural Cemetery
https://albanyruralcemetery.org/resources/understanding-perpetual-care/#:~:text=Perpetual%20Care%20is%20an%20endowment,Corporation%20Law%20and%20Cemetery%20Law.
https://ccacem.org/perpetual-care-policy/
https://ccacem.org/perpetual-care-policy/
If a monument breaks, that is the family's responsibility.
It is just beyond the means--cost prohibitive-- of cemeteries to cover
fixing headstones and monuments.
This is why Oakwood Cemetery in Syracuse still has
Labor Day Storm damage 25 years later.
A four man maintenance crew for 160 acres there.
Burials barely cover the cost of mowing.
Here at Pompey Hill
VOLUNTEERS
recently spent days raking leaves that had been sitting since
the cemetery was on the verge of abandonment.
It's a slow process.
It's a hard process.
Some markers have been flagged for restoration
Some markers have been cleaned,
like Little Olive's
It takes a community to slowly bring these places
back to what they should be.
Perfect yet?...No
Immaculate Conception Cemetery next door has
had a different outlook and care from the beginning.
This is sacred ground.
You care for it
because your extended church family
IS
your family
and family cares for family.
But it is off to a good start:
A reincarnation from the dead.
Pompey Hill is now on the right path.
With a board that is dedicated
to making things right and
volunteers who care
---even if they don't have any family buried here---
there is hope.
Why is it so important to make things right again?
They're all dead.
They won't notice.
But WE will.
How we care for our past is a reflection of our future.
Because this site holds
not only the history of the village,
but the lives that made this village
what it is today.
Not all burials here are long past...
We think of dying young as a thing of the past,
but sadly, it isn't. 😔
Taylor E. Way bravely made her mark on this world in 20 short years.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/244249128/taylor-e-way
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/244249128/taylor-e-way
(pic from Destiny, ~~Find A Grave)
And to her family left behind,
they move forward knowing
that people care and
that this cemetery
will be well cared for
in the future.
Why?
Because her life
---and those who have gone on long before--
mattered.
She walked this earth among us.
And her life the flowers that grow wildly throughout
the cemetery each spring,
will not be forgotten 💗
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